The recent shift of attacks on internet services and ISPs from our beloved Professor of the Portal Stephen Conroy to Attorney General Robert McClelland is no small thing.
If I was being generous I could say that Conroy was FUBARing it so well that he has been demoted to sing back up to the Attorney General’s more credible media performances. But the change from Communications Minister to Attorney General changes the frame in which the issue is being discussed: from the fluffy and clean frame of communication and technology to a more serious frame of law and order.
In short: if the main spokesperson against the internet is the AG, then Rudd is effectively declaring war on teh internetz.
Think about it: what subjects does the AG talk about? The federal police, crime, terrorists, law, judges, terrorism, interpol, child pornography, people smugglers and did I mention terrorists?
So if the AG is singing lead against Google, Facebook and ISPs, then Google, Facebook and ISPs must be inherently evil. Like terrorists. And child pornographers.
Ok, it’s a simplistic way of looking at things, but the fact is that people only hear soundbites. If it is the AG talking about investigations in to Google, then they must have done something very very bad… they must have broken the law.
If it is the communications minister attacking Google, it’s just some stuff on the internet that the average Australian doesn’t give two hoots about, and probably just retribution because they’ve been attacking him over the utterly stupid proposed mandatory internet filter.
These latest moves are easily explained: the latest issues of breach of privacy referred to the AFP (so refer it, why does the AG need to comment?); the move to further violate Australian’s privacy by requiring ISPs to record and keep everything their customers do online for up to 2 years is so the AFP can get those records whenever they want… presumably to track down those pesky child pornographers who seem to dictate all communications policy in this country.
But it also adds more weight to a concern that I have voiced previously: the Rudd Government doesn’t get the internet.
As a nation we need to be moving to better understanding the technology, it’s capabilities, limitations and opportunities: not encouraging Australians to be afraid of it or think of it as being an evil thing. By getting the AG to go after internet services like Google and internet users through this insane and completely impractical idea of logging everything we do, we further push the internet and everyone on it in to that category of things that must be stopped.
The irrationality of trying to pitch internet users and service providers as evil and undermining our society is, to me, just as bad and hopeless as trying to paint refugees as people doing illegal things and an evil that must be stopped. But as we all know, political rhetoric can be a powerful thing, and so long as a good number of Australians are not online, or maybe have basic access to get emails and do their banking but don’t consider themselves ‘internet users’, this kind of rhetoric can take hold.
Rudd has obviously decided that his target audience doesn’t understand the internet and are worried about what their kids get up to online… so is upgrading the rhetoric to one of war.
If it’s war he wants, it is war he’ll get. But as Rudd doesn’t understand the internet, and doesn’t care about things online, I fear that he’ll be warring offline, and the united movement of Australian internet users fighting to protect rights and freedoms will be warring online.
The two need to meet on some kind of battlefield for the good and right (ie Australians fighting unnecessary and unjustified oppression and violation of privacy) to win.
End Rant.
Follow the issue of the proposed data retention regime on Twitter with the hashtag #ozlog
Begin Rant: 
If you want an example of changing frame: look at the position title of who wrote the data retention regime story for the SMH. Wasn’t a tech reporter. http://www.smh.com.au/national/government-plans-to-monitor-without-court-authorisation-20100611-y3lq.html
What about the lawns of parliament house?
It does appear that they have declared war and not just on the Internet. This move, although about Internet data, goes far beyond the Internet. This issue goes to the role of government and breaks down the long established rule of citizens being able to go about their daily lives without surveillance or interference as long as they conduct themselves within the rules and laws of the land.
Indiscriminate state mandated surveillance of the population is never acceptable, for it to be even contemplated raises serious questions. The laws of the land and law enforcement are there to protect what Australians want Australia to be, this proposal is a greater attack on that than any act of terrorism. It is insidious and comes from within our own government and a betrayal of an unforgivable kind.
Particularly relevant is that we are becoming embroiled in a war over democracy, not technology.
Just because it is possible to do something does not make it acceptable.
Australians would not accept having all their postal mail intercepted, read, censored and the postal service retain a copy for years in case of a legal need.
We equally not wish all of our phone calls recorded or to be followed by informants or video cameras.
However the risk is that by applying the term ‘technology’ Australians will allow the government far more invasive powers to monitor what we say, do and think – as well as what we can see and hear.
Democracy is not always lost in a cataclysmic shift, it can be eroded over time until our children accept a police state as the natural situation.
The Rudd government scares me, and my fears for my children grow every day. I fear the government’s casual slide into the denial of democratic freedoms far more than the actions of criminals or corporations.
When a people begin having grounds to fear their government like this our democracy is at stake.
Unfortunately we appear to have little in the way of alternative from the Liberals, whose commitment to democracy seems only slightly better than the commitment we are seeing from Labor.
I have little optimism for the future of Australian democracy.
Every government should scare you in their current states. I’m not saying this as some sort of 9/11 reptile idiot but generally its been shown that governments are always ‘right’ (as in rightwing) to the opinions of their populations (Harvard Vanishing Voter project I think). Alot of voters thought Bush was for Kyoto for example because he was ‘nice’.
We also do not live in a democracy. Robert Dahl would call us a polyarchy which is a very strict representative democracy. We have the choice essentially between two people who differ on a few issues. But what issues do they differ on? Asylum seekers, workchoices, etc etc etc. While Labor opposes workchoices it still has the bastard child of workchoices inside of its current policy now so theres not a huge change. Currently we are in a system of elite decision and public ratification.
A democracy would imply that the people are choosing over issues that *effect* them. A true democracy would not have the unrest that we currently have now because the people would have a choice. Not the choice between two parties of the same ‘elite’ with their own interests.