In a bizarre case of mistaken identity the department of Customs and Border Protection appear to think that OpenAustralia.org‘s republishing of Federal parliamentary discussions constitutes a blog.

Last week we were told by a person who works for the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service that OpenAustralia.org was blocked by their IT department’s security policy.

Curiously ironic, Open Australia (.org) being censored by an Australian federal government agency. Its not unique though. The internet is often perceived as a major security threat to government bodies and therefore needs policing, gatekeepers and "automated, outsourced and sometimes unreasonable or illogical" blocking to those who work in the public sector.

Seriously, if security was the real issue, why on earth are these departments connected to the internet in the first place? The subscribed internet-filtering-blacklist is apparently the panacea for all risk managed security.

Silly isn't it? I wonder how much these protective solutions cost the taxpayer? Really.

Sylvestor

note: I am a public sector employee, just being open and honest about it ;)

Mr Abbott has campaigned upon a platform of economic responsibility having built up a formidable armoury of bullets to fire against the Rudd/Gillard Government after a number of costly project fiascos. However, he appears to have badly misjudged the mood of the electorate on the issue of the NBN.

 Ben Shipley, the managing director of Brisbane-based telco Comscentre, typifies the mood of the powerful and influential Australian telecoms industry when he describes the Abbott Coalition plan as being from the “dark ages”.

“We’ve got a very clear and concise plan from the Labor Party but we’ve got nothing from the opposition except a threat to shut down the NBN,” Mr Shipley said.

“Are they going to throw away the billions that have already been spent and take us back to a Telstra monopoly, or are they going to do nothing and leave Australia like a Third World country?

 

It is truly in your hands! Will billions be wasted? No. Will the Coalition halt further development? Possibly. Will they follow their cause and sell off the assets to let business reap the benefits? Probably.

My question is, so what? Siimply through sensible competitive legislation and operational telecommunications frameworks, the work and investment being made by existing telcos will see Australia reach the milestones that the NBN have as its aims.

Can the Coalition deliver this? Of course. So can Labor. So what is the deal? Labor had the opportunity to fight the sale of Telstra many many years ago. Labor will reinvent existing notions, but then sell it off anyway. What? You don't think? Its in the NBN Business plan folks. Its a part of the framework.

But.

The real difference?

Censorship.

Labor will censor your access. And, if they succeed, it won't be repealed. It won't be taken back. Labor fought the introduction of GST at one point. Have they rolled it back? No. Of course not.

Want fast but censored internet? Or do you want to let business do its job? The fight is there, but don't be pushed in the wrong direction. Again!

Non NBN trials are already underway in real-world tests, using consumers, with consumer grade technology, including paired-DSL, cable and wireless. In some cases these tests are already seeing speeds of around 100Mbits/second. This is without the NBN in place.

Keep the internet you have? Or get the internet they want you to have? Its your choice.

Sylvestor

Take a look at the tag cloud below, taken from the Australian Government's own taskforce into Government 2.0 - the next generation of government and internet services.

Having participated in the Gov2.0 process, to some degree, myself, I have noticed thee common and relatively core themes throughout the process.

Tag Cloud

access accessibility Best Practice Brainstorming community content contests Copyright cost Crowdsourcing data.australia.gov.au engagement gov2.0 gov2au gov20 government 2.0 government2.0 GovHack Guest Blogger Ideas IdeaScale Information Management Innovation Innovators Inquiries 2.0 Issues Paper IT licensing Mashup Australia mashups Open Access pricing Prizes Project Fund Projects PSI public service Report Roadshows social graph social media social networking standards Transparency Web 2.0

The federal government has censored approximately 90 per cent of a secret document outlining its controversial plans to snoop on Australians' web surfing, obtained under freedom of information (FoI) laws, out of fear the document could cause "premature unnecessary debate".

The government has been consulting with the internet industry over the proposal, which would require ISPs to store certain internet activities of all Australians - regardless of whether they have been suspected of wrongdoing - for law-enforcement agencies to access.

All parties to the consultations have been sworn to secrecy.

Industry sources have claimed that the controversial regime could go as far as collecting the individual web browsing history of every Australian internet user, a claim denied by the spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland.

The exact details of the web browsing data the government wants ISPs to collect are contained in the document released to this website under FoI.

The document was handed out to the industry during a secret briefing it held with ISPs in March.

But from the censored document released, it is impossible to know how far the government is planning to take the policy.

The government is hiding the plans from the public and it appears to want to move quickly on industry consultation, asking for participants to respond within only one month after it had held the briefings.

Really there is no need to comment. You can draw your own conclusions. But.

As we have seen the political parties vie for your vote in the upcoming election, we are often faced with mixed-messages, promises that may or may not be delivered, a great big "sell-job". Like the climate change agendas, as an example. 

The current Labor government has announced a policy stance on climate change that will, yet again, form community based consultative groups, the so-called "citizens assembly". Some people may well see this as a good move, the idea of "engagement" and "community" on such an issue. Even I can see that it represents some of those core values of what Gov2.0 is really about. (I have other opinions of course about this particular topic, but lets leave that to other posts!).

What concerns, worries and indeed surprises me, is that, when it comes to the real issues of Gov2.0 - that is, from a technological base, all the core values the current Labor Government seem to flag as important, are thrown out the door.

Sure, you could argue that this government is "engaging" with business, service providers, political analysts, government agencies and their representatives. But.

But where is the "Citizens Assembly" on this?

But where is the "community consultation" on this?

It seems the community has the ability, knowledge, skills to have input into such a complex and sensitive issue as climate change, but not the internet.

Give me a break, this hypocritical attitude is just another reason you need to question what this current Labor Government is really all about!

Sylvestor

Update: As correctly pointed out to me, yes, ISPs have had to maintain records of its clients internet access for sometime now. This is not the point of this. There is a current agenda to look at filtering the internet to all Australians. The current view is that refused classification standards should also apply to the net. The point here is about engagement, transparency and openness in the development of government policy. It seems these concepts are being touted but only ever come into play when it is politically convenient and "safe". This is clearly hypocritical.