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OT: Government Internet Filtering 27-Nov-2008 At 6:16:39 AM masterofrup

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On 26/11/2008 wallwombat wrote:
>"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of
>one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive
>laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if
>it is to be stopped at all." - H L Mencken

Good quote. the beautiful example of an Aus govt giving itself new questionable power saying "dont worry we'll be good" then abusing it was the whole Dr Haneef thing. The federal police's first oportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of the new laws and by any reasonable measure what they did was totally unjust even if he did look outwardly dodgy.
It is easy to say child porn or terrorism or whatever is bad and then go on to justify all sorts of things (death penalty, torture) that can kind of make sense in specific situations but society is almost infinitely complex and these arguments overly simplistic they also always involve trusting those in power.
It always amazes me that we have so many rights and freedoms written in law because to grant them in the first place is kind of counter intuitive to any govt or controlling body. these rights are precious beyond the scope of my imagination, giving them up seems to be a one way street.
In the case of child porn which is clearly illegal in a form that can be acessed on line i wouldn't have a problem with filtering providing it could be done with a reasonable degree of efficiency (very unclear if this is possible) and if the legislation is specific and not open ended.
It is a vital in any society not to implicitly trust those wielding any kind of power.