In response to your four page Internet Filtering letter mailed in reply to my email last year, I would like to reiterate my concern at the time and money being spent on a project which appears to be ignoring several key issues.

To begin you’ve fail to recognise that filtering and censorship are one and the same. I do support your commitment to increased law enforcement, prosecution, education, resources and research however the technical implications, cost and ineffectiveness of filtering continue to see my strong opposition to this idea.

Whilst I agree with many of the concerns behind your policy, the need and viability for a government imposed compulsory internet censoring system is where this agreement ends. I do not support my taxes funding this scheme and would be interested to know what would decisively change your mind on the implementation of this scheme? If an answer to this key question can be provided I’d be especially grateful. I hope you agree that with any proposal or project the ability to consider a point at which continuing would be ill-advised.

You seem to be strongly supporting the idea of filtering despite tests to prove its viability falling well short of acceptable targets. So I hope to reassure you that the package without compulsory filtering will show a commitment to safety of children online and be supported by the many other sectors of society who have no misguided fear or emotional response to certain claims being thrown around.

The internet is so much more than the web pages you and most internet users are familiar with and I hope that you have advisers which can bring home this point. Paedophilia is an illegal and unacceptable activity and (I would contend that it is for this point precisely that) in my years of extensive use of the internet recreationally, professionally and academically I have never unintentionally encountered material of this nature.

As requested above, what would lead to a reversal of your support for the compulsory filtering components of your proposed cyber-safety measures?

Regards
James Fehon

Is the minister aware of the censorship and inadvertantly restrictive effect of the British model so called “Clean Feed” earlier this week?

95% of British internet users were prevented from excercising free speach in editing Wikipedia because of one organisations decision that an image (a CD cover which incidently is available on other sites such as Amazon and can be purchased) was inappropriate.

You can read about it on smh.com.au but basically content that wasn’t considered offensive elsewhere on the internet effected access to the whole site [1].
Internet censorship at a national or provider level is not viable nor necessary nor supported by me or any of the people I’ve talked to (that’s at least 20 of my friends and colleagues).

I’d hope to see freedom of expression included in a Human Rights Act, the consultation for which was announced on Wednesday, and there’s no way your “Clean Feed” is going to fit with such a right.
Don’t bother – let the idea die and get working on a world class broadband network for this Country

Regards
James Fehon