by Metiria Turei
Thomas Beagle sent me an email about Net censorship which has taken me a while to respond to. But since the issue is so significant, I thought I would respond here. Thomas has exposed the issue publicly though an OIA and provided significant information about it.
The Department of Internal Affairs has undertaken a trial of web filtering, which they consider quite successful. Although the Minister has said he isn’t pursuing the Australian model, (they have had net filtering for some time), nonetheless the money has been allocated to roll it out here. I understand that most ISP’s have voluntarily agreed to take part. But they will be doing so in such a way that they will not also provide a parallel, filter-free service to the public.
There should be an option of a filter-free process provided to the public.
Here is my response to Thomas questions:
Do you support the Department of Internal Affair’s plans to implement internet filtering?
No, the Green Party sees the role of ISPs as common carriers and that ISPs should not be made responsible for content that passes through their networks or for material on web sites which they host.
If the Post Office doesn’t have to filter its post, ISP’s shouldn’t be required to either. It appears to be an expensive, ineffective technological fix for a social problem, when there are cheaper and arguably more effective ways to tackle the problem.
Is it appropriate for the DIA to be doing this even though the law doesn’t allow for it?
It is appropriate for the DIA to investigate the options in carrying out their mandate. They should, however, seek authority from parliament before implementing something for which they have no prescribed powers.
Should it be compulsory for the filtering to be used by all internet service providers?
No. Green Party Policy explicitly states that ISPs must, within the constraints of legal requirements, provide a censorship free service for users who do not want any form of censorship.
Should the list of banned sites be made available to the public?
Yes it should. There is an argument that making such lists public only encourages the activity being discouraged – although if the sites are blocked what difference does it make? However, the Green Party supports transparent, independent oversight of government functions. If such a list was to be maintained, the Green Party would also want some form of cross party parliamentary or other independent oversight body for the list and an appropriate appeals process well defined in law.
If not, how else would you suggest that the list be checked to ensure that inappropriate sites don’t creep in as has happened in Australia and the United Kingdom?
The inclusion of inappropriate sites, such as social and political commentary sites, or sites included by simple mistake is a serious concern. That sort of creep is very possible and is why the list should be scrutinised by the public and a legitimate appeal process established. And again, a filter free service should be provided.
Currently the DIA claims it’s only for child pornography. If you support filtering, what other categories do you think should be added to the filter? (Some possibilities: bestiality, BDSM, sex with urine/faeces, euthanasia methods, pro-anorexia, holocaust denial, movie piracy, racist hate groups).
Hence the problem, where is the line drawn and by whom? How much
do we really trust a government agency to make these decisions
for us, in secret? I understand that the DIA intends to use the
the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993
and the definition of “Objectionable” material, which says
a publication is objectionable if it describes, depicts, expresses, or otherwise deals with matters such as sex, horror, crime, cruelty, or violence in such a manner that the availability of the publication is likely to be injurious to the public good.
At least with the Office of Film and Literature Classification we get to know the process by which the decisions are made and what is banned or restricted. Without the same level of disclosure the same law is used but the rules are applied very differently.
The Films Classification Act is designed for a world where the bandwidth for communication is very narrow. That is no longer the case and so the simple application of the old rules, whether censorship or copyright, are inappropriate and largely ineffective. We are in a new technological time and need new systems and standards.
Published in Justice & Democracy | Society & Culture by Metiria Turei on Fri, July 17th, 2009
Tags: Censorship, Internal Affairs, internet, Metiria Turei, Parliament
More posts by Metiria Turei | more about Metiria Turei
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
So websites like http://www.staysafe.co.nz/ may be banned??
Come on Nats…..
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On the surface, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with blocking access to child pornography. However, the is a strong risk that site that have nothing to do with that end up on the blocked list (are all 7000 unpublished address actually child pornography?),or that there is scope creep (well, it doesn’t cost any more to block this other stuff too …).
It’s a bit of an old site, but http://peacefire.org/ has a lot of information about website blocking, although it’s aimed at the computer/institution level, not filtering for a whole country.
