where do these people come from?
censorship of any sort has a very sorry history and is always counter productive. As soon as you censor something more people want to see it and more people find ways to meet that demand - as china, saudi, iran etc. have found.
The only way this bottom aperture can succeed is to hobble the internet in his country or break the internet globally
click on picture for associated article
As Bill Thompsons say's
Meanwhile anyone with a technological bent can download whole series of US programmes via BitTorrent or buy them from Apple, Sony or Microsoft.
We could easily find ourselves in a situation where anyone in the UK (or aussieland? - mdws) who wants to use the net creatively has to use an offshore server to host their content and then tell their friends about how to access it using a proxy server that gets around Mr Burnham's ( or Conroy's) proposed legislation.
Fortunately we know how to do that, because political dissidents in China perfected the techniques in order to bypass the Great Firewall. It would be a tragedy if an ill-informed Culture Secretary puts us (or aussies) in the same situation. 
full article here
the peni5 has already run into problems with the international community:-
WIKILEAKS PRESS RELEASE (for immediate release)
Thu Mar 19 23:07:20 EDT 2009
"Wikileaks to Conroy: Go after our source and we will go after you."
The Stockholm based publisher of Wikileaks today issued a warning to the Australian Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Steven Conroy, who is responsible for Australian internet censorship.
Senator Conroy issued an official media release yesterday in response to Wikileaks' release of last year's confidential Australian internet censorship blacklist. The Senator said that his department, "is investigating this matter and is considering a range of possible actions it may take including referral to the Australian Federal Police. Any Australian involved in making this content publicly available would be at serious risk of criminal prosecution."
The Senator is perhaps unware of the legal and diplomatic risks associated with the statement.
Sunshine Press Legal Adviser Jay Lim stated:
"Under the Swedish Constitution's Press Freedom Act, the right of a confidential press source to anonymity is protected, and criminal penalties apply to anyone acting to breach that right.
Wikileaks source documents are received in Sweden and published from Sweden so as to derive maximum benefit from this legal protection. Should the Senator or anyone else attempt to discover our source we will refer the matter to the Constitutional Police for prosecution, and, if necessary, ask that the Senator and anyone else involved be extradited to face justice for breaching fundamental rights."
Senator Conroy may wish to consider the position of the South African Competition Commission, which decided to cancel its own high profile leak investigation in January after being advised of the legal ramifications of interfering with Sunshine Press sources.
See:
- Australian government secret ACMA internet censorship blacklist, 6 Aug 2008
- There is no bigger issue than net censorship
- Bank Fees: Banking on silence
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