9 ms·

Australia blocks access to Wikileaks, $11K/day fine for linking to it (2009)

87 points by mcantelon 16y ago

aussiewoop 16y ago
STORY IS FAKE. Aussie here, I have access to wikileaks.org right now from my Sydney-based ISP. There is no internet censorship in Australia as the idea is politically dead for now. Yes, it wikileaks was added to a blacklist, one that is used by government employees at work. Basically no one uses that list. Submitter 'mcantelon' needs some banhammer for fake stories.
- angusgr 16y ago
  The story is correct, the headline is misleading. The article says it's on the ACMA blacklist, and if you link to a site on the blacklist from an Australian website then you are eligible to be fined. Whether anyone has since been fined for leaking to Wikileaks, I don't know. If/when our abomination of an internet filter idea comes in, then it will become blocked by the filter. I think 2013 is the soonest anyone thinks that will happen.
  - angusgr 16y ago
    (article seems to have been shown incorrect/outdated as of today: http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklist-339307604.htm http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklis... )
- mahmud 16y ago
  Ditto, I am on Telstra's 3G in rural NSW; if I am being censored at all, it's by bandwidth costs.
thangalin 16y ago
(a) Google this: site:.gov.au blog +comments +submit -moderate (b) Pick a blog. For example: http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/11/18/independent-review-of-the-ict-reform-program-released/comment-page-1/ http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/11/18/independent-review-o... (c) Add a comment. For example: I am concerned that the rights of Australian citizens are being unjustly impinged. To fine someone $11k per day because they choose to link to a website is a slap in the face of free speech and free citizens of the world. <a href=http://www.wikileaks.org http://www.wikileaks.org >wikileaks.org</a>
pasbesoin 16y ago
"March 17th 2009"
iwr 16y ago
This is not just about Wikileaks, but all websites deemed objectionable by the government. Remember the original motive behind such laws: protecting children online.
- jaysonelliot 16y ago
  I'd call that less of a "motive" and more of a "rationalization."
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    It's a fig-leaf.
  - hugh3 16y ago
    Actually the scary thing is I think that it really is the motivation. Good intentions are usually the culprit when bad things happen.
- adambyrtek 16y ago
  Shouldn't there be some kind of due process to ensure that this power is not abused for censorship? Are there any organizations in Australia that fight against this law? It's a bit scary to see a developed nation implementing measures inspired by China.
  - angusgr 16y ago
    Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) is one such organisation: http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filtering/ http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filt... A lot of other NGOs have weighed on the issue as well, though.
jaysonelliot 16y ago
I often forget how much we take for granted our right to free speech in America, until I read a story from a country that doesn't have the same constitutional protections.
- tst_ 16y ago
  http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1945352 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1945352
  - tptacek 16y ago
    Not remotely comparable. In the story you linked to, assets linked to specific crimes committed in the US were seized using civil forfeiture rules (if they were in fact seized; see: stories suggesting this is a hoax). The owners of those domains received court orders and have ample due process protections. Ordinary citizens linking to those sites or to the new versions of those sites sure to be launched shortly aren't touched at all by these actions; the goal being to shut down ongoing criminal enterprises and not to stifle speech. Read analyses of the State Department Counsel's letter to Wikileaks to see that the government has had to stop short of even calling Wikileaks itself a criminal actor (the leak itself of those documents to WL being prima facie a crime, but not one WL has liability for). The largest media companies in the United States are publishing the contents of those documents, for profit, with virtually no legal exposure. Sorry. Australia sucks, at least on this axis.
    - chc 16y ago
      Some of those "criminal enterprises" were criminal only because they distributed data the US government said should not be distributed. WikiLeaks distributes data the Australian government has decided shouldn't be distributed. It sounds a little bit comparable to me, even if you agree that one kind of data should be allowed and the other shouldn't.
      - tptacek 16y ago
        No, they were criminal enterprises because they violated multiple decades-old statutes in the US code. Moreover, speech (or links to speech) weren't restricted; only assets belonging to enterprises accused of copyright violations. And, again, the sites weren't simply "blacklisted", but rather had their assets sued for and seized in an actual civil action.
sudonim 16y ago
