Comments on: Senator Kate Lundy speaks out against mandatory filtering

By: Matt Francis

Matt Francis — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 15:36:53 +0000

While free speech is an important issue, I think it’s unhelpful that this tends to dominate discussion of this issue. It makes it far easire to dismiss, because likening Australia to Iran, China, Burma etc sounds like ranting hyperbole, regardless of how accurate that might be.

The real story is that the Government is spending millions on something that will have no positive effect and will slow the Internet to some extent (whether that would be negligable in a fully operational system is not yet known, even given the testing done so far).

There is very little illegal pornography that is availble via a simple URL, and that is the only thing this filter blocks. It won’t prevent material being distributed via bit torrent, through instant messaging clients and chat rooms, by email, etc etc. Past law enforcement experience as shown that kiddie porn rings are close circles that are hard to get into and careful about how information is transmitted. The only way to put a stop to this activity is good covert policing, which has had success in the past.

Conroy recently responded to Crikey’s criticism by essentially taking the ‘if you oppose this you must support child porn’ angle. That’s stupid. I’d support any effective policy to stop this activity, and that means diverting the many millions that will be wasted on this hi-tech placebo into improved police resources and better education/resources for parents wanting to help keep their kids out of strife online.

By: joehungry

joehungry — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:33:48 +0000

Sorry folks. Google answers all.

By: rumrebellious

rumrebellious — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:26:35 +0000

Cheers Paul.

I have to agree with Razor though. I guess she is supplying an avenue for ventage for the disaffected within ALP.

The rest of caucus still need to be targeted though.

What are Kate Lundy’s view’s on ACTA and does anyone have a summary of what view she took to the US-FTA policy debates of 2004 when Mark Latham dumped her from the ministry?

By: Ginja

Ginja — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:52:29 +0000

Zoot and David Irving: the previous government manipulated the media in all sorts of ways, mostly by preventing information from entering the public domain: no pictures of refugees that could make them seem ordinary and human (as always, on the pretext of protecting them), using the federal police like never before to go after public servants that leak. They dug for dirt and smeared anyone who spoke up against them, they selectively leaked classified defence information to their friends in the media – all the grubby, Nixon-esque tactics we’ve come to expect from the Libs. But I can’t think of any case of outright censorship.

By: Razor

Razor — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 04:31:48 +0000

Talk is cheap – unless Lundy can actually change the legislation or cross the floor what she has to say isn’t worth the paper it is printed on.

By: David Irving (no relation)

David Irving (no relation) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:06:45 +0000

Ginja @ 8, even if this government didn’t want to control speech (which I would dispute, but that’s another story), can you imagine what a Coalition government with, say, Abbott as a Minchivic sock-puppet would do with it?

By: zoot

zoot — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 01:45:51 +0000

… do governments really want to control speech?

Is the Pope Catholic?

By: Paul Burns

Paul Burns — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 22:38:19 +0000

rumrebellious @ 13,
Voltaire knew Sade’s uncle. From memory Sade was quite young when he went to stay with his uncle, (maybe even a teenager.) Sade himself was the next generation, and Voltaire I thunk was in exile in Switzerland at the time the Marquis began to flourish. From memory his flourishing didn’t last long. His mother in law had him locked away for whipping a servant girl and encouraging her (the mother in law’s) daughter, his wife, to participate, for which I think, he was tried and imprisoned. She had influential contacts at court. One has to be very careful ascribing to Sade the kind of sadistic activities he wrote about as fantasiesa during his various bouts in prison or the asylum. Mainly he just had a very dirty mind, and managed to annnoy everybody from the French aristocracy, to the King, to Revolutionaries, to Napoleon.
At least, that’s what I think.

By: rumrebellious

rumrebellious — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 12:34:33 +0000

Bugger; so we can’t trust my memory but can we trust the internets?

Upon hearing of the way his son was being ‘corrupted’ by the attentions of the female family members, his father moved him to live with his uncle at Saumane, the Abbé Jacques-François Sade. He thought a masculine role model was needed for his son.

A close friend of Voltaire (a well-known French philosopher), the Abbé shared the warm and sensual nature of his sisters. Voltaire encouraged this worldly side with poems.

However much of a priest you are,
O Sir, you’ll continue to love.
That is your true ministry,
be you a bishop or the Holy Father.
You will love,
you will seduce,
and you’ll equally succeed,
in the Church and in Cythera1.

Known as the ‘sybarite2 of Saumane’, the Abbé was a fond fancier of the female form. While living with his uncle, Sade had some of those females as housemates, including a mother and daughter, a maid, and a prostitute. Orgies were not uncommon in the church grounds at his official residence in Auvergne.

So they may have met at least?

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 11:45:22 +0000

No probs!