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City of Hotels
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I also agree that there is absolutely no place for Internet censorship in a free society and I have written about that here ( http://www.geekzone.co.nz/foobar/6637 ). However, I should point out a few issues with the Green party’s statement about this. It’s important to keep things technically correct in this discussion, so please allow me to explain (since it’s worse than you had described).
Firstly, under this scheme, the ISPs are actually NOT being made responsible to filter any traffic. They are merely accomplices: A DIA computer is going to send special instructions to the network infrastructure (routers) in the ISP, which then automatically makes these routers direct some specific traffic to go to that DIA computer. There, the data can be filtered, examined, accesses can be logged, etc. The responsibility for the actual filtering is therefore with the DIA. So, less worries and responsibilities for the ISPs.
On the other hand, what this amounts to is that ISPs send some of our Internet traffic into some mysterious, completely closed down, government-run computer, without any insight and oversight and transparency. Since the ISPs do not have to do the filtering themselves, the list of filtered sites only needs to be kept at that one DIA computer, and so is actually much more secret than it was in Australia, where it had to be handed out to the ISPs and consequently leaked at some point.
If you want to continue the analogy with the post office: No, it wouldn’t be the post office that opens and inspects the letters. Instead, the correct scenario goes like this: A mysterious government office instructs the post office to take all mail directed to the Green Party’s headquarters and first deliver it to that government office’s address. The sack of mail goes in and the doors close. In that office, all the mail is opened and examined, entirely in secret and without any oversight. Some of the letters are rejected (a return note is prepared to the sender) and some of the mail is is just closed up again. Then the post office is being told to pick up this filtered sack of mail and deliver it on to the Green Party’s headquarters and to send any rejection notes back to the senders.
See, the post office is an accomplice in this case, not the one doing the filtering. Same with the ISPs and the DIA server that does the filtering.
Secondly, you state that the list of sites should be made public, because if the access to them is filtered then it doesn’t make a difference that they are public.
There is a logical fallacy here: The filtering that is proposed by the DIA can still be easily circumvented, if you know how to do so and are interested in doing this. Therefore, making the list public would indeed give people a place to go and look.
But here as well: Those who really want to see this kind of sick material will know how to get to it. Most of these sites is password protected or passed around in a word-of-mouth sort of way. Normal people DO NOT stumble across those sites on the Internet, since these sites are always closed! You can’t just accidentally step into one of them! At the same time, people who really want to see those sites have ways around the government’s filtering attempts.
So, this shows us that (a) the filtering doesn’t work and (b) doesn’t protect anyone from anything (since nobody needed to be protected against accidentally seeing this).
Most of these sites are located on service providers who have no idea what is being stored in one of their accounts. These service providers are in countries were this kind of material is illegal already (it’s illegal almost everywhere). Therefore, a much more efficient way to deal with this content is to call up the provider and inform them what has been found on their servers. Most of them will voluntarily remove it and close that account very quickly. This has been tested in Europe with some of the leaked lists there: Activists called up the hosting providers and told them what is being stored on their servers. The providers were just as disgusted and instantly removed the content. This works! You don’t need to go through the authorities in those other countries (another strawman that is presented often) and it’s very quick and simple. It also takes the content down for good, making it impossible for anyone to get to it. Much more effective.
The fact that the DIA could do the same thing, but chooses not to do so should make us stop and think: Why is an ineffective censorship infrastructure put in place, if a simple phone call or email to the providers would work much better? The answer is that the purpose of the exercise is to install censorship and make it accepted by the people (“… we are protecting the children!”). In reality, not a single child will be protected or will be harmed less because of this. Instead, we just end up losing freedoms and allowing the start of a government controlled censorship on the Internet, the most revolutionary communication medium the world has ever seen.
It’s not about child-porn, it’s not about protecting people, it’s not about the children. This is just the ruse that allows the government to install a universally usable censorship infrastructure.
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Because this is a DIA intitive being undertaken with ISPs cooperation, there is no need for any law change or oversight mechanism.
