Rubenerd

Remember when I said (and Craig said) Australia was starting to lose global respect because of Conroy's internet filter scheme? It's started.

Australia’s proposed online filtering system is something RWB says it has “never before seen in a democracy.”

Thanks to Josh Nunn on Google Reader for sharing the link.

The fact more people in Canberra aren't worrying about this is scary to the point of being Orwellian. Australia is one of the most free, open and tolerant societies and yet our government is okay with this aforementioned dubious distinction?

What's worse is even if all of this nonsense was dumped now, Australia will still be seen as the place where it almost happened. It's one heck of a tarnish that'll take a long time to recover from. Conroy is sidekicking us.

And it just gets better. The people running the show on this are the Labor party which are [supposedly] centre-left, and while some Liberal party staffers have voiced tepid opposition to the scheme, their new leader almost certainly only dislikes the scheme because it's a Labor initiative, and if he were elected he'd do the same thing. We're screwed.

Oh well, at least we can take some comfort from the fact China approves of the Australian filter scheme. Hey, wait a minute.

Quickie update

I just noticed when this went live that some of my posts were tagged as "openinternet" and some as "open internet" which means they would have appeared in different places. I've merged the two, hope I didn't cause you any confusion.