Internet Society of Australia
A Chapter of the Internet Society
With its recommendation such as random police checks on Internet users, the Committee demonstrates a most cavalier attitude towards freedom of expression and privacy.
With its emphasis on classification and labelling, the Report shows a continued and breathtaking ignorance about the technical realities of modern computer networks - the sheer volume of data they contain and the speed of change within them.
Phrases like "Australian cultural values" reveal the frighteningly simplistic mindset behind the Report. This Report is a sad demonstration of ignorance and fear.
It is the free flow of ideas and information across global networks that provides the base for all else - personal, political, technical, academic and commercial uses alike. Stifle the flow and all those uses wither. Australians have as much to give as they have to gain from full participation in the global online community; implementing these recommendations would blind and gag and beggar us.
The Internet Society of Australia emphatically supports the suggestion by the Australian Computer Society that this failed Senate Select Committee be abolished immediately and that a new Committee be constituted with more appropriate terms of reference. Terms of reference that enable it to look at the enormous benefits that are brought to us all by the free exchange of information via the computer networks of the world.
Just as the global Internet contains much of the vast human diversity of this planet, so the Australian Internet is a robust, living representation of the variety and challenge that is Australia itself. That vitality should be encouraged, supported and preserved, that challenge should be celebrated!
Our members are tired of attempts by the Federal Government to reduce the quality of information available online to only that fit for children.
We urge the Government to reject this Report, to ignore its recommendations and to look with honest and open eyes at the opportunities and challenges of the 'Net.
Here is the ISOC-AU website.