So it is pretty simple, if the $$ expended in creating this filter were diverted to the police, I believe there would be a better outcome. ie no effect against criminal activity vs increased effect against that same criminal activity.

Therefore the answer to your question boils down to, if you could prove that spending the money on the filter produced a better outcome in reducing that specific criminal activity then I would support it.

However, at the moment, it won’t work, the money would presently be better spent on the Federal Police in catching offenders, everyone will suffer, except the pedophiles.

I ask the question again. Why does the ALP pursue a policy that favours a less effective policy against this sort of crime?

Mark @ 55

While I am an avowed atheist, I am not happy to see Christians (who in my experience are well intentioned in this matter) duped in this way. In the longer term too, when they come to see that they have been duped, the ALP (and the Libs if they go down that path) will suffer for their duplicity. Oh, and I think it a reasonable point to put to the ALP that they are helping the pedophiles, and when people suss that out, to inquire what spin are they going to put on it.

So the choice is: spend lots of time, money and effort to achieve nothing by net filtering, or spend that same amount of time money and effort in resourcing the Federal Police and achieve something.

Pedophiles will naturally choose the option of the net filter since it will not stop them at all, and will divert resources away from the Federal Police who can.

Pray tell. Why do you support a net filter that doesn’t work, rather than promote those resources going to the Federal Police who will catch offenders?

Pray tell. Why is the Labor Party supporting a strategy that benefits only pedophiles?

Right here we have the seeds of dictatorial facism that are totally inflexible.If we let people find the true path of worth through survival,then we will not have to pay taxes for useless bureaucracies to address what they cannot fix.

We have all fell for the trick of socialism.The Corporates love it since we all pay taxes for their inefficient system via substidised drugs.The big drug companies love Obama’s socialisted medicine.The banking side also love socialism,since our Govts borrow from them to pay for the waste.

JD Rockerfeller said that competition is a sin.The big corporates just want a few players so there is only the illusion of competition.

We all get sucked into this left/right side show,and the elites play one off against the other reaping huge profits.They have so much power now that they determine who the US President will be and where the next war will be fought.

The headline should be this: it’s a tool of tyranny.

This is laughable. It’s like equating the guillotining of parliamentary debate with Australia becoming a one party state.

If the internet filter is a tool of tyranny, what is the current classification system? How much worse is the Australian Building and Construction Commission (which materially reduces the civil rights of 1000s of Australians)? What about the Howard era sedition laws?

Internet filtering is bad. It’s not tyranny. It’s not censorship.

I don’t think having multiple crowd sourced campaigns is a problem – and I certainly disagree with the above statement from Alex White that EFA are hostile to outsiders – they have been very helpful with the Australian Democrats’ No Internet Censorship campaign (www.nointernetcensorship.com – which is essentially the #nocleanfeed argument for an outside audience) and the Great Australian Internet Blackout.

A quick check reveals that one of the spokespeople for Electronic Frontiers Australia is also the digital/technology policy advisor and official “no clean feed” campaigner for the Australian Democrats (Geordie Guy). Little wonder why the EFA and Democrats campaign messages to date have been almost identical. So, in this respect, the Democrats are “insiders”.

Something like “Stop government secret internet censorship scheme!”, while not as punchy, certainly tells the story and would actually mean something to those punters who currently aren’t aware of what’s being proposed.

The problem with this kind of line is that most Australians are comfortable with censorship. They experience it every day – on TV, buying DVDs and print media. There have been few major mainstream controversies revolving around the current arrangements. The classification system and censorship laws don’t affect Australians’ day to day, lived experience, and since most Aussies aren’t political, political censorship isn’t a bogeyman.

Furthermore, when people on the internet complain that the filter is “secret censorship”, normal people think that internet nerds are complaining about not being able to download p-rn. This is especially the case when they see the list of refused classification material (most of which is weird fetish p-rn, violence inciting Jihadist propaganda, etc).

The whole “secret” black list is also easily dismissed. The point of the blacklist is to stop people from accessing RC material. You don’t want to create a “vice list” that is easily accessible for people to find where to find child p-rn (given that bypassing the filter will be trivially easy for determined pervs).

Cheers
Alex