Cardinal Fang gives notpology, and evades real problem

Cardinal Fang, also known as George Pell the Ignorant, has avoided an apology (at least his Melbourne colleague gave one) for child abuse by priests int he Catholic Church, on the grounds that he did that already, and isn't it time to move on?

George, if you have any decency at all, open up the Church's correspondence on pedophilia. Let us know what the Church knew, when and who. Hide no details. Don't act like the Mob does, as the Church is doing in Belgium. Full and frank disclosure is the only way to rescue the reputation of the Church, if anything will. Go on, I dare you.

Later: See these letters regarding Archbishop Rabbit's "apology", in the Melbourne Age.

Parenting and the law

Sydney Morning Herald has a couple of well expressed opinion pieces about legal aspects of adoption by homosexual parents and on abusive fathers and the Family Law Act. Both are sensible and you should read them.

On preventing illegal content

Stephen Collins of EFA has a nice post to follow up Scott Ludlam's excellent speech to Parliament, in which he notes that the filter will not prevent child porn, and that there are more effective ways to deal with it. Here's my one-line summary:

The mandatory filter is a way to avoid having to do anything substantive about porn, because that would take effort, money and not get politicians a public profile.

The way to deal with illegal content is to prosecute, after police investigation. If that content is overseas, then contact the host nation. We all have pretty much the same goals.

This takes money, time, personnel, and will not get headlines in the Murdoch press, but it is the only way to deal with these crimes. It is also the only way that has worked in the past. If Conroy and Rudd really want to do this properly, then appoint more police and fund the states to have more police aimed solely at this sort of crime. Prosecute these crimes. Enact sensible laws against them. And most of all, stop hiding behind the Censorship Board. In fact, I think we would as a community be a lot better off if we abolished the Censorship Board entirely. It has shown itself to be easily manipulated by both political and special interests for decades.

Australia has become one of the most draconian of all democracies in its paternalistic control over what we can and cannot do and say. I am ashamed of my country's placing style over substance and passing off responsibilities to government and bureaucracies that should be taken up by individuals.

Filtering to be run for the Christians?

Over at the EFA site, Colin Jacobs points out some worrying facts, like the Australian Christian Lobby getting briefed where the Rest of Us cannot be, about the Internet Filter. Here's what he said:

One of the reasons EFA so opposes the Government’s mandatory ISP-level filtering scheme, of course, is that once it’s in place, special interests will be knocking on the Minister’s door seeking to have their own bugbears addressed by the blacklist. Even if, on day one, the list is limited to the “worst of the worst” of violent, illegal material – which it won’t be – how long do you think it would be before AFACT’s lawyers are lobbying for BitTorrent trackers to be added? Even members of Parliament have gone on record with their own ideas of what should be banned, such as racist Flash games, Bill Henson photography or “pro-anorexia” forums.

Now, before the results of the pilot have even been released for public discussion, the Australian Christian Lobby are crowing about how they received a special briefing from the Minister himself on the filtering scheme. Although they say the pilot’s results were not discussed, they clearly received an update on the scheme’s planning, something the rest of us have long been denied. (When was the last time detailed policy information was made available to the public?)

We’ve written before about the confused nature of this policy. Will it act like a home-based filter, keeping age-inappropriate material from children? No. Will it prevent the trade in illegal child pornography? Not that either. We’ve been assured that the list will contain “almost exclusively” RC (refused classification) material, whatever that may mean. Could all adult material be grist for the blacklist? Previous indications have been that this is not the case, but with anti-filth crusaders receiving a special briefing in the Minister’s office, one might have doubts about whether the list might have more puritanical applications than have been disclosed so far.

After all, why should the minister be giving the Australian Christian Lobby, of all the possible stakeholders, a special briefing? They have a right to lobby for their members’ wishes, certainly, but they do not represent a very broad section of the community, and have demonstrated on many occasions an inability to grasp the policy and technological issues surrounding mandatory filtering. Even looking at it cynically, the ACL is hardly a bastion of ALP supporters. Is it because the ACL’s view on how the Internet should ultimately look is in line with the Minister’s?

