Clinton shines light on Aussie filter

James Riley
Monday, 25 January 2010 09:42

Opinion and Analysis

It's not everyday a humble Communications Minister from Australia finds himself on the wrong side of comments made by a US Secretary of State. But that's where Stephen Conroy landed last week.

So he did what any politician in that situation would do: He issued a statement welcoming Hilary Clinton's speech and lauding her comments.

It was, of course, the week in which the Australian Government's internet filter plans got mixed up in the muddied waters of the growing Google-China-internet espionage outrage and the attention it has brought to China's censoring policies.

Secretary Clinton's lament that China filtered internet content to the extent that it does naturally shone an unflattering light on Australia’s own filtering plans – not least because China's justifications for its filtering sound not unlike Australia's. It's done in the name of safety.

Still, the Clinton speech must have led to some uncomfortable moments of silence inside the Minister's office as staff sought a reasonable response.

And of course, there it was, with the Clinton clause: "Now, all societies recognize that free expression has its limits."

Clinton talked about how the US does "not tolerate those who incite others to violence," does not tolerate hate-speech, and is still grappling with the issue of "anonymous speech." And that it does not tolerate online theft and distribution of intellectual property.

"Those who use the internet to recruit terrorists or distribute stolen intellectual property cannot divorce their online actions from their real world identities. But these challenges must not become an excuse for governments to systematically violate the rights and privacy of those who use the internet for peaceful political purposes," Clinton said.

And so it was that Senator Conroy pointed to the importance of political and religious freedom as a central cornerstone of any democracy – before moving straight to a justification for the Rudd Government’s own filter plans:

"Australians have always recognised that there is some content which is not acceptable in any civilised society," Senator Conroy said in a statement. "In Australia the National Classification Board (NCB) determines the National Classification Scheme’s Guidelines, at arms length from Government, which defines Refused Classification content. The NCB reviews those Guidelines periodically to ensure they reflect community standards."

"RC-rated material includes child sex abuse content, bestiality, sexual violence including rape and the detailed instruction of crime or drug use. It does not include political content or discussion. It is already illegal in Australia to distribute, sell or make available for hire RC-rated films, computer games and publications."

Senator Conroy has already outlined the Government's fairly limited filter plan, which will use a simple complaints-based blacklist system. It will soon outline details of the transparency and oversight mechanisms for the operation of the blacklist.

Clinton's speech would indeed have caused some uncomfortable moments for the Rudd Government, and has probably done more to cause some second thoughts about the filter plan within the Rudd Cabinet than any of the ineffective campaigning from the net community.

But it presents a huge opportunity for the anti-filter campaigners to seize on the Clinton speech as a demonstration that Australia risks marching out of step with the rest of the world on this issue.

It's a message that should be put in front of Senators from both sides of the aisle. There is a lot of discomfort about the filtering plan, and while Clinton didn’t make any new arguments, she is, after all, the US’s most powerful foreign policy official after Obama.

And she carries a big stick.