That’s like saying the the president of the united states of america would not pass a bill exonerating him of war crimes related to the torture of POWs protected by the geneva convention, simply because that would be too risky. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHQ7Prwh7Gc]

It it obvious that even if the filters are introduced on the condition that it will just block child pornography, it is only a matter of time before it extends to other things. Fielding is already calling for pro-anorexia websites to be included in the block list.

In the the UK where such filters exist groups are calling for the filters to extend to radical islamic websites. I mean if the law says we can block one thing that is illegal, why can’t we block all illegal organizations websites?

It is like saying just because the police can hold a terror suspect for a certain amount of time with out charge, it doesn’t mean that they will. The federal police held suspect Mohamed Haneef for as long as they could and still wanted to detain him for even longer if they could. After this whole affair also the police criticized the media for publishing mistakes in the investigation etc but this is another topic altogether.

When they were debating the introduction of capsicum spray for the police force they always showed that scene of a crim with a knife threatening police and how the police are able to use pepper spray to subdue him in a non-lethal fashion.

Then you have a police woman who gets scared of a few rowdy fans at a tennis match and she lets loose with the spray.

Child Wise’s Bernadette McMenamin says it is better to have something rather than nothing to protect children right?

Not when it effects every law abiding internet user in the country.

Why should every internet users connection be forced to use a filter that WILL effect performance because it might stop some people from viewing material that is already illegal. If a law abiding citizen is capable of staying away from illegal material, why shouldn’t he/she be able to have access an internet connection of the maximum capable performance that the technology of the time allows?

The internet is an area that politicians have always had trouble understanding. The strength of the internet is that it is a medium of complete freedom. Where bloggers can maintain anonymity and express their opinions.

Bottom line. Censoring the internet in any way, shape or form is something that has no place in a free country.

And on the subject of political censoring… in Australia, the 3rd most developed nation on earth, political and/or illegitimate censoring would never happen, why? Because we have a society and media obsessed with freedom (not to mention opposition forces), and if such occurred, it would be exposed in a very short amount of time, be on the front page of every paper in the nation/world and the next Newspoll would not be a good one! It is simply too big of a risk, and politicians are smart enough not to take that risk (thats if they even want to, which is all speculation, as well).

If we start censoring subject A now, who is to say the infrastructure won’t be used to censor politically sensitive subject B further down the line? A slippery slope argument, to be sure, but a valid question.

The curtailing of liberties starts small, with apparently positive intentions. Don’t be fooled.

So Tom, you’re saying that the wellbeing of kids is paramount. The problem here is that the proposed system WILL NOT prevent kids getting hold of porn. It WILL NOT prevent kids finding pro-anorexia sites.

It may well, however, block sites that teach kids about puberty, sexual health, sexuality and other ideas that make fundamentalist religious people nervous.

So the proposed system does not meet your criteria. It will negatively impact the wellbeing of kids, while not protecting them from (what you consider to be) nasty content.

And although freedom is theoretically a nice concept, its annoying, appalling and can be more dangerous than the opposite.

Anything possible can happen, complete freedom is anarchy – and although this anarchy is not too widespread, it certainly exists on the internet and can have some effect.

In an ideal world (like Australia) the setup is; Freedom to the extent that does not harm anybody including yourself – which is ideal.

Making sure the wellbeing of kids is not negatively impacted is the imperative – and that is simply more important than free access to information. Saying that, we need to understand what will be the most effective way of positively harnessing this freedom whilst keeping wellbeing high – and filtering will not achieve that, rather, education will.