[clug] Report from the rally

[Alex Satrapa]

On 21/03/2009, at 18:56 , Fred Pilcher wrote:

> The Greens speaker was good and well-received. The guy from EFA  
> wasn't a great speaker, but Fiona Patten, Senate candidate for the  
> Australian Sex Party, spoke exceptionally well and intelligently  
> about the whole sorry mess.

There was also a speaker representing Australian small businesses,  
whose main point I recall being that the greatest risk presented by  
the Great Firewall for small businesses would be the censoring of  
their online presence with no warning, no recourse, and no grievance  
procedure.

I have asked Bob McMullan about what processes are in place for  
monitoring & challenging blacklisting but have yet to receive a  
response. I expect to be posting to this list when I get a reply,  
especially if it's a form letter, "movies are censored, so the  
Internet should be too."

Which reminds me that one of the EFA guy's arguments was that the  
Internet makes everyone a publisher, we can't all afford to have  
lawyers to challenge the Government rating of our content, which means  
that rating the Internet is effectively the same as censoring  
individuals - or stifling free speech.

I have no idea who the people in the interesting costumes were, or  
whether they were representing some special interest group, but they  
certainly brightened up the protest gathering :)

Alex

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