G'day mates... you should organize a mass protest in australia... go buy a bunch of wikileaks.org shirts and wear them in public like people did with the DeCSS shirt. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/08/37941 http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/08/37941
1010011010 16y ago
Australia: sigh. I used to think that a nation originally populated by England's criminals would be less likely to initiate stupid police actions like this than it seems to be -- but that was naive thinking on my part.
ScottBurson 16y ago
Easily circumvented; just link to a site that links to WikiLeaks. If many thousands of such sites appear, the government won't be able to keep up with them. EDIT: And if they try to outlaw the transitive closure of sites that link to WikiLeaks, they'll probably soon find that's most of the Web.
ElbertF 16y ago
I can access Wikileaks from Australia just fine, I guess the ban has been lifted since March '09 (the date of this article)?
- aik 16y ago
  Same here. Definitely not blocked anymore...
pg 16y ago
Why is it that 90% of the stories we hear involving Australia and technology are about stupid moves by the government? Is there something unique about Australia?
- bootload 16y ago
  "... Why is it that 90% of the stories we hear involving Australia and technology are about stupid moves by the government? Is there something unique about Australia? ..." Yes. Australian cultural DNA is a weird hybrid of the US, UK with it's own particular mutation. Despite being blessed with a large land mass, Australia is devoid of imagination and cannot successfully combine technology and entrepreneurship like the US. It has the smarts but lacks the sophistication of public relations and finance of the UK. At a political and business level we seem to get stuck with leaders who revel in being 50 years behind the times.
  - antipaganda 16y ago
    Yes, our finance system lacks sophistication, uhuh... which is why we banned credit default swaps BEFORE the financial crisis, and our banks were never in danger of collapse because of the currency reserves we make them hold. And our foreign debt is miniscule. So call us primitive if you like, but look at what your sophistication has brought you.
    - bootload 16y ago
      "... Yes, our finance system lacks sophistication, uhuh... ..." By lacking sophistication, I mean a system of alternative capital (VC) that fully recognises Startups as a serious way to generate wealth instead of say lending money for property development, mining or agriculture. "... So call [us] primitive if you like, but look at what your sophistication has brought you ..." I'm Australian ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157601280899273/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157601280899273...
      - antipaganda 16y ago
robryan 16y ago
The filter isn't mandatory at this time, I think some ISP's are either test running it or have done so in the past. It may not actually happen, at least for the next 3 years, it may not pass if they reintroduce the legislation.
nl 16y ago
Could the title of this be changed please? This was from March 2009 and is unrelated to the Wikileaks cablegate thing. (Having both on the same page is confusing a lot of people)
- mcantelon 16y ago
  Done.
chrismiller 16y ago
This article is from March 2009. I haven't heard of a single fine being issued for this. As a side note the internet filter mentioned in the article never received enough votes and the government minister in charge of the program conceded that it likely never will.
csomar 16y ago
The fine for linking to Wikileaks made me lol. And what if there isn't a link, one can do a Google Search and find the WikiLeaks website. It's not necessary that you make a link to the website, so you can access it. Second, people won't probably read Wikileaks directly but analysis and summaries by newspapers and blogs.
renai42 16y ago
Australia notes your criticism, Mr Graham, and would like to issue this politely worded statement in reply: http://bit.ly/hbnw3x http://bit.ly/hbnw3x
mkramlich 16y ago
Australia is one of the few so-called "good guy" Western/democratic countries that seems to be out-creepy-ifying the USA lately. And that's hard to do.
VladRussian 16y ago
>While Australia's list of blacklisted sites currently stands at 1,370, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that that list could increase to around 10,000 sites – most of which are of illegal pornographic content, but could also includes sites that house incendiary political discussions. yep. WikiLeaks is like a political pornography - in the sense that everybody knows about and does "it", yet it is a "bad" thing to publish details of "it".
toast76 16y ago
The article (as well as being old) is also false. "Currently, the ACMA list of prohibited URLs that is notified to accredited filter providers does not contain any URLs within the Wikileaks website," the ACMA told ZDNet Australia in a statement. "Since April 2010, the ACMA has investigated two complaints about specific pages of content on the Wikileaks website, which both resolved to content found to be not prohibited." http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklist-339307604.htm http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklis...

