CONTENTS

• Summary
• Background
• What You Can Do
• Brief Analysis Of The Bill
• Further Information
• About EFA

SUMMARY

Please make personal contact URGENTLY with your Member of Parliament and Coalition Senators and let them know that you are opposed to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999.

BACKGROUND

Last month the Senate passed a Bill that will introduce draconian measures to block information on the Internet that is rated R18+ (unsuitable for children), X (non-violent erotica) or RC according to Australian film and video classification standards (see below). The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) will administer this regime.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Bill in the sitting commencing Monday 21 June. It will automatically become law if passed unamended by the House.

The legislation, if enacted, will require that online service providers take responsibility to remove content that is hosted in Australia that is RC, or X, and any R-rated material not behind an adult verification scheme, from the Internet once they have been notified of its existence by the ABA. The regime also provides for self-regulatory codes of practice for the online service provider industry, to be overseen by the ABA. These codes of practice must include a commitment by an online service provider to take all reasonable steps to block access to RC and X-rated content hosted overseas, once the service provider has been notified of the existence of the material by the ABA. Many millions of websites are likely to be blocked if the proposals are effectively implemented.

WHAT YOU CAN DO

To assist this campaign please contact your MP, and Liberal and National Party Senators if any, with the first priority being to contact your MP.

MP's will be back in their electorates during the week commencing 14th June. The current week commencing 7th June is a good time to ring the electorate office and try to make an appointment.

• General Points
  • Raise some or all of the points from "Brief Analysis of the Bill" below, plus any concerns of your own. Put them in your own words.
  • If you have particular personal concerns, or concerns that affect your electorate (e.g. the effects on small regional ISPs if you are in a rural electorate) emphasise those.
  • Stress the damage that the Bill will do to the information economy in Australia, and how will it will impede us becoming 'the clever country'.
  • Requests for action (with a Coalition MP or Senator): ask them to raise the matter in the party room; if they seem supportive, suggest it is important enough an issue to amend the Bill in the House of Reps, or to cross the floor.
  • Requests for action (with other MPs and Senators): ask them to get their party to pledge to repeal the legislation.
• Face to face meetings.
  • Call today and ask for a meeting before 21 June.
  • EFA has prepared a "Questions and Answers" document that can be taken to a meeting with your MP. This will be available from Tuesday 8th June at:
    http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/BSAfaq.html
• Writing a Letter
  • Keep letters short and preferably handwritten.
  • The form of address for Senators who are Ministers is: "Senator The Hon (firstname surname)". For Members of the House of Representatives who are Ministers: "The Hon (firstname surname), MP". For non Ministers - check the correct form of address at
    http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mplist.htm
    
    and
    http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/senators/sen_list.htm
    
    For those not entitled to be addressed as "The Hon", Senators can be addressed as "Senator (firstname surname)", MPs as "Mr, Ms, Dr etc (firstname surname), MP", or in the form: "(firstname surname), MP".
  • Letters to MPs in Canberra should be addressed to: The House of Representatives, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
  • Letters to Senators in Canberra should be addressed to: The Senate, Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600
• Phone Calls
  • Ask to speak to someone about the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999.
  • You will probably get to talk to a staffer.
  • If they try to fob you off by telling you to talk to Alston's office, tell them that he isn't responding to your concerns.
  • Be polite.
• Effectiveness
  • The effectiveness of means of contact from most effective to least effective are:
    • face to face meeting
    • letter
    • phone call
    • fax
    • email
    Email is by far the least effective method and should be avoided.
• Project 1984
  • To protest against the new censorship bill, copies of the Orwell classic "1984" are being sent to all Federal Members of Parliament this week with a covering letter.
  • EFA supports this worthy project, which is being organised by Mark Reynolds.
  • It costs only $15 to send a copy to your nominated MP and your name will be acknowledged unless you prefer anonymity.
  • Please give your support, but act quickly.
  • Overseas readers can also help by contributing to this project.
  • Details at:
    http://www.rts.com.au/1984/
• Feedback
  • Please send a brief email advising of the response you receive to:
    
    <feedback@efa.org.au>
    
    The feedback you provide will help EFA to further refine the Stop Campaign.

BRIEF ANALYSIS OF THE BILL

The basic problems with the Net censorship Bill are:

• It will cause serious damage to Australia's economy.
  • ISPs are faced with a requirement to take "reasonable steps" to control something it is unreasonable for them to take any responsibility for (phone companies and Australia Post bear no liability for the content transmitted using their services: ISPs should be no different).
  • Content providers will be pushed off-shore. Not just adult content providers, but nearly all content-providers, due to increased costs and the uncertainties caused by the new censorship regime.
  • Remind them that the Managing Director of IBM in Australia, Mr Bob Savage, has said that it will damage our economy.
  • Point out the US Senator Ron Wyden has complained to the Australian Ambassador that the Bill will breach the Joint Australia-U.S. Agreement on Electronic Commerce.
  • Point out that a US venture capitalist, Mr Bill Reichert, has said that the Bill will dampen investor interest in Australia.
• It just won't work.
  • There is so much content out there that $1.5 million dollars a year worth of classification (as budgeted) will make no impression on it at all.
  • There are something like 6 million web hosts, and about 20 million web sites and a billion web pages, with the numbers doubling each year. And much of the content on line is dynamic - different depending on who views it and when.
  • $1.5 million will allow for somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 classifications. "At best this represents 0.1% of web content in the first year, 0.05% in the second year, 0.025% in the third year and 0.01% in fourth year".
  • Attempts to classify whole sites at once, or to bypass the classification system with automated censoring software, will produce massive "collateral damage", with innocent sites being blocked. (A product endorsed by Senator Alston was found to block the National Party of Australia's home page.)
• It is based on a totally inappropriate model.
  • The Internet is nothing like pay Television
  • On the Internet hundreds of millions of end-users can publish their own content.
  • Applying the Film and Video classification scheme to Internet content is totally inappropriate.
• It is an attack on Australians' human rights.
  • X-rated material is available in other media and between 60 and 80 percent of Australians think it should be legally available to adults.
  • Adults will have to forgo their privacy in order to access content hosted in Australia that is R-rated.
• It is totally out of line with emerging international norms.
  • No other Western democracy implements anything remotely like this.
  • It will give us Net censorship more draconian than that of Malaysia or Singapore.
  • Canada has just announced that it will not regulate Internet Content.
  • The accepted international trend is for governments to avoid excessive regulation.

FURTHER INFORMATION

A comprehensive reference source on the bill, including links to critiques of the bill, is available at
http://www.efa.org.au/Campaigns/99.html

You can determine your Federal Electorate by visiting the Australian Electoral Commission Electorate/Polling Place Search web site at
http://203.37.30.204/

Names and electorate office addresses of MPs and Senators are listed in the White Pages under Commonwealth Parliament Offices. Alternatively you can write to your Senator or MP at Parliament House, Canberra ACT 2600.

MPs phone and fax numbers and email addresses are at
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/mplist.htm

Senators phone and fax numbers are at
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/senators/sen_int.htm

ABOUT EFA

http://www.efa.org.au

alert-request@lists.efa.org.au

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Copyright © 1999 Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc.