I have a piece today in Crikey about a submission by the Australian Federal Police, worrying that the NBN would be a haven for criminals. Today I wrote over at EFA how the AFP are pushing for tough data retention laws. Given how powerful the police are as a lobby group – since no politician wants to be seen to be keeping necessary tools from the hands of police – these are both worrying signs. I’ll be keeping an eye on the data retention issue.

As of this week I have assumed the role of Chair of the EFA board of management. Over the last few years EFA has increased its public profile markedly, and has played a leading role in debates around the internet filter, R-18+ games, privacy, and other issues. This has been in no small part to the excellent work done by outgoing chair Nicolas Suzor, whose dedication, eloquence and expertise will be sorely missed.

With the help of a very knowledgeable board I’ll do my best to keep the momentum going. I have some interesting ideas and passions still to come, so stay tuned.

Conroy faced the public tonight on Channel 10′s The 7PM Project. I gave my input and let fly a few sound bites for the lead-in piece, but the interesting bit is the discussion that follows. The producers and hosts of the show were well-informed, and asked the tough questions. They demonstrated that filtering won’t help parents, nor will it stop illegal material. Conroy was left with nowhere to go but to rabbit on about RC material.

If Conroy is now reduced to defending the filter as an expensive and complex way to harmonise the classification scheme, it’s a debate he can’t easily win, but I’d be happy to have.

He also repeats a line I love to hate – “How is the internet any different?” I’ve written about this before (most recently, this week at EFA) and will have more to say on the subject. Suffice it to say, the internet is different, in so many fundamental ways. The fact that the Communications Minister doesn’t realise this should worry every Australian.

Here’s a video of tonight’s segment:

The campaign against mandatory internet filtering, which any loyal reader will know has consumed a good portion of my life these last few years, has heated up in recent days in exciting ways.

Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres, RSF), after writing an open letter to Kevin Rudd late last year, last week added Australia to an “under surveillance” list of countries showing worrying trends in the field of Internet censorship. Although it doesn’t label Australia an “Internet Enemy” like China, Cuba or North Korea, it is a clear expression that our move down this path is viewed with alarm by those overseas concerned with freedom of expression. The Government is sensitive on this issue, and the Minister took issue with my reporting of the open letter in Crikey last December, firing off a volley to Crikey shortly thereafter.

In a clear sign that we have really touched a nerve, Senator Conroy has attacked both EFA and myself for our campaign in the Senate this week. After having a clear go at EFA for “misleading” RSF in question time Monday (summary here, including my rebuttal; also covered in ZDNet) on Tuesday he lambasted myself, and my colleagues at EFA for what he calls a “disgraceful misinformation campaign”.

Following the government’s announcement last year, civil libertarian group Electronic Frontiers Australia repeated the claims of reporters without borders in an article written by its CEO Colin Jacobs in Crikey. While one could possible excuse Reporters Without Borders for being ignorant of the government’s policy, the same cannot be said of the locally run EFA who through Colin Jacobs, chairman Nic Suzor, and board member Geordie Guy, have run a campaign to deliberately mislead the Australian public.

They have argued there is no child abuse material traded on the open internet yet the latest count there were 355 child abuse URLs on the ACMA blacklist and therefore the open internet.

They have argued that filtering will slow the internet and will result in over blocking despite the independent live pilot trial showing that internet filtering can be done…

Here’s Hansard, or an audio clip of this question time snippet. I believe the Crikey article in question may have in fact have been tabled. A document detailing our purported lies was tabled.

The issues the Minister mentions are ones I am comfortable debating. Although others have used the slowing of internet speeds as an argument against the filter, since the filter’s details became known I have been careful to avoid this topic as I don’t believe it is a major factor. Of course, there is child pornography on the open internet; just not very much, and the evidence shows it does not remain there for long. Nor would the filter prevent deliberate access. I am therefore not inclined to modify my arguments based on this broadside.

Despite the seriousness of the charges, this is good news. Not only does the legislation appear to be temporarily delayed, the Minister has all but conceded our campaign against the filter has succeeded in swaying public opinion. Because we have swayed it against the filter, he has labelled it misleading, basically accusing us of lying to the public. We, of course, don’t see it that way, and will stick to our guns.