If you dont like what is happening, you can make a difference today – if you are with an ISP who is or will support the scheme, move ISPs, and tell your old and new ISPs why you are moving. The CEO of Orcon, the ISP I use replied to my question as “At this stage no, but we are following the debate and developments closely.” which is better than the positions that Ihug, Watchdog, Maxnet and TelstraClear have taken in activly censoring our internet.
In short, if all ISPs adopt this scheme (or the Government mandates they do, or simply mandates that routers on the edge of NZ’s internet comply) then NZ will have access to the internet controlled. Or the government could take control at the edge of incoming BGP notifications so downstream ISPs have no opportunity to opt out.
Ok, there are a million and one ways for end-users to circumvent this scheme, but the average Joe doesn’t understand how (or when) it is necessary to undertake this.
I would suggest Iran wishes it had a system like NZ is getting so it could manage those pesky twitterites and other social networkers who are using high tech comms to ruffle the Iranian government’s feathers. The Ruskies had it right all those years ago when they put armed guards by photocopiers and fax machines. Stopping the free flow of information is an extraordinarily powerful too for a government to have, and I cant believe anyone would agree that the NZ government should have this tool at its disposal.
But because this isn’t a law change but just something that a bunch of cooperating enterties are engaging in, there seems to be little coverage, and even a lesser chance to object.
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Like the Catholic church was centuries ago.
If our governments want to improve our society they need look no further than the curent need to increase our police greatly and put more of them on the streets to discourage youth street gangs and to foster the impression that good people are safe as they used to be 30 years ago.
Or even put that resource into arresting every gangmember who rides past on an exhaustless Harley, weaving in and out of the traffic thumbing their noses at the law (as they do in all other areas of life aswell).
The government wants to monitor my internet usage?? I say no. Judge me by the fruit of my actions, not by the images that pop up on my screen.
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From what you say the Department of Internal Affairs is just using the child porn and devient sites as a pretext to have the power and authority to censor our e-mails and worse looking into mail bags?
I am glad Slingshot is not mentioned above I may give them a call and make some enquiries.
I think this is an attack on our freedom of speech.
A few weeks ago on ANZAC day one of the WP students of Victoria University had burnt the NZ flag and posted their reasons for that action on their website.
This outraged the faculty and resulted in those students being expelled.
Does this mean that the above activists could have all their e-mails chunted off to the DIA computer (via the ISP0) because the government or university faculty doesn’t like their style of protest?
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I don’t think this is well thought out, and I do think that we need to demand that at the very least, a list of the blocked sites is published to parliament so that every member of parliament has access to it and can determine if there are sites which are not legitimately required to be there.
The problem with this is that even with the list, you cannot be certain that you have received a true list. The method includes the ability for any tech at the DIA filter site, to manipulate the list provided or the sites affected.
I hate the idea of trusting anyone to not mess with my information flow and I expect I will be discussing this with my ISP very soon.
respectfully
BJ
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Most other schemes require the block list to be distributed, with this scheme the block list need ever appear anywhere where it can be seen. Empirically determining what sites are blocked would be an almost impossible job.
Drakula notes “Does this mean that the above activists could have all their e-mails chunted off to the DIA computer (via the ISP0) because the government or university faculty doesn’t like their style of protest?”
Two different scenarios.
Yers, with this scheme the government can intercept mail to particular targets (eg Hotmail) quite easily. All that would be required is for the DIA to send out a set of BGP routes for hotmail’s email servers pointing to the DIAs filtering network to cooperating ISPs, and purchase a Deep Packet Inspection machine and that could inspect or apply policy to the traffic then flowing throgh the DIAs filtering network. This inspection would not appear in the headers of emails (only SMTP servers on the route are recorded, not network paths) so you wouldn’t know it had happened.
This doesn’t affect the position at a University: when someone becomes a student (or a member of staff) at a Uni they agree to abide by the Uni’s policies, and the Uni will probably already have the right and capability to investigate staff or student mail enshrined in policy.
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You are suspected of extreme sarcasm.
The technical bit IS admirable. It leaves about as small a footprint in the traffic as is possible.
