sw’as

Against my better judgement, I went and saw the movie Eagle Eye on the weekend. Eagle Eye is a hybrid political/action thriller starring Shia LaBeouf, Michelle Monaghan, Rosario Dawson, Michael Chiklis, Anthony Mackie, Ethan Embry and Billy Bob Thornton.

The movie seems to be receiving fairly average reviews, and I really wasn’t expecting much, but as it turns out, I was pleasantly surprised. It’s by no means a masterpiece, but definitely a skilled execution in a genre where so many go wrong. The storyline is interesting (even if it is based on a well used premise), with just enough twists and clues to keep you involved, but nothing that would really make you fire up your brain.

There was the fairly standard Hollywood political message about the US Government doing stupid things in the Middle East and bringing a rain of hatred back down on itself. It felt a little tired, even if there’s a good deal of truth to it.

All in all, worth checking out if you’ve got a few spare dollars and a couple of hours to waste on mindless entertainemnt. I’d say 3.5 stars.

So you’re probably getting the picture that I think this is a serious problem. Today there’s been an interesting  podcast interview of Internode’s Mark Newton by Ben Grubb at Tech Wired Australia (via STOTC). It touches on all the pertinent points about why the Government’s proposal is simply unworkable.

After the Rudd-Labor victory at the 2007 federal election I had high hopes that the days of Government ignorance around internet policy which we had seen under the Howard Government, and especially with Sentator Helen Coonan as Minister, were behind us. However, as Labor continues to pursue the deeply flawed policy which aims to implement ISP level internet filtering from which users cannot opt out, increasingly my hopes seem to have been ill founded. Mark feels the same way:

The current government is shaping up to every bit as beligerant as the previous government in this area. The previous government almost never publically announced something until they had already decided to do it…It seems to me that Senator Conroy is following exactly the same tac.

The interview again highlights that the proposed solutions will be very expensive and totally ineffective. Not to mention the problems that censorship raises. I’d already considered how expensive the implementation is likely to be, but Mark notes that support costs will be raised as huge numbers of users start ringing up asking why a totally innocuous website has been blocked when it shouldn’t have been.

They also briefly touch on how this is a threat to Network Neutrality (which is something I’ve got on my soapbox about before).

The whole interview is well worth listening to, but here are Mark’s excellent suggestions for how you can help stop this crippling of the internet in Australia:

I think writing letters to MPs is probably more effective than email campaigns. I think the typcial MP will look at the amount of effort that a citizen has expended to express their point of view and judge that point of view accordingly. And if someone has just fired off a three minute email message or ticked a box to join an online petition or somethign like that, I’m not sure that’s really worth much. On the other hand, writing a real letter, printing it out on real paper, putting it into a real envelope with a real stamp and putting it into a real mail box will get your voice herad a lot more effectively.

Organisations like GetUp! have an effect because they get heard in the halls of power in Canberra. GetUp! have a campaign address, I’m not affiliated with them, but I’ve noted it on their website they have a campaign address and you can send to campaigns@getup.org.au^[1]. I’m sure that if they get enough public response out of this issue theyl’ll take it up, because that’s what they’re for, that’s what they do. They take issues where the Government has pitted itself against citizens and they represent citizens to the Governement. [My emphasis]

1. Find out how best to suggest a campaign to GetUp by reading their FAQ. [↩]

A quick search on Google News seems to indicate that this issue still doesn’t seem to be getting the main stream media coverage it deserves. In fact, it seems to be getting more coverage overseas than it is in Australia’s media - including from Chinese news outlets. As you would expect, it’s getting some good coverage by bloggers:

• Gizmodo - Australia To Build Great Firewall Down Under [Censorship]
• Amnesia Blog - Australia’s Great Firewall without an opt-out
• Boing Boing - Australia’s Great Firewall: just like China, Syria and other “free” countries
• The Technology Liberation Front - Australian ISP-Level Content Filtering Report Released
• Somebody Think of the Children^[1]
• Larvatus Prodeo - New Govt same as the old (may be worse)
• TechCrunch - Australia Joins China In Censoring The Internet
• No Internet Censorship for Australia - ACMA Trial shows filtering unworkable

It’s encouraging to see big and - crucially - widely read blogs like Boing Boing, Gizmodo and TechCrunch on that list, but what we really need for the politicians to take notice is main stream news coverage^[2][3]. The most relevant article I could find in the MSM - after searching for quite a while^[4] - was ISP filtering gains momentum in Australian IT. Which starts to highlight just some of the pertinent points:

Some industry observers believe internet users, not ISPs, could be forced to subsidise the program, with early estimates pointing to $60 million a year.

… Senator Conroy hailed the Enex trial a success, within the closed-environment test conditions. However, the results were broadly negative. It showed that most filters could not identify illegal or inappropriate content — as defined by the Australian Communications and Media Authority — using most non-web protocols.

There was also this story on Sunrise where - against their usual style - they actually talk some sense.

Finally,  a little satire to lighten the mood^[5].

1. These guys are where it’s at when it comes to discussing internet (or any other kind of) censorship in Australia. Some recent posts include: Filters mandatory for all Australians: DBCDE, No opt-out from ISP filtering: Two black lists and you can only opt-out from one, Mobile filtering: ISPs choose technology, Gov set minimum level? and New Zealand talks Aussie clean feed. [↩]
2. You can help get this issue some news coverage by writing to news outlets and telling them why this is such a bad idea - logically. [↩]
3. The other thing we need is your voice. How can you help? [↩]
4. If you know of any other MSM articles I’ve missed let me know in the comments, please. [↩]
5. Even though this is really bloody serious. Damnit! [↩]

I was just reading about the report into the Howard (and now Rudd) Government’s ‘Intervention‘ in the Northern Territory and wondering if real journalism still exists. Y’know the kind that reports the facts, as opposed to re-packaging company press releases, giving the journalist’s opinion^[1] or focusing on the spin - not the story.

Then I clicked over to Club Troppo to read about Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize. It seems as though real journalism does still exist. I’m very happy that people like Krugman dedicate much of the later years of their careers to journalism. I long for the day that most TV interviewers actually understand the questions they’re asking and the responses they get. How far we are from that ideal (at least here in the UK) has been highlighted in the extreme by the recent financial crisis.

Light relief:

1. Yes, I know there are opinion columns, but they’re now - sadly and regularly - spilling out of the opinion pages. [↩]