[clug] EFA?

[Craig Small]

On Sun, Sep 23, 2007 at 09:17:44AM +0000, Sunnz wrote:
> I got an e-mail regarding to ISP censorship thing below.
> 
> Anyone here a member of EFA? The ISP censorship thing seem like a
> pretty bad issue.
I not only a member of the EFA but was once a board member. Though I'm
speaking for myself here anyhow.  Generally, a lot of laws around the 
internet may not have the intention of closing down something but 
they can do this anyway.

It's usually because laws are not just a simple "don't do this" but
refer to other laws. So you take a bit of a classification law and then
add some definitions about what the internet is and mix them up wrong.
Suddenly the Sydney Morning Herald, or The Age, website is illegal.
This nearly happened in NSW, Fairfax actually fronted up to the equiry
they were that worried about it.

The problem with these sort of deeming laws is that because it is based
upon someone, or some organisation's, idea of what is and is not
allowed. There's no real appeal in that case because there is no
objective measure. If they say its no, then its NO.

With our loverly Free Trade Agreement with the US, there are plenty of
prickly patent-related things that could be considered illegal.  With
the DMCA in the US, a lot of places have a policy of shut down first,
ask questions later. With something like this, I cannot see many
companies (such as ISPs) not doing the same.

Finally, and I apologise for it being lengthy, for those who think that
these may-be and could-be scenarios are fanciful, I would suggest you
look into how the EFF (in the US) was founded. Partly because a company
got raided and their computers siezed; over a book & dice game.

 - Craig
-- 
Craig Small      GnuPG:1C1B D893 1418 2AF4 45EE  95CB C76C E5AC 12CA DFA5
http://www.enc.com.au/                             csmall at : enc.com.au
http://www.debian.org/          Debian GNU/Linux, software should be Free