Censorship – Page 11 of 14 – Pirate Party Australia

AG’s Department Claims Meeting ‘Notes’ Are “Not In The Public Interest”

Posted on January 17, 2012

The Attorney-General’s Department last year claimed that no minutes exist of a clandestine meeting between the Department, ISPs and content industry representatives to discuss ‘solutions’ to online file-sharing.[1]

In heavily redacted documents released last month to Rodney Serkowski, former President of Pirate Party Australia, eight pages were censored. The notice reads “the following eight pages […] are hand written notes taken by an officer of the Attorney-General’s Department of the 23 September 2011 meeting. These notes are exempt pursuant to s47C.”[2]

Pirate Party Australia fails to understand why the Attorney-General’s Department felt it necessary to claim no minutes were taken.

Pirates Salute Media’s Rejection Of AG Censorship

Posted on October 21, 2011

Pirate Party Australia applauds media organisations and unions for their rejection of the recent attempt by the Attorney-General to impose a regime of self-censorship on the press[1]. This is a great victory for freedom of speech and information over an increasingly autocratic government, and highlights unnoticed ways in which new media is empowering old media in our democracy.

ALRC National Classification Scheme Review Submission

Posted on July 17, 2011

No PDF of submission

Below is the submission that Pirate Party Australia made to the Australian Law Reform Committee National Classification Scheme review. In summary, we recommended a voluntary system similar to PEGI or ESRB and recommended the abolition of the Refused Classification category.

Answering this inquiry in such a regimented format proved to be quite troublesome for such a broad inquiry, but we believe that we have answered the questions to the best of our ability.

Thanks to all those who contributed to this paper, your input is greatly appreciated!

Pirate Party Opposes AFACT’s Extortion Tactics

Posted on July 12, 2011

Pirate Party Australia is opposed to the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft’s (AFACT) latest offensive against Australian internet users[1]. They have demanded that ISPs attend ‘voluntary talks’ to implement a graduated response regime (commonly known as 3 Strikes) before the conclusion of the iiNet trial or face “unspecified legal action”.

AFACT’s alleged extreme demands would require ISPs to notify their customers of infringements as alleged by AFACT and disconnect them if they do not respond within 7 days.

Pirate Party Continues To Condemn Internet Censorship Efforts

Posted on June 24, 2011

Pirate Party Australia continues to consider the continued policy of Internet censorship advocated by the Australian government to be misguided and irresponsible[1]. Pirate Party Australia also welcomes the findings that ISP filtering is ineffective by the Joint Select Committee on Cyber-Safety in their Interim report released recently[2].

The Joint Select Committee found that the biggest obstacle to taking down illegal content such as child pornography is not lack of legislation but bureaucracy of multinational hosting companies. It found no evidence that legislation based ISP level content filtering will be better than the voluntary framework currently in place. In fact the Joint Select Committee reports that under the voluntary framework more content can be removed compared to what is provided for in the Broadcasting Services Act.