The people-governance-freedom-of-information bit is reprehensible and poorly thought through. It is not permissible IMAO, to have a government agency, without any independent oversight or controls making up lists of what we can and cannot see.
That is a recipe’ for handing power to the state such that no real democracy can long survive. It makes the election funding issue look like a marshmallow fight.
respectfully
BJ
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Absolutely its reprehensible. But without any lawmaking activity whatsoever it is here. Without any opportunity for the electorate to even make a submission on the issue, no select committees, no votes, no protests, without any need whatsoever for any MP to get their hands dirty, its here, and has been for as long as two years. In what way (from the government perspective) is that not brilliant?
“That is a recipe’ for handing power to the state such that no real democracy can long survive. It makes the election funding issue look like a marshmallow fight.”
This is the interesting one. Will there be any fight at all? Because of the lack of lawmaking or policymaking involvement, the beehive’s hands are clean. As the scheme is voluntary (cue the Tui billboard) the powers that be will argue that there is no issue as one has a freedom of choice to use ISPs that aren’t in the scheme. At least for now….
“Should a little internet censorship as part of a crackdown on child pornography and thus protecting children be a good thing to have in New Zealand?”
I bet 80%+ of the population would agree with that CIR question, as the powers that be will attempt to bury any awareness of what this actually means. Even if what this censorship thing were to come to light then you have the next sheeple barrier, which is “If you’re doing nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to hide”.
I dispair for New Zealand and what this means to our freedoms, but cannot help but admire the brilliance of the master plan.
At least this is getting an airing on frogblog now – when I first mentioned it it was just an ignored lone post…
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Nah.
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- “the problem is that he either doesn’t understand or willfully ignores the differences between the three situations ”
The “difference” appears to be that you just happen to agree with two of them, but not the third.
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Quite the contrary: I’m looking at the underlying principle of state censorship.
It will be interesting to see how you frame your objection if the government imposes some additional censorship that you don’t support: since you have failed to reject the principle, it cannot amount to anything more than a spluttering “but I don’t agree with it!”
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It is nice that you can put together all those irretrievably unrelated things into a neat sound bite, but it isn’t particularly edifying.
What is dangerous to democracy, the planet, the society you live in, or the people in it?
On the basis of your posts to date, the idea that you could identify any of the relevant threats seems pretty far-fetched.
BJ
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So, you’d support the banning of pornography by a democratically elected government?
You’d support the censorship of material from unpopular “extreme” political groups?
You’d support the banning of Christian religous tracts by populist Muslim governments?
bjchip,
- “the EFA and the Beer and Fags business was about money changing hands for ADVERTISING and had publicly defined scrutiny and clear limits, while the issue of actual state censorship doesn’t have any possibility of public scrutiny or limit.”
Your argument – ‘It was paid for, therefore the state can censor it’ – is a complete non sequiteur.
It’s like me saying ‘this material was written by foreigners, therefore the state can censor it’, then sitting back and imagining that I’ve presented an irrefutable argument. It doesn’t follow.
It’s only in your mind that you think you’ve presented an argument. In reality, you haven’t.
There used to be some brave Christians who risked their liberty smuggling bibles into Communist countries. That’s right, bibles which were paid for by the organisation. You can see where this is going…
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I’d invite discussion from all concerned and arrive (hopefully) at a concensus as to what to do to manage the issue (if it was agreed it was in fact, an issue).
btw – Banning porn would doubtless be as effective as banning alcohol, or cannabis, in my view)
etc….
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Yes, directly back to your usual hyperbole. You compare religious persecution and the smuggling of bibles to what? – maybe Americans smuggling in advertising over the limit during the election campaign on a pirate tv station operating in the Hauraki gulf? They could throw in a few cigarette commercials during family tv time too. That’ll teach the persecutors won’t it. Do try not to be so absurd.
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The first part of it is that the control of the advertisement is something that everyone knows about. It is open to inspection and objections. The censorship is completely black. You cannot tell what is blocked, or why.
The second part is that the commercials are just that. They aren’t the same as having a ban on people buying or owning a bible or other book, as THAT requires an act of acquisition on the part of the person. A “pull” if you will.
