It’s been nearly three years since the Labor government was elected, and for almost the entire time they have been pushing their plan to censor Australians’ internet connections. The debate has been highly controversial from day one. Many people expected that the Government would back away from their plans once they realised how unworkable and contentious they were, but at every step of the way they have pushed ahead with renewed enthusiasm.
You know what? That proposed mandatory internet filter the Labor government is trying to force upon us has been rather unpopular. It might even cost them some votes. Which is probably why they’ve decided to delay legislating it until after the next federal election later this year.
Considering Kevin Rudd and Stephen Conroy don’t care too much about what intelligent, educated voters have to say when arguing against their proposed internet filter, perhaps they’ll sit up and listen to the U.S. State department, who have told Paul Colgan at The Punch that they’ve “raised their concerns” over the proposed filter.
Whirlpool forum member Rupple has discovered that on Senator Conroy’s website there’s a little bit of code to make sure that any searches for “ISP filtering” aren’t actually published to the tag cloud of site searches. The filtering has already begun!
Reader Kane is vehemently opposed to Senator Conroy’s proposed mandatory internet filter. So he sent the Minister a letter pointing out all the concerns he had over the government’s plans. Senator Conroy wrote back, and aside from the usual shouting about CHILD PORN and TERRORISM, mentioned some interesting things, like the fact they plan on implementing legislative amendments to require the filter “12 months from the passage of legislation”.