87 points by mcantelon 16y ago

STORY IS FAKE. Aussie here, I have access to wikileaks.org right now from my Sydney-based ISP. There is no internet censorship in Australia as the idea is politically dead for now. Yes, it wikileaks was added to a blacklist, one that is used by government employees at work. Basically no one uses that list. Submitter 'mcantelon' needs some banhammer for fake stories.

angusgr 16y ago
The story is correct, the headline is misleading. The article says it's on the ACMA blacklist, and if you link to a site on the blacklist from an Australian website then you are eligible to be fined. Whether anyone has since been fined for leaking to Wikileaks, I don't know. If/when our abomination of an internet filter idea comes in, then it will become blocked by the filter. I think 2013 is the soonest anyone thinks that will happen.
- angusgr 16y ago
  (article seems to have been shown incorrect/outdated as of today: http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklist-339307604.htm http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklis... )
mahmud 16y ago
Ditto, I am on Telstra's 3G in rural NSW; if I am being censored at all, it's by bandwidth costs.

thangalin 16y ago

(a) Google this: site:.gov.au blog +comments +submit -moderate (b) Pick a blog. For example: http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/11/18/independent-review-of-the-ict-reform-program-released/comment-page-1/ http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/11/18/independent-review-o... (c) Add a comment. For example: I am concerned that the rights of Australian citizens are being unjustly impinged. To fine someone $11k per day because they choose to link to a website is a slap in the face of free speech and free citizens of the world. <a href=http://www.wikileaks.org http://www.wikileaks.org >wikileaks.org</a>

pasbesoin 16y ago

"March 17th 2009"

iwr 16y ago

This is not just about Wikileaks, but all websites deemed objectionable by the government. Remember the original motive behind such laws: protecting children online.

jaysonelliot 16y ago
I'd call that less of a "motive" and more of a "rationalization."
- jacquesm 16y ago
  It's a fig-leaf.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Actually the scary thing is I think that it really is the motivation. Good intentions are usually the culprit when bad things happen.
adambyrtek 16y ago
Shouldn't there be some kind of due process to ensure that this power is not abused for censorship? Are there any organizations in Australia that fight against this law? It's a bit scary to see a developed nation implementing measures inspired by China.
- angusgr 16y ago
  Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) is one such organisation: http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filtering/ http://www.efa.org.au/category/censorship/mandatory-isp-filt... A lot of other NGOs have weighed on the issue as well, though.

jaysonelliot 16y ago

I often forget how much we take for granted our right to free speech in America, until I read a story from a country that doesn't have the same constitutional protections.

tst_ 16y ago
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1945352 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1945352
- tptacek 16y ago
  Not remotely comparable. In the story you linked to, assets linked to specific crimes committed in the US were seized using civil forfeiture rules (if they were in fact seized; see: stories suggesting this is a hoax). The owners of those domains received court orders and have ample due process protections. Ordinary citizens linking to those sites or to the new versions of those sites sure to be launched shortly aren't touched at all by these actions; the goal being to shut down ongoing criminal enterprises and not to stifle speech. Read analyses of the State Department Counsel's letter to Wikileaks to see that the government has had to stop short of even calling Wikileaks itself a criminal actor (the leak itself of those documents to WL being prima facie a crime, but not one WL has liability for). The largest media companies in the United States are publishing the contents of those documents, for profit, with virtually no legal exposure. Sorry. Australia sucks, at least on this axis.
  - chc 16y ago
    Some of those "criminal enterprises" were criminal only because they distributed data the US government said should not be distributed. WikiLeaks distributes data the Australian government has decided shouldn't be distributed. It sounds a little bit comparable to me, even if you agree that one kind of data should be allowed and the other shouldn't.
    - tptacek 16y ago
      No, they were criminal enterprises because they violated multiple decades-old statutes in the US code. Moreover, speech (or links to speech) weren't restricted; only assets belonging to enterprises accused of copyright violations. And, again, the sites weren't simply "blacklisted", but rather had their assets sued for and seized in an actual civil action.

sudonim 16y ago

G'day mates... you should organize a mass protest in australia... go buy a bunch of wikileaks.org shirts and wear them in public like people did with the DeCSS shirt. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/08/37941 http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2000/08/37941

1010011010 16y ago

Australia: sigh. I used to think that a nation originally populated by England's criminals would be less likely to initiate stupid police actions like this than it seems to be -- but that was naive thinking on my part.