The Greens have called for an explanation, but sadly if the Government stays true to form we probably won’t be getting one soon.

The Australian electorate demands transparent and evidence-based policymaking that represents broad community interests. EFA will be contacting the Minister’s office in order to get a meeting and again put our concerns with the plan on the record.

I warned you all this was coming. Now that Tony Abbott, the Catholic mouthpiece, is leading the Opposition, we are officially in a nation that is Christianised, and our politics will increasingly marginalise anyone who doesn't meet their religious standards. We are going to have to protest and take legal action to protect our freedoms.

Rudd to oppose ACT gay marriage laws

Just as the first legal gay marriages happen in the ACT, Rudd has decided he will block those laws.

Listen carefully, Mr PM. You. Don't. Have. That. Right.

You were elected to handle federal laws and issues, not state laws, and if a state democratically passes a law that permits Australian citizens who presently lack the same rights under law as other Australians enjoy, you do not have the right to overturn that because you happen to think differently. That has a name: it's called tyranny.

Your objections are religious, and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia - you may have heard of it - states that no federal laws may be passed that favour one religion (or many religions) over another, including those who do not subscribe to your religious moral code:

116. The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.

This would be imposing a religious observance. It's unconstitutional, immoral, politically outrageous and as it happens I think contrary to the ideals of the Labor movement, not that that carries much weight these days. Gay rights were introduced by Labor, and it seems Labor will take them out, just like Cosby said about fatherhood.

If you want a solution, one that doesn't break the constitution and which is consistent with our laws and principles, try this. I wrote it for Howard's government. It seems yours might do well to read it as well.

Scientologists want to gag anonymous criticism

This is not news, of course, because they have always tried to harrass and gag critics using legal and other means, but now they want the Australian legal system to do it for them. From here, which has some links you ought to read if you don't already know the back story.

Anonymous threaten dDoS against the federal government

It looks like the hacking group that attacked the Scientologists are going to do the same thing to Labor's government websites. I don't approve of this, because it means that Labor on the one hand will retreat into their shell and blame the hacking community for the ills of the internet. The best way to win this is for people to vote and protest. And on the other hand it is, after all, illegal, and the technology to do this will be used for both good and bad purposes; it ought not to be encouraged.

Meanwhile, the Christian lobby that is fronting this censorship proposal fails to respond to criticisms, as expected.

Oppose the anti-gays on marriage

The current Senate Inquiry into Marriage Equality has just been swamped by thousands of anti-gay submissions from the Religious Right. The inquiry is just about to close for submissions. It aims to gauge the level of public support for marriage equality across Australia. Does anti-gay discrimination have any place in our secular laws? If you think not, go here and register your PoV. Hat tip to Jason Ball.

Labor compromise turns down gay marriage

As reported by the ABC. One question? Why? What possible argument against gay marriage can there be? How is it not discrimination to prevent adults from marrying who they choose? What is motivating the ALP?

There can be only one answer: religion. Yes, the ALP is now Kevin Rudd's personal religious evangelising ground.

Rudd to lobby Dalai Lama

In news to hand, the Prime Minster, Kevin Rudd, is dropping in on the Dalai Lama to lobby for the next Panchen Lama to be an Australian. He's also visiting London to ensure that the next Archbishop of Canterbury comes from Sydney.

How to tell if your country is illiberal

When the People's Republic of China is less censorial censorious than your own country, you might be living in an unfree country.

The PRC has bowed to demands by its own users and not put the Green Dam Youth Escort internet filtering software mandatorily on every computer sold in its borders.

