[ga] Australia's Vast, Scattershot Censorship Blacklist Revealed

["Jeffrey A. Williams" <jwkckid1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

All,

  Seems like our friends down under are intent on selective censorship,
much like ICANN, and the ALAC.

  Seems to me like Australia's government is turning into some hybrid
autocracy.  If so, how sad indeed.

See:
"Australia's
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/296161/australia_web_blacklist_leaked?fp=16&fpid=1
secretive Internet filter blacklist held by its communications watchdog
has been leaked, revealing the government has understated the amount of
banned Web pages by more than 1000. Multiple
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/296165/betfair_banned_by_acma
legitimate businesses and Web sites have been banned including two bus
companies, online poker sites, multiple Wikipedia entries, Google and
Yahoo group pages, a dental surgery and a tour operator. Andrew Twaits, 
CEO of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betfair Betfair, a billion-dollar
business blocked by the blacklist, was
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/296165/betfair_banned_by_acma?fp=16&fpid=1
furious the government has potentially annexed tens of millions of
dollars in revenue after the Betfair.com gambling site was blacklisted.
The blacklists were reportedly leaked by a Web filter operator to
wikileaks
which has
http://www.wikileaks.com/wiki/Australian_government_secret_ACMA_internet_censorship_blacklist,_6_Aug_2008#March_19_2009
published the full list of banned URLs. Outraged privacy advocates say
the government has effectively lied about the amount of URLs included in
the blacklists, totaling more than 2300, and the type of content which
it would ban.
http://www.techworld.com.au/blog/broadbandvoice/2009/03/acmas_blacklist_a_bigots_battleground
The leak follows a series of attacks on the watchdog in which irate
users successfully lobbied for web sites to be banned, only to be
threatened with an $11,000 fine for publishing the link contained in the
PR response. It was also revealed the
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/295977/australia_internet_filter_ruled_by_single_bureaucrat?fp=39&fpid=27794
watchdog can ban Web sites at a whim, with no accountability."

Regards,

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