The Death Of Freedom in Australia

Two things: 1) How long until this catches on with the governments of other supposedly "free" countries? 2) When is the last time you heard a politician proudly use the word blacklist?

From the Herald-Sun:

AUSTRALIA'S mandatory net filter is being primed to block 10,000 websites as part of a blacklist of unspecified "unwanted content".

Some 1300 websites have already been identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority...

"The pilot will specifically test filtering against the ACMA blacklist of prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content," Senator Conroy told Parliament today.

"While the ACMA blacklist is currently around 1300 URLs, the pilot will test against this list - as well as filtering for a range of URLs to around 10,000 - so that the impacts on network performance of a larger blacklist can be examined."

Bronzino: Unwanted content?
Though an absolute disgrace, this tyrannical crime is hardly surprising. Anyone who thought China would corner the market on internet censorship was kidding themselves. When people can speak freely, governments get nervous.

"But no, Sean, it's about protecting people from child pornography." Uh-huh. You can buy that line of bull if you want to. Just tell me what the "other unwanted content" is going to be?

With this new rule, Australians have sold their souls as a free people. They should be ashamed of themselves.

(Psst. Hey Aussie guys. Quick. Screen-capture this criticism so you can read it in the future.)