Meanwhile, it turns out that the Great Wall of Australia will filter out adult games, including Second Life. Even the Christians recognise this is more draconian than censorship in China. These games aren't illegal, mind, just unclassified, because there is no adult classification category in the Censorship Board scheme, and the filter will block all RC (refused classification) games irrespective of why. This includes accessing Second Life domains, as well as downloading the game, which can still legally be bought in person.

Have we had enough of teh stoopid yet?

Conroy shifts ground. Film at 11

Smartcompany magazine is reporting that Conroy has shifted ground in a Senate estimates committee meeting. I'm shocked! Shocked! I say. [Late note - Christians upset, film at 12]

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said in a Senate estimates committee yesterday that the Government could take two approaches to introducing a scheme, one mandatory and one voluntary.

"Mandatory ISP filtering would conceivably involve legislation ... voluntary is available currently to ISPs," Conroy said.

"One option is potentially legislation. One other option is that it could be (on a) voluntary basis that they (ISPs) could voluntarily agree to introduce it."

The comments are the first indication that the Government would consider a voluntary code, after having spent the last 18 months declaring the filter would be mandatory for all ISPs.

Senator Conroy has scaled back some elements of the filter recently, including changing the definition of content to be blocked from "unwanted content" to "content that is refused classification".

What happens when an ISP refuses to introduce "voluntary" filtering? Will the ACMA then prosecute that ISP at a threat of $11,000 per day if it allows links to sites with "refused classification" content, as it is doing now, to chilling effect upon freedom of speech?

Meanwhile, Conroy said in the same hearing that the Government is "considering options for greater transparency and accountability in respect of the blacklist".

A regular review of the list by a committee or independent panel may be formed, as well as a regular review of complaints made about the list.

Oh yeah? We're going to have representative oversight, access to the list to independently check it for errors, notifications to content providers that they have been filtered, and a complete independence from political (i.e., religious) interference? Sounds remarkably like the Howard government's filter... as if anyone is surprised.

Here's the Hansard transcript:

ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNICATIONS AND THE ARTS REFERENCES COMMITTEE

Senator LUDLAM—... What is the process of getting off the blacklist for somebody who finds themselves on there? Can you appeal your appearance on there or is a site notified? There are a couple of examples that have been used.

Senator Conroy—This is the blacklist that has existed for nine years that you are talking about?

Senator LUDLAM—That is correct, yes. What is the process for getting off that if you are put on it inadvertently or if somebody has hosted material on your website that you were not even sure was there?

Ms O’Loughlin—Generally, if somebody came to us in the first instance to say that they felt that they were on the blacklist for a reason that they did not understand then, of course, we would look at the matter.

Senator LUDLAM—How would they know that they are there? The list is secret and we are not meant to know what is on the list.

Ms O’Loughlin—That is an issue. There are two parts to the scheme itself. Firstly, for those sites we find prohibited located in Australia, their hosts receive a takedown notice, so they are very much aware.

Senator LUDLAM—That is right. It is the overseas hosts.

Ms O’Loughlin—It is the overseas hosted. Very rarely do we receive any correspondence. In fact, it is quite often difficult to find overseas hosts and overseas providers. There is no requirement under the current act for us to notify overseas based providers when we do add them to the filter. The concern over the last few months has been some websites when we have investigated them that have had links through to child abuse images which have been placed there. Their sites have been hacked. They have been placed there by other parties. A couple of months later, in most of those cases, you will find that they came off our blacklist. In those circumstances it is quite difficult for us because often, particularly if it is child sexual abuse imagery, we have referred those to law enforcement agencies and it is really incumbent on us not to do anything with those sites until law enforcement agencies have finished their investigations. It is quite a difficult area for us. We try to handle it by this regular review that we do of the URLs to make sure that if those links no longer provide access to prohibited content we remove them as quickly as we can.

This is a very interesting exchange (and bless Ludlam for taking this cause up - the only one to do so. Because of him, I am probably voting Green henceforth, as the sole opposition party in place right now). O'Loughlin (Ms Nerida O’Loughlin, General Manager, Industry Outputs Division of the department) is forced to note that people can only find out if they have been blacklisted if their ISP notifies them, and that even then it can take several months to rectify (this can cause a business to fail, by the way, if they have been hacked).

Shortly afterwards, Conroy says

Senator LUDLAM—You cannot be held responsible for what people may have done with it once it was leaked.

Senator Conroy—The Broadcasting Services Act sets out the regime which requires ACMA to assess online content. It also sets out the mechanism for the ACMA black list, and this has been in place since 2000, as I have already mentioned. The government is considering options for greater transparency and accountability in respect of the black list. It is not possible to publish the list as it contains links to child sexual abuse material and this would be a criminal offence. We are considering options which could include a regular review of the list by a panel of eminent persons or a parliamentary committee or a review of all URLs by the classification board. These issues will be considered along with the pilot trial on filtering before the government makes final decisions on the implementation of the new policy.

Senator LUDLAM—Can you tell us what you are reading from there? Is that a press release or is it an internal document?

Senator Conroy—No, it was my notes.

So now we have policy being made on the fly... again.

Ms O’Loughlin—If I can just add also that any person who is adversely affected by our classification decision can apply for review of the decision to the Commonwealth Ombudsman or the Federal Court obviously. Where we have gone to the classification board for an assessment they can also go to the review process through the classification review panel board as well.

Senator LUDLAM—I guess I would go back to where I started with this, which is that because the list is secret for the reasons that you have both outlined, certainly in the case of the examples that I just mentioned, they were not aware that their sites had been hacked until they read about it in the media. Because the list itself is secret your rights of appeal are a bit limited.

Conroy then reverts to the bullshit he delivered on the SBS Insight program, that obviously one of the victims knew he had been hacked and had fixed it, which ignores Ludlam's point entirely. This guy is a sleazy piece of crap. You can read the whole thing here.

In defence of liberty

I urge you all to go read Russell Blackford submission to the Human Rights consultative committee. It covers well the issues brought about by the recent rolling back of civil liberties to combat "terrorism" and "religious vilification" and the like.

A balanced view on internet safety

Here's an essay by Peter Chen at Online Opinion that gives a good summary of the issues, concerns and problems with internet filtering and safety. I recommend it.

But one thing Chen does not address that I think is crucial here is the legal principle of not punishing people for criminal acts before they are committed. By inhibiting people's rights to see what they want online, so long as it is not illegal, clean feeding is an unfortunate step towards government oversight on what we do in any respect. It sets a precedent, and such precedents are hard to eliminate once they enter the domain of legal decision making (called stari decisis under common law).

Yes, I object to the fact that clean feeds are impracticable, will degrade internet performance, and not do what they set out to do (which is protect children), but fundamentally the main reason for not adopting them is that it gives power to governments and their instruments to decide sub rosa what we can and cannot see. Suppose that the present government and all the members of the department of telecommunications are exemplary individuals who not only have our best interests at heart, but do so intelligently and effectively. Can we guarantee that the next government, or a much later bureaucracy, will consist of these people? Not at all, which is why checks and balances are a crucial aspect of democratic government.

And I do not trust this government. They have made way too many religiously-based noises about what is and is not permissible in public. This is to my mind only the thin edge of the constant presumption of religious organisations and culture that they may rightly interfere with other citizens' behaviours, whether they are of that religion or not. That the balance of power is held by a religious political candidate in the Senate is only the tip of that iceberg.

We are a secular nation! It's in our constitution. We do not arrange our public polity on the basis of what suits pastors and cardinals and imams. We do so on legal principles of liberal democracy. For this reason, people are calling for our representatives to oppose the movement coming out of Islam to protect religions against "defamation" speech. Religions have no rights to not be offended by the behaviours of those who are not in their community (and no rights to impose upon their members by legal or other force the views of the hierarchy). And the very idea of handing to potentially religiously motivated censors the power to control what we read, see and hear is just frightening.

