Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua)
This image was sent to me by Leo Skowronek – taken in Cattai National Park. We need one of these fine birds at Xanadu to take out the Indian Mynas.
The Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua) is a species of owl native to south-eastern and eastern Australia, the largest owl on that continent. It is found in coastal areas, the Great Dividing Range no more than 200 km inland. They are aptly named, with very powerful and heavy claws. Average length is 60 cm (24 in) with a wingspan of 140 cm (55 in) and weight of 1.5 kg (3.3 lb). Diet consists of small mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and smaller birds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerful_Owl
Internet Censorship
Below is one link to Secretary of State Clinton’s speech on ‘internet freedom’. Not the best connection but able to get her main message.
http://news.google.com.au/news?hl=en&rlz=1B3GGGL_enAU230AU230&q=video+clinton%27s+internet+speech&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=RS5aS7j3ItCTkAXm-4CRAg&sa=X&oi=news_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CA4QsQQwAA
Some responses:
“Ms Clinton urged global condemnation of countries which build electronic barriers to parts of the internet.” , ABCNews, 22 January 2010, http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/01/22/2799369.htm
Australia and the United States appear to be on a collision course on the issue of internet censorship. In a wide-ranging speech last night, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has accused countries that filter search engines of contravening the UN’s Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Taken literally, that is what the Australian Government has planned with the internet filtering regime it promised last month to introduce.
“Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century,” Senator Clinton said in the speech. And she urged global condemnation of countries which build electronic barriers to parts of the internet or filter search engines.
But China has come out condemning any criticism of Beijing’s controls on the internet, saying Washington’s push against online censorship could harm relations between the two big powers. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said the US criticisms could hurt ties between the two nations, which are both among the world’s biggest economies.
“Government: ‘Global Internet freedom’ means censorship”, Electronic Frontiers Australia, 22 January 2010, http://www.efa.org.au/2010/01/22/government-global-internet-freedom-means-censorship/#more-904 there is a review more appropriate to Australia.
…Unfortunately, our own record here in Australia on the subject has been lacklustre of late with a bill being prepared as we speak to introduce mandatory censorship of all Australian Internet connections. The timing of Google’s announcements and Secretary Clinton’s speech must be seen as inconvenient for the Government whose allies on the side of Internet censorship are not a bunch it pays to be seen to associate with….
Summary of internet filtering in Australia
“Policy of compulsory internet filtering: History”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia
In 2001, CSIRO was commissioned to examine available ISP-based internet filters, and decided that they did not work. In March 2003, the Fairfax papers The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald reported the results of a survey taken by The Australia Institute of 200 children, which found that many of them had found pornography on the internet. Over the next few days was a storm of media and political attention, and there were calls for finer internet filters and tougher censorship laws. Analysis of the report showed little new material, and only 2% of girls had admitted being exposed to pornography, while the figure for boys was 38%; such a difference between boys and girls would seem to indicate that inadvertent exposure was rare, contrary to the conclusions of the report. After the controversy died down, no new action resulted from the new report, media attention, or political speeches.
In 2003, the Labor Party opposed filtering at the ISP level. Shortly before the 2004 federal election, two political parties issued new policies on Internet censorship. The Australian Labor Party’s policy involved voluntary adherence by users. The Family First Party released a far stricter policy of mandatory filtering at the internet service provider level.
The Australian Family Association petitioned the Australian Federal Government in 2004 to further restrict access by children to pornographic material via the Internet. The petition was submitted in December 2004. On 21 March 2006, the Labor party committed to requiring all ISPs to implement a mandatory Internet blocking system applicable to “all households, and to schools and other public internet points” to “prevent users from accessing any content that has been identified as prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority”.
On the same day, the then communications minister Helen Coonan stated that to
“…to filter the Internet will only result in slowing down the Internet for every Australian without effectively protecting children from inappropriate and offensive content”
On 31 December 2007, Stephen Conroy announced the Federal Government’s intention to introduce an ISP-based filter to censor “inappropriate material” from the Internet to protect children. In this announcement, it was stated that adults could opt out of the filter to receive an uncensored internet.
In May 2008, the government commenced an $82 million “cybersafety plan” which included an additional mandatory filter with no opt-out provision. This ISP-based filter aims to stop adults from downloading content that is illegal to possess in Australia, such as child pornography or materials related to terrorism.
