The Queensland floods, reinforced by memories of other extreme weather events in recent memory, have started people chattering about climate change. We are clearly at a point where the looming challenging it presents exists as a sort of background radiation to people’s thoughts, and something like this easily brings it to mind.

It’s also true that the majority of the country supports taking some sort of action, including putting a price on carbon. Although support has reportedly softened, surveys show it is still there. For those of us particularly concerned about climate change, this is promising – isn’t it?

I wonder. If the Australian people really took the issue as seriously as an existential threat to our civilisation really warranted, we would not still be having conversations about how and why to proceed with carbon pricing, the NBN would not be the main topic of political debate, and we would not talk about the “balancing act” between protecting our coal exports and tackling climate issues. Either we would have strong bipartisan support for urgent action, or greenhouse issues would be the number one voter concern, dwarfing refugees and interest rates.

The reality is that while climate change now forms a part of the nation’s mental background, it spends too little time in the foreground where it belongs.

Could Queensland floods help change that, or will concern over climate recede along with the floodwaters? Everybody knows that climate change is not solely responsible for Queensland’s rains, but appreciates the contribution that will make events like this more frequent. Are the images shocking enough in their devastation but familiar enough in their setting (an Australian capital!) to really drive the connection between climate and personal tragedy home?

Humour me: Close your eyes and imagine the following scenario. You are at home, but the approaching disaster means its unsafe to stay. The roads are blocked or unsafe, and you’re not sure how to get away. You only have a few days’ supplies, but local supermarket is, empty, looted; the tap water is contaminated. The electricity went off yesterday. What are you going to do?

Is this frightening? If not, you are not trying hard enough to imagine yourself, and your neighbourhood, in this sort of peril.

Scenes not unlike this have unfolded in Queensland in recent days and weeks. But in the end, we know that the authorities will be there to assist, that insurance companies will make good on claims, and that the government will help pick up the pieces. When you call the emergency services, help will be on its way. We can rest assured that the nation will swing into action, and while the damage will take years to undo, recovery will begin immediately and a return to normalcy will occur, sooner or later.

But what if it didn’t? What if a string of emergencies left the authorities unable to cope? What if you called and nobody answered? Can you picture your family, rendered homeless, lives perhaps in danger, and only your wits to protect you? With help so far away, who is going to get a hold of the bottled water in the supermarket – those with the e-cash on their contactless payment cards, or somebody else? Where does food even come from, if not the supermarket?

People around the world find themselves in situations like this all the time. They know what it’s like when the rule of law is weak, and sinister gangs patrol the street outside their doors.

But we live in a country that is wealthy, stable and has a democratic history we can be very proud of. In times of adversity, we pull together. Surely, this scenario could never occur in Australia.

Only, sometimes I think to myself: What if it could? Unchecked climate change can wreak havoc on this country – changed cities, economic chaos, floods of refugees pouring in from around the world, and of course a violent and unpredictable climate. It doesn’t seem far fetched that the system could be stretched to breaking point, leaving us on our own in a time of crisis for hours, days – even longer.

With people tragically losing their lives even today, are we really prepared to take any chance of things getting dramatically worse? If, like me, you can imagine just how terrible that would be, then you understand why climate action should be at the top of the nation’s agenda.

Julian Assange has done us a huge favour, and we owe him a debt of thanks.

Not just because he’s lifted up the rock of international diplomacy and made the diplomats and politicians writhe and squirm in the light of global scrutiny – though he has certainly done that.

Not just because he has revealed some of the secrets and deceit behind our own foreign policy, and demonstrated the gap between what our leaders tell us and what they really believe.

And not because he has revealed the often corrosive role of U.S. policy in its relentless drive to shore up American interests. By letting the world’s people know how the U.S. is pressuring or driving the actions of their own governments behind the scenes, they have forever weakened that power.

These things Wikileaks have done are of massive importance. But perhaps they are equally powerful as a demonstration of, a case study in, or even a fable of free speech.

These current disclosures by Wikileaks has been a clear demonstration of the power information can have. Every person in Australia – and indeed the world – who has read or watched the news in the last few weeks has had a lesson in journalism and in whistleblowing. The actions of the our own government have made sure the lesson was driven home in an unforgettable way.