I'm not impressed either by the constant refrain by the minister and his allies that to oppose the clean feed is to support child pornography and abuse. Of course I do not. This is exactly the argument that George Bush's administration used to take away civil rights of thousands - if you oppose us you support terrorism. One can be vehemently opposed to child abuse, and terrorism, without wanting to grant unsupervised people unfettered rights to control us. Child porn is illegal - so use the frigging laws to prosecute child pornographers. Give the police the resources they need. There are sufficient criminal investigative powers and laws under which such activities may be prosecuted - you don't need to treat us all as criminals to do so.I think the reason why Labor are so hot for the clean feed is that they really don't want to give the police the resources and to manage them. It's so much easier to simply make other people, the ISPs in this case, stop the porn. Make it their problem and it's no longer yours.

So by all means point out the practical difficulties, but even if you have the perfect means, I am not sure the ends are justified, and I certainly want judicial, community and user oversight on what gets censored and why. And I want a redress system for those incorrectly included (which must include damages - if the authorities don't have to pay for their mistakes, then they'll be a lot less careful). And I also want prosecutorial avenues for those who do abuse this system. Put all that in place, and you may convince me of the rightness of this approach. But leaving it in the hands of Labor or Conservative party hacks who have obligations to religious figures who may have helped them get into power? No way. That takes us back to the Bad Old Days of Mannix. Learn from some history...

What is so bad about the internet?

Even the Christians realise that internet filtering is not going to protect kids. The very conservative Christianity Canada has a piece in which it is pointed out that no filtering is a substitute for parental oversight and education. Meanwhile, Crikey again notes that the proponents of mandatory internet filtering are the Christian Right. Why is the ALP, a left wing social democrat party, trying to suck up to them? I suspect the answer is wider than mere partisan loyalties. Governments hate things they cannot control, as witness the fact that the NSA in America eavesdrops on ordinary American's electronic communications with no oversight whatsoever. I suspect the ALP just likes centralised controls, and internet filtering is a useful pretext to expand that way. And while the current opposition parties are against it, weakly, they once did put up a proposal themselves.

The real evil for governments and would-be governments is that there are things happening in their societies they don't control. Governments hate that. Bureaucrats hate not managing these events and politicians hate what a free media might do to them. It's much harder to appease an entire populace than a single newspaper proprietor. So they demonise the internet by making it all about child porn. I have been using the internet for various things since the early 80s, and in that time I have once found a child porn site by accident. I have as much chance of stumbling over bad porn electronically as I do physically in someone's trash.

While we're thinking of the children, don't worry

The Minister for Clean Feed Censorship has closed down the "opt-in" filtering scheme actually in place, which was established by the previous (Coalition) government. So now while we wait for the mandatory filter to fail its tests and get implemented anyway, parents relying on the prior scheme will find their kids are not "protected". Quelle surprise!

Derek Bambauer of the Brooklyn Law School lays out the conditions that one should assess filtering in a democracy:

First, is a country open about its Internet censorship, and why it restricts information? Second, is the state transparent about what material it filters and what it leaves untouched? Third, how narrow is filtering: how well does the content that is actually blocked - and not blocked - correspond to those criteria?

Finally, to what degree are citizens and Internet users able to participate in decisionmaking about these restrictions, such that censors are accountable? Legitimate censorship is open; transparent about what is banned; effective, yet narrowly targeted; and responsive to the preferences of each state's citizens.

By my reckoning, none of these conditions are being met by Conroy. There is a hidden agenda here that the ALP is not being open about. The public may not know what is being filtered and why. It is necessarily going to give false positives and false negatives. And we cannot participate in the setting of the conditions under which censorship is imposed - that, it seems, is something only the religious originators of this view, mostly Clive Hamilton, a Catholic apologist, can contribute to.

Meantime, the Australian Sex Party actually puts forward some very good arguments against the filter.