In March 2009, Stephen Conroy dismissed suggestions that the Government would use the filter to crack down on political dissent as “conspiracy theories”. He stated that the filter would only be used to remove “refused classification” (RC) content, using the same rationale as existing television, radio and print publications, and that the Senate could be relied upon to provide rigorous assessment of any proposed legislation. However, Labor’s policy statement on the issue and statements made by Stephen Conroy on the ministry website and in ministerial releases contradict this.
In answer to a question in Parliament in October 2008, the government in January 2009 stated that the black list contained 1370 websites. 674 were related to child pornography, and the remainder would be classified as R18+ and X18+.
Two websites are known to be on the ACMA blacklist after they were submitted to ACMA for review. When ACMA responded with the advice that these sites had been placed upon its blacklist, ACMA’s response was in turn posted back to the Internet by the original submitters, with the purpose of demonstrating that political content would be censored by the mandatory filter. One was an anti-abortion website, with details posted to Whirlpool, and the other was a copy of Denmark’s own internet blacklist, with both the blacklist and ACMA’s response posted on Wikileaks. The web hosting company for Whirlpool, Bulletproof networks, was threatened with $11,000 in fines per day if the link was not removed…. Civil liberties campaigners regard the inclusion of these sites on the blacklist as a demonstration that it is not difficult to get a site placed on the blacklist, and that the blacklist includes sites which are themselves not illegal.
On the 26 March 2009, Bill Henson’s website, despite the PG rating given to his photographs by the same body, appeared on the blacklist due to a technical error according to Stephen Conroy.
In December 2009, the results of the filtering trial were released. Stephen Conroy stated that “The report into the pilot trial of ISP-level filtering demonstrates that blocking RC-rated material can be done with 100 percent accuracy and negligible impact on internet speed” However, concerns have been raised about the report: only a small minority of ISP users participated; the trial did not test using any high-speed internet connections similar to those available with the National Broadband Network; there is evidence that the filter was evaded; and with only 600-700 sites on the RC blacklists, then the effect of the filter would be marginal at best.
The ISP Netspace asked their customers to participate in a survey to see what they thought about the Government’s mandatory filtering proposal. Almost 10,000 responded, and a clear majority of customers were against mandatory filtering in any form. A minority of customers expressed an interest in purchasing a filter from their ISP.
In February 2009 a national telephone poll of 1100 people was conducted by Galaxy and commissioned by GetUp!. It found that only 5 per cent of respondents want ISPs to be responsible for protecting children online, and only 4 per cent want Government to have this responsibility.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Reporters Without Borders states that the internet filter is not the solution to combating child sex abuse, and the plan entails risks to freedom of expression. The blocking of websites by ACMA, rather than a Judge, is in contravention of laws. The criteria for blocking “inappropriate” websites is too vague, and it would be a dangerous censorship option to target “Refused classification” sites, many of which are unrelated to sexual abuse. Subjects such as abortion, anorexia, aborigines and legislation on the sale of marijuana would all risk being filtered, as would media reports on these subjects.
Censorship has been a vexatious issue for centuries. “The Great Firewall of Australia” appears to be driven by zealots. What is compelling the Rudd government to continue with this censoring? Is it, as GetUp! implies in one video spoof, flirting with the ‘christian’ voters?
Opposition to the firewall is met with harassment – see http://stephen-conroy.com/news.php – the site was taken down by auDA (au Domain Administration is the policy authority and industry self-regulatory body for the .au domain space) but is now back up. Censoring to date has been political. The only child pornography and terrorism prosecutions have been from police intelligence or discovered on hard drives by accident.
In their February 2009 survey Netcraft received responses from 215,675,903 sites (http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2009/02/18/february_2009_web_server_survey.html), which doesn’t include sites hosted within one domain or Blogs (how many blogs are hosted by Google’s ‘BlogSpot’. The growth in January 2009 was 30 million sites and this data is now 12 months out of date. Maintaining rigorous, objective censorship of this population, through ACMA blacklists, will be difficult.
Amazon and eBay have expressed concern that their trading will be effected by the filter and now with Secretary Clinton’s policy, we may see a lessening of the Rudd zealotry. As mentioned yesterday, internet censoring may become a trade issue.
