Australian government representatives have recently met US officials in Washington to discuss concerns over the forthcoming internet censorship regime raised by the US ambassador to Australia and the US State Department.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has come under increasing pressure to reveal the content of discussions with US officials after the US State Department said it had "raised concerns" with Australia and the US ambassador said net censorship
was not necessary.
On ABC's
Q&A program this month, US ambassador Jeffrey Bleich said the same goals set out by the government on cyber safety could be achieved without censorship. Bleich said the US was willing to "share our efforts" with Australia.
He said: "The internet needs to be free. It needs to be free the way we have said the skies have to be free, outer space has to be free, the polar caps have to be free, the oceans have to be free. They're shared resources of all the people of the world."
In a letter to Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, Queensland Liberal Senator Sue Boyce pressured the government to release more details of its discussions with the US.
Conroy had said that the US State Department asked for "background information only" on the filtering policy.
"I find it difficult to reconcile a statement that the US government had 'raised concerns' with Minister Conroy's assertion that the US government had only asked for 'background information'," Boyce wrote.
"It is a deplorable situation when Australians have to rely upon the frankness of a foreign diplomat to provide information about bilateral discussions on a very important matter because relevant Australian ministers either dissemble or just refuse to say anything."
A spokeswoman for Smith directed all requests for comment to Conroy's office. Conroy's spokeswoman confirmed that Australian and US officials "have met in Washington to discuss the issue recently".
The spokeswoman would not reveal further details of the discussions but questioned Bleich's comments that Australia's goal was to capture and prosecute child pornographers.
"The government has never claimed ISP filtering is about catching paedophiles; it is about blocking inadvertent access to abhorrent content which includes child sexual abuse content," Conroy's spokeswoman said.
"Australia is not alone in its approach and we applaud the European Commission that announced just last week that it would require members states to ensure that websites containing child pornography are blocked."
The government plans to introduce legislation to enable the internet filtering policy in the second half of the year. It will require ISPs to block a blacklist of banned "refused classification" (RC) websites for all Australians.
Unlike the system in some other countries, which is typically limited to child porn, it is feared the Australian model to block RC content is much broader and will cover innocuous material such as euthanasia and abortion sites or graffiti videos on YouTube.
Conroy believes he is
simply applying offline classification rules to the online world, saying you can't access RC material on DVD, in libraries, at the cinema, on television or at newsagents.
But unlike in those mediums, the internet blacklist will not give citizens the chance to find out what is censored and why.
Critics of the government's policy, including Lake Macquarie councillor Anthony Birt, who has written to Liberal MPs imploring them to oppose the legislation, say the filter will not address the major cyber safety concerns of parents.
Colin Jacobs, chairman of the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia, said he was mystified as to why trying to regulate the global internet like an Australian newsagent was a priority for the government.
"As the dialogue with the US indicates, trying to do so is doomed to fail and completely ignores the enormous benefits we reap from keeping the internet open," Jacobs said.
"They are now defending the policy on the basis that it will stop people 'accidentally' stumbling across abhorrent material. That's an astoundingly weak justification for more censorship, and the filter won't even be able to accomplish that."
Birt questioned whether children were, as Conroy claims, stumbling across child pornography and noted that the filters would do nothing to stop the distribution of child porn over other means such as email, chat programs, BitTorrent and peer-to-peer networks.
He said parents who were concerned about content their children were viewing online could already install software filters and website blockers on their computers.
"So we have a proposal that will do nothing to prevent the real problem of child pornography, which exists outside the scope of this filter, and nothing to prevent children from real cyber safety concerns," Birt wrote.
"And while not achieving its major objective, this system will simultaneously restrict free speech and access to legal content and controversial material on the internet, in a secret way behind closed doors with no accountability."