ScottBurson 16y ago

Easily circumvented; just link to a site that links to WikiLeaks. If many thousands of such sites appear, the government won't be able to keep up with them. EDIT: And if they try to outlaw the transitive closure of sites that link to WikiLeaks, they'll probably soon find that's most of the Web.

ElbertF 16y ago

I can access Wikileaks from Australia just fine, I guess the ban has been lifted since March '09 (the date of this article)?

aik 16y ago
Same here. Definitely not blocked anymore...

pg 16y ago

Why is it that 90% of the stories we hear involving Australia and technology are about stupid moves by the government? Is there something unique about Australia?

bootload 16y ago
"... Why is it that 90% of the stories we hear involving Australia and technology are about stupid moves by the government? Is there something unique about Australia? ..." Yes. Australian cultural DNA is a weird hybrid of the US, UK with it's own particular mutation. Despite being blessed with a large land mass, Australia is devoid of imagination and cannot successfully combine technology and entrepreneurship like the US. It has the smarts but lacks the sophistication of public relations and finance of the UK. At a political and business level we seem to get stuck with leaders who revel in being 50 years behind the times.
- antipaganda 16y ago
  Yes, our finance system lacks sophistication, uhuh... which is why we banned credit default swaps BEFORE the financial crisis, and our banks were never in danger of collapse because of the currency reserves we make them hold. And our foreign debt is miniscule. So call us primitive if you like, but look at what your sophistication has brought you.
  - bootload 16y ago
    "... Yes, our finance system lacks sophistication, uhuh... ..." By lacking sophistication, I mean a system of alternative capital (VC) that fully recognises Startups as a serious way to generate wealth instead of say lending money for property development, mining or agriculture. "... So call [us] primitive if you like, but look at what your sophistication has brought you ..." I'm Australian ~ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157601280899273/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bootload/sets/72157601280899273...
    - antipaganda 16y ago

robryan 16y ago

The filter isn't mandatory at this time, I think some ISP's are either test running it or have done so in the past. It may not actually happen, at least for the next 3 years, it may not pass if they reintroduce the legislation.

nl 16y ago

Could the title of this be changed please? This was from March 2009 and is unrelated to the Wikileaks cablegate thing. (Having both on the same page is confusing a lot of people)

mcantelon 16y ago
Done.

chrismiller 16y ago

This article is from March 2009. I haven't heard of a single fine being issued for this. As a side note the internet filter mentioned in the article never received enough votes and the government minister in charge of the program conceded that it likely never will.

csomar 16y ago

The fine for linking to Wikileaks made me lol. And what if there isn't a link, one can do a Google Search and find the WikiLeaks website. It's not necessary that you make a link to the website, so you can access it. Second, people won't probably read Wikileaks directly but analysis and summaries by newspapers and blogs.

renai42 16y ago

Australia notes your criticism, Mr Graham, and would like to issue this politely worded statement in reply: http://bit.ly/hbnw3x http://bit.ly/hbnw3x

mkramlich 16y ago

Australia is one of the few so-called "good guy" Western/democratic countries that seems to be out-creepy-ifying the USA lately. And that's hard to do.

VladRussian 16y ago

>While Australia's list of blacklisted sites currently stands at 1,370, the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that that list could increase to around 10,000 sites – most of which are of illegal pornographic content, but could also includes sites that house incendiary political discussions. yep. WikiLeaks is like a political pornography - in the sense that everybody knows about and does "it", yet it is a "bad" thing to publish details of "it".

toast76 16y ago

The article (as well as being old) is also false. "Currently, the ACMA list of prohibited URLs that is notified to accredited filter providers does not contain any URLs within the Wikileaks website," the ACMA told ZDNet Australia in a statement. "Since April 2010, the ACMA has investigated two complaints about specific pages of content on the Wikileaks website, which both resolved to content found to be not prohibited." http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklist-339307604.htm http://www.zdnet.com.au/wikileaks-removed-from-acma-blacklis...