Australian Internet Censorship May Block YOUR Political Views

Australians are in an outrage this week over the continued debate over whether the government should be allowed to prevent access to certain websites, including at least one American anti-abortion website that shows photos of abortions and explains the aftermarket for aborted fetuses to be sold to pharmaceutical companies and universities for research.  If a website in Australia links to such a banned site, then there may be fines of up to $11,000 a day!  That's the current state of affairs.  If the Aussie government has its way, soon prohibited sites will be blocked altogether through technological means, the way China prevents access to certain websites.

Other countries that have blocked websites include Denmark, Finland and Thailand.  In the case of Thailand, it has been found that more than a thousand of the websites were banned because of criticism of the royal family -- i.e., for political reasons.  The original logic and argument for the censorship is to weed out pornography, especially child pornography.  That's a great motive.  The reality is that once a "secret" blacklist of prohibited sites is in place, it is remarkably easy for mistaken websites to appear there, or for political websites to make their way onto the list.  Do you want YOUR political views blocked?  Or do you want people fined for linking to them?

The question of how to get control over the Internet will not go away.  It has been discussed even in the United States, where concerns have been voiced over government "eavesdropping," and disputes have occurred with the FBI and Internet carriers for access to information.  Here the situation has involved getting the identity of the people creating and visiting child pornographic sites, to pursue them for criminal charges.  In other words, it's a different approach of let the crime happen, then prosecute it.  Other countries have been trying to prevent the crime itself through coerced or enforced censorship.  The problem with the list of censored websites is the secrecy.  Who has access to such a list and who controls what goes on it -- that soon becomes a political game, subject to bribery or personal ambition.  Also, new sites can be created so easily, so there can be a huge time lag before censorship could ever take place.

In the U.S., with its sunshine laws, it's questionable if such a list of prohibited websites could exist without a legal challenge.  In fact, it has already been demonstrated in other countries that "secret" lists do not remain so for long regardless of the laws, as some person along the chain will eventually "leak" the list.  For example, the entire list of more than 3,000 websites banned by Denmark has been leaked and published by an Australian website, which of course makes it accessible everywhere outside Denmark.  I personally scanned the list, and all the links appeared to be pornographic based on the website names.  However, even that list inadvertently contained a Dutch business that had nothing to do with children or sex.  In this age of international transport, where a Danish person can simply hop on a plane to another country and then view everything the government has banned, it seems ludicrous to even attempt such censorship.  It starts to seem too much like a communist attempt to keep citizens in the dark, as is done with the Great Firewall of China.

I sure don't want to be kept in the dark, or have the free expression of political views and information blocked.  And while I love international travel, I don't want to have to do so just to access a website about abortion or a royal party or the Dalai Lama or all the other websites that some country or other has censored.  In other words, government censorship starts out perhaps innocent but soon becomes absurd.  It may be that voluntary self-censorship -- like parental controls on website access as is popular in the United States -- plus vigorous prosecution of sex offenders is the way to go.  That's got my vote.