By piling on Assange, by accusing him of criminality, our Prime Minister sought to talk tough on a supposed threat to our security. But it has backfired. We have seen through it. Assange has become David to a Government Goliath. He’s nothing short of a national hero.

That’s because the people know. They know that embarrassing the government is not a crime. Forcing transparency on our elected representatives is not terrorism. Reporting the truth is not, and must never be, against the law.

A mature government, a confident government, could have weathered the storm, explained the embarrassing leaks as grist for the mill of global politics, and defended Assange’s rights without endorsing his actions. But they chose the cowardly way. We noticed, and we were disgusted.

What this means that the next time our government try to tighten their control over information, people will sit up. People will ask questions. When the government tries to censor the free flow of information on the internet, they will talk about protecting children. They will talk about violence, and predators. They will scare us with talk of terrorists and security, telling us that censorship is for our own protection.

But we will think of Assange. We will think of our right to know what our leaders really think of the wars we are embroiled in, or that members of our own government are sources of information for a foreign embassy. We will think of politicians scrambling to protect their own image, and their own jobs. And we will say: No. We will not let you censor, suppress, expunge. Because you work for us, and free speech is the only safeguard we have to hold you accountable.

Wikileaks has demonstrated this beyond a doubt. For this, we owe Julian Assange our support.

I have an opinion piece in today’s Age, expanding on the theme of offensive internet content: do we need Rudd to step in and save us? I’m seeing more and more panic, fanned by the media, and a sense of proportion is quickly being lost.

This also continues on my new favourite theme, “Why should the Internet be any different?” I particularly dislike this sentence, often uttered by Senator Conroy, as it so clearly has a number of obvious answers explaining why the Internet is fundamentally different to other media. More on that later.

The online version of the piece is available here.

Conroy will be facing questions about the filter on ABC Radio National’s “Australia Talks” show at 6pm today, and I’ll be there to ask a few of my own.

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.

When I was a naive undergraduate, I laboured under a severe misapprehension. I thought that people believed things because they had heard the evidence and believed those things to be true. If somebody believed something that was (in my opinion) wrong, it must have been because they had bad information or had heard a mistaken argument. Therefore, all I had to do was simply furnish them with better information and a logical argument and we’d agree on the facts.

Needless to say, I had a lot of long and pointless conversations back then.
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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.

“Safer Internet Day” has come and gone, and the Government’s trial of mandatory filtering has finally been announced, with six small ISPs participating. The trial, with poor results practically inevitable, will do little to dampen discussion about this policy. The stated rationale for the new filtering regime, to protect children, has ensured the debate remains emotive and controversial.

Many of the filter opponents have focused on the many technical flaws in the plan, or its worrying implications for free speech. This has led to the perception that opponents of the plan put internet freedom or technological costs ahead of the welfare of children, as if opponents are all ideologues and childless nerds. Ill-informed filtering proponents have branded organisations like Electronic Frontiers Australia “extreme cyber-libertarians” and implied they oppose filtering because it seeks to impose a restrictive sexual morality on the country. The real question is not “should we do something about child abuse material” or “is protecting children worth the trouble?” but “will filtering actually protect children?” Since we are, in fact, all on the same side when it comes to protecting kids, let’s examine the proposal from a child-welfare perspective. (more…)

It’s when they stop talking about you, that’s when you’ve got to worry. Or so the old saying goes. Perhaps, then, we at Electronic Frontiers Australia should be gratified that filter-backers such as Clive Hamilton still hold up EFA as the epitome of “extreme cyber-libertarianism”, a gang of internet anarchists who don’t care what happens to children as long as Government keeps its hands off our Internet.

While we do appreciate the mention, as ever, it’s a bit dismaying that such misrepresentations still find their way into print. EFA’s objections to filter are well known; it’s an ill-defined policy mess, it won’t deliver for kids, it won’t aid law-enforcement, it’s overly secretive, and technical problems abound. In fact, just about the only argument we haven’t made is that filtering is a bad idea from a purely libertarian perspective.  (more…)

Here’s my piece on the filtering plan from ABC Online.They also spun it into a news item, which was then picked up and published in Chinese.

Read it here.