The Federal Police commissioner will have the power to block and ban websites believed to be crime or terrorism related under an internet censorship amendment bill introduced into Parliament today.The bombshell web ban bill was tabled in the Senate at 9:58am, without prior notice.Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan proposes to expand the “black list” of internet addresses (URLs) currently maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to include terrorism and cyber-crime sites.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22451522-15306,00.htmlAlso see:
The slippery slope towards internet censorship continues
The Australian Government continued down the slippery slope towards internet censorship yesterday by introducing bill to give the Australian Federal Police the power to nominate terrorism or crime related websites for filtering.In The Australian Greens Senator Kerry Nettle expressed concerns that the Police Commissioner might use these new powers to call for Greenpeace’s website to be filtered – which really should raise more questions about the activities of Greenpeace than the value of the legislation.
http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070921-The-slippery-slope-towards-internet-censorship-continues.html
Australian Privacy Foundation on Internet Censorship Bill [news release]
The Australian Privacy Foundation today expressed disbelief that the government of any country in the free world could table a Bill of the kind released this morning. Without prior warning, the Government, through Senator Coonan, is proposing to provide the AFP with powers to censor the Internet.
http://privacy.org.au/Media/MR-IntCens-070920.pdf