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'Kooky' Coonan Seeks To Censor The Web
September 20, 2007
THE Federal Police commissioner will have the power to block and ban websites believed to be 'crime or terrorism' related under an internet censorship amendment bill introduced into Parliament today.



Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan proposes to include terrorism and 'cyber-crime' sites on ACMA's hit list

The bombshell web ban bill was tabled in the Senate at 9:58am, without prior notice.

Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan proposes to expand the "black list" of internet addresses (URLs) currently maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to include believed terrorism and cyber-crime sites.

At present, ACMA has the power to act against websites containing pornography or 'offensive' content.

Under the proposed amendment, Federal Police will inform ACMA of websites to be blocked, and the agency must then notify the relevant internet service providers. ISPs will be required to "take reasonable steps" to prevent users accessing the website or content.

Australian Privacy Foundation chair Roger Clarke expressed disbelief that "the government of any country in the free world could table a Bill of this kind".

"Without warning, the Government, through Senator Coonan, is proposing to provide Federal Police with powers to censor the internet," Dr Clarke said.

"Even worse, ISPs throughout the country are to be the vehicle for censorship, by being required to block internet content."

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said the Bill would give the Police Commissioner "enormous power over what political content Australians can look at" on the web.

"This gives the Commissioner sweeping powers which could potentially be applied to millions of websites," she said. "The Government has dropped the Bill into the Senate on the eve of an election with virtually no explanation."

Senator Nettle said environmental organisations such as Greenpeace had been accused of crime or terrorism-related actions. "Will the Police Commissioner call for Greenpeace's website to be shut down?"

The requirement to filter or block content would impose another enormous burden on local ISPs at a time when the IT industry faced growing costs related to other national security legislation, she said.

Meanwhile, Senator Coonan today extended the Government's $189 million NetAlert - Monitoring Australian Families Online program to agencies such as Medicare, Centrelink, Child Support and the Tax Office.

Information about internet filtering and the free content filters from NetAlert will be promoted through the agency shopfronts as part of the plan to prevent children accessing inappropriate material online.

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22451522-15306,00.html

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Guards Open Fire On Car In Iraq, Kill 2 Christian Women
By KIM GAMEL, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Guards working for an Australian-owned security company fired on a car as it approached their convoy Tuesday, killing two women civilians before speeding away from the latest bloodshed blamed on the deadly mix of heavily armed protection details on Baghdad's crowded streets.



The deaths of the two Iraqi Christians � including one who used the white sedan as an unofficial taxi to raise money for her family � came a day after the Iraqi government handed U.S. officials a report demanding hefty payments and the ouster from Iraq of embattled Blackwater USA for a chaotic shooting last month that left at least 17 civilians dead.

MORE ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq

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Australian Press Freedoms Under Seige

SYDNEY (AFP) - Legal restrictions and a culture of secrecy among public officials are eating away at free speech and media freedom in Australia, a report for the country's leading broadcasters and press said Monday.



Citing 500 pieces of legislation and at least 1,000 court suppression orders restricting reporting, its author Irene Moss said there were grounds for concern that media freedom was being gradually reduced.

Moss, former New South Wales ombudsman and former chair of the state's anti-corruption commission, said many mechanisms vital to a well-functioning democracy were "beginning to wear thin".

The strawman report, commissioned by a coalition of major Australian media groups, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd, was presented as an "audit" on the issue.

"The audit would broadly conclude that free speech and media freedom are being whittled away by gradual and sometimes almost imperceptible degrees," said Moss at a launch ceremony.

"As a result, I believe there are indeed grounds for concern."

Citing defensiveness and mistrust in government, she said many important institutions employed procedures more geared to reducing media risk than to fulfilling obligations of accountability

Freedom of information laws did not always help, she said, while laws protecting journalists were inadequate and institutional support for whistleblowers exposing corruption was "non-existent or flawed".

"Sometimes the freedom of information provisions which were intended to help people get information are used as an excuse to withhold it," she said.

While she did not see the situation as a crisis, Moss noted a "subtle shift" which she said meant that Australians should not take their democratic freedoms for granted.

"The greatest loss in this battle is not to the media but to the Australian people and their right to know about important matters that affect them," she said.

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http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/071105/world/australia_media_rights