I am proud to take part in what appears to be a tradition; EFA has managed to equally piss off one or two of Conroy’s predecessors. This document details EFA’s response, via the Senate Privileges Committee, to remarks made by Senator Alston in 1999.  The situation was much the same, with the Howard government coming under criticism by the ACLU for internet censorship plans. Senator Alston accused EFA of being “low grade, undergraduate political activists” and “maniacs”. “Misleading” seems a bit tame by comparison.

Recently the trends in Internet freedom have been all bad. China’s censorship regime escalated dramatically over the last 12 months, with a more aggressive Golden Shield, tumultuous events in Iran and of course Australia’s own filtering plan. It is therefore extremely heartening to see the tough new stand on Internet freedom taken by the USA.

The new approach was outlined last week in a speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who declared the free access to information online as critical a human right as the freedom of assembly or the right to publish. Although barely mentioning China in her speech, Clinton was clearly setting the stage for a showdown with Beijing, declaring that “countries or individuals that engage in cyber attacks should face consequences.” The Chinese government responded angrily, declaring the Chinese internet “open”, demanding the U.S. “respect the facts” and calling the speech”information imperialism” in an official newspaper.

This is a pretty bad look for the Rudd government. It is my belief that they thought the filtering plan would be relatively uncontroversial, would wedge the opposition, and would allow them to check a few boxes to do with election promises and helping kids. Suddenly, they find themselves swimming against a rapidly accelerating tide.

Senator Conroy, I believe, hates it when Australia is compared to China in these sorts of debates. Conroy has no plan to censor political speech in Australia (I certainly believe this), so he sees any comparison to China or Iran as a cheap shot, dishonest and unfair. I think it simply doesn’t occur to him that the system itself is a danger. If you created a secret police force with the express purpose of weeding out terrorists amongst the population, would that be of concern if that was the extent of their mission? Of course it would. People are people, and regularly exceed their mission or their authority. (It’s happened before here – google “special branch” and “cold war”.)

To borrow a phrase from Bruce Schneier, it’s bad civic hygiene to allow our rights to be eroded without an excellent reason. In a free democracy the default position should always be to preserve openness and transparency. The government needs to make a watertight case if they want to take new powers onto themselves.

That case can’t be made for Internet filtering, and the Government knows it. This explains the amusingly defensive tone of Friday’s media release. It’s pure, panicked spin.

I made similar comments to the ABC on Friday. My full take on the subject can be found over at EFA here, or in today’s Crikey here.

In a debate as nuanced as the one against filtering, it can be hard to penetrate the sound bites about kids and get some focus on the real policy underneath. With the filtering moving from policy to law, though, we can hope that scrutiny will increase. Here are my suggestions (over at EFA) for some urgent questions that need answering.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic thanks largely to Senator Conroy’s announcement that it’s full steam ahead with Internet censorship. At EFA we’ve been flat out keeping up with media requests and corralling the outflow of support into a coherent campaign. We’re working with volunteers, other organisations, and internally to make sure January will see some exciting announcements and interesting campaigns.

Below is a Youtube of my appearance on the 7pm project. I hear it may have at least helped touch a nerve with the Minister himself. My small piece a few days later in Crikey reporting on the appeal by Reporters Without Borders to the Prime Minister to abandon the plan also seems to have gotten through, as it was one of the pieces singled-out for a bollocking by Conroy himself in a letter to Crikey. (See the previous blog post for my response.)

Thanks to everyone who has said nice things about the work I and the rest of EFA are doing – it means a lot to know people are listening and on our side!

The pressure is still on Conroy over his plan to censor Australia’s Internet. The public and the opposition are still calling for the plan to be abandoned and the Government to come clean. My own contribution, which takes a Western theme today, is an op-ed in the Australian. Despite all the noise, though, I think Conroy will use the test results to announce that filtering is feasible and going ahead. We’ll see in the coming weeks and months.

Read my piece here.

I was a guest blogger on New Matilda’sPollieGraph blog, discussing the revelations by the Minister on SBS’s Insight show.

Read and comment on the post here.

I have a piece in New Matilda having another go at the Conroy Curtain. The awesome thing about it is the picture.

Read it here.