There are a number of reasons you could reasonably assume the government would block out 90 per cent of a document obtained using the freedom of information. If the document threatened national security, for example, it would make sense to keep that information confidential. But as Ben Grubb has reported on the SMH today, the Government has blocked out 90 per cent of a document about their plan to monitor all Australian’s web usage for the pathetic excuse that it may cause “premature, unnecessary debate”. So much for democracy, huh?
Remember the NBN? The Rudd Government’s promise to build a National Broadband Network for Australia so we all had super-fast faster broadband? Of course you do. But do you really care? Probably not, because like pretty much everything Senator Conroy touches, it seems to be waddling in a pile of its own excrement. More precisely, in this instance, Conroy refused to share any details on the report that suggests possible tenders for the network, therefore stopping anyone from scrutinising it. So Ben Grubb over at TechwiredAU decided to try and get his hands on the report using the good old Freedom of Information Act. Sadly, it didn’t work.