According to the Sex Party, there is a clear distinction between X-rated (18+) content, which can be legally traded on DVDs, and child pornography and sexual violence, and the government should not attempt to lump them together in one blacklist.

Hear, hear. Look who argues for filtering on the basis of "thinking of the children": Yemen. The only difference appears to be the religion on which it is based.

Moreover, it turns out that in fact the internet is not the vast dangerous place where children are exploited, or at least, no more than anywhere else. The New York Times reports a study [available here] that shows that people are demonising the internet because it's new and unfamiliar and that the evidence is not there to support it. They did the same thing for printing, if I recall my history.

And finally, at least one UK ISP is blocking access to the entire archive of the internet. Why? [Late note: see explanation here]

The road to hell

In the final chapter of Terry Pratchett's Eric, the wizard Rincewind and the boy Eric are climbing out of hell on steep steps.

He looked down at the broad steps they were climbing. They were something of a novelty; each one was built out of large stone letters. The one he was just stepping onto, for example, read: I Meant It For The Best.

The next one was: I Thought You'd Like It.

Eric was standing on: For The Sake Of The Children.

"Weird, isn't it?" he said. "Why do it like this?"

"I think they're meant to be good intentions," said Rincewind. This was meant to be a road to Hell, and demons were, after all, traditionalists.

Pay attention to the Prophet here: For The Sake Of The Children is a good intention. And it leads to hell.

The minister in the UK who is the equivalent of Conroy in Australia, Andy Burnham, has proposed a mandatory age rating of websites. He wants the US administration to cooperate. His next comment is important, for it shows the "For The Sake Of The Children in all its glory:

“If you look back at the people who created the Internet they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach,” he said. "I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now.”

Governments have always hated the free exchange of ideas outside their control, and European governments more than most have a history of restricting the right of free expression. Sure, some people express things that are malign and illegal. When they do, they should be prosecuted under the law. But it is nobody's right to tell me what I may or may not say or think, and it is no government's right to evaluate in private what I say and determine if I have the right to say it. Even if the present party in power is benign and well intentioned (ahem), which is always a very bad assumption, what is to keep the next one from misusing this power to control speech? Have we learned nothing from the past two centuries?

In particular we should be careful of the For The Sake Of The Children ploy. It leads to witchhunts where 19 year olds who sleep with 17 year olds get listed for life as pedophiles and sexual offenders. It leads to censorship of anything that upsets influential religious figures. And it leads to a loss of freedom. Others overseas agree.

It's the end of the world as he knows it

This is just embarrassing. Here's a representative of Parliament in the ALP, which I have noted before is increasingly pandering to religious interests:

LABOR MP James Bidgood, the first-time MP under investigation for selling pictures of a protester attempting to set fire to himself outside Parliament House, has declared the global financial crisis an act of God. Mr Bidgood, who was carpeted by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd over his actions yesterday and apologised to Parliament, makes the new claims in a DVD, The Australian reports. In a speech to a function held in Parliament he argues that Christian marches for Jesus in London caused the October 1987 stock market crash. He also predicted the end of the world and one world monetary system. "We have to say 'What would Jesus do?'," he said. "In 1987 there was another march for Jesus. That took place in April. And guess what happened in October 1987? The stock market crashed. All property values lost one this of their value and over a million people lost their homes. "I believe when Christians pray, God does things. I believe what is happening today is as much to do with God in economics bringing judgement." He went on to warn that "there is God's justice in action in what has gone on here". "I believe there is God's justice in action in what is going on here. We haven't seen the end of it. "The ultimate conclusion is like I say, we look at Bible prophecy, we are going towards a one world bank and a one world monetary system. And if you believe the word of God and you read Revelations...you will see clearly what is being spelt out. We are in the end times."

Somebody put this guy on the front bench, say in the Treasury portfolio. I so want him serving my nation by preparing for the end of the world...