U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton yesterday delivered an important, wide-ranging speech on the subject of Internet freedom. Coming on the heels of the Chinese cyber-attacks on Google and other U.S. companies, and the increasing use of online censorship by authoritarian governments around the world, the speech draws a line in the sand and presents the USA as the global champion of online openness.

Secretary Clinton Recognised that free access to information online is just as important in the modern age as the right to use a printing press was in earlier times. The ability to communicate with others over the net is as important, now, as the right to assemble and discuss politics ever was offline. Said Clinton, "The freedom to connect is like the freedom of assembly, only in cyberspace. It allows individuals to get online, come together, and hopefully cooperate. Once you’re on the internet, you don’t need to be a tycoon or a rock star to have a huge impact on society."
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The Rudd Government's mandatory ISP filtering bill will soon be introduced into Parliament, and we can only hope that the debate there will focus more on the real merits of the scheme - which are few and far between - than empty rhetoric about protecting children. When the debate happens, here are some questions the Government needs to answer under the glare of public scrutiny.

1. Given the trouble and expense of this policy, you must have some pretty convincing evidence that children are being constantly exposed to RC material. How was your research conducted and will it be released to the public?

(In fact, research indicates that of all the threats kids face online, accidental exposure to disturbing content is about the least significant.)

2. Two-thirds of Internet-connected households don't have school-age children. Isn't forcing a filter onto them as well as businesses unnecessary?

(We have never heard a cogent explanation why the filter should be mandatory and not opt-in, or why it's a better solution than more comprehensive and customisable PC-based filters.)

3. Given the reasonably poor uptake of filters by parents in the past, what makes you so sure the Australian people want a filter at a national level?

(Survey data shows that parents who don't install filters do so mainly because they consider them unnecessary or too restrictive, not for technical or cost reasons.) (more...)

Electronic Frontiers Australia has today launched a petition against the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy that will be presented to the Senate of the Parliament of Australia.

You can sign the petition electronically by going to the this page and leaving your name, postcode and email address.  Please talk to your friends, family and colleagues about the problems with the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy and encourage them to sign the petition as well.

We are also looking for volunteers to collect printed signatures.  If you are having a meeting or protest against the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy in the coming weeks, we would encourage you to distribute this Senate Internet Censorship Petition to collect as many printed signatures as possible.  There are detailed instructions about collecting signatures, and where to return the printed signatures, here.

Learn more about this petition at http://www.efa.org.au/petition/.

If you have any questions, please email Peter Black: pete.black at efa.org.au.

Because mandatory Internet censorship is such a hot button issue in the technology community, the technology media has understandably provided their readers with something of a running commentary on the proposal for some two years.  This has been great for campaigners who oppose the issue as it allows us to have a voice in ways that we can't achieve on our own, and to be fair, provides an outlet for the handful of supporters of censorship to engage in public discourse as well.

As EFA continues to work towards broadening the campaign against censorship, other folks with other opinions will continue to evolve their reactions.  One particular phenomenon I've noticed about the progression of ideas and the resulting writing, is the increase in people writing to draw attention to themselves or those they represent by writing material which has no real value but for how inflammatory it is.

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Luke Lawrie from r18GamesAustralia.com is organising a consultation event this weekend in Sydney about the introduction of an R18+ rating for computer games:

The Commonwealth Government has released a discussion paper which briefly summarises the key arguments for and against an R18+ classification for video games. Censorship Ministers have considered the issue of an adult classification for computer games on several occasions. However, they have not undertaken public consultation on this issue.

We will be hitting the streets of Sydney to try and make some sort of impact, our goal is to make the public aware of the outdated classification system by handing out information sheets about video games and the proposed classification changes. Also on the day we also want to see how many people we can get to fill out the submission template that the government has asked for.

Date: Saturday, January 9, 2010
Time: From 9:00am
Location: Outside Queen Victoria Building
Street: Corner George st & Druitt st
City: Sydney

If you would like to show support for this event please join the Facebook group, alternatively if you would like to help out in anyway possible please contact [email protected]