The commercial advertisement is without any apologies, a “push”.
Neither push nor pull can be abrogated in secrecy without entailing ALL the ills that a state censor can possibly create. This is the core of my objection to this move, and the clearest difference between the 3 activities.
The difference between push and pull is public vs private. I have much more difficulty justifying any censorship, publicized or not, of a “pull”. The child pornography qualifies though, so there is a validity to the state wishing to do it and no excuse for the secrecy of the sites being blocked.
That it might work is a dubious proposition in any case. The people who look for this stuff aren’t going to go direct, they are going to work out cut-outs and aliases and they are going to encrypt like their lives depend on it.
===============
Censorship of advertisement is a little less clear cut. Is advertisement, pushing your message into everyone’ s lounge, a right?
If it is a political message, not an attempt to sell a product, then I have to affirm that in general it is, and that should not surprise you. Nor should you be surprised that I make a specific and special exception in respect to the exercise of the democratic process. No real democracy can long endure the effects of wealth having a megaphone and everyone else having to whisper in corners come election time. The dominance of the “haves, and have more’s” in the USA is not accidental.
If it is an attempt to sell a product which has harmful effects (liquor or cigarettes) the choices are different. The society benefits to the extent that the use is minimized, but the measures it can take to achieve this are limited.
The state can advertise in competition with the product advertiser. The Newspapers and Radio companies love this approach. The war of words is extremely profitable for them. Expensive for the taxpayers.
The state can ban the sale of the harmful product. Advertisement becomes word of mouth and the Mongrel Mob handles distribution. Where this has worked I have no idea. I don’t think it ever has. Very expensive for the taxpayers.
The state can allow the product to be advertised, doing nothing. The deleterious effects take hold and the society is thereby damaged. Expensive for the taxpayers.
The state can ban the advertisements. This will reduce the use of the product somewhat without allowing the gang takeover of distribution. Least expensive to the taxpayer.
Find me a fifth way or choose one of the 4 listed.
respectfully
BJ
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You rather missed the specific point being made about the bibles.
bjchip,
- “Is advertisement, pushing your message into everyone’s lounge, a right?”
I have never had adverts “pushed” into my lounge. I have, however, bought a TV and watched channels which are funded in whole or in part through advertising; a wholly voluntary act on my part.
This is a purely private, peaceful agreement between me and the TV company: they can broadcast programmes and films which I may watch, along with whatever adverts they choose to show alongside them. I don’t remember ever asking you about it. In fact, I’m sure I didn’t. Yet you choose to initiate violence against both me and the shareholders of the TV company, just so you can censor what I am allowed to watch.
Wow. What en enormous ego you must have to feel justified in taking that violent action against us, whom you have never even met. I’m reminded of the incredible sense of frustrated superiority displayed by that university lecturer currently on trial. That’s the sort of mentality you leftists have towards the rest of us.
And those terrible gangs you mention? Not one of them has ever tried to censor what I am allowed to see and watch. Only you.
- “If it is an attempt to sell a product which has harmful effects (liquor or cigarettes) the choices are different. The society benefits to the extent that the use is minimized, but the measures it can take to achieve this are limited.”
The difference between us is that you claim to know what is best for society; I don’t.
Oh, plus the fact that you are happy to use violence to impose your superior wisdom.
Ask a dozen different people and you’ll likely get a dozen different answers as to what constitutes the “good society.” So all you can (and should) do is leave everyone alone to pursue their own happiness; even if that involves doing things to themselves which you obviously find objectionable; like drinking more than you think they should, enjoying a smoke, or getting high.
- “The state can allow the product to be advertised, doing nothing. The deleterious effects take hold and the society is thereby damaged.”
Apparently freedom is not one of the attributes of this ideal society of yours; not when it interferes with your tractor production statistics.
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If the law says don’t do X and you break the law, the consequences are not usually “violence” unless you initiate the violence. This is a real problem with your diatribes and one of the reasons you are not taken seriously.
The difference between us is that you claim to know what is best for society; I don’t.
The damage to the society as a whole can be measured economically and run to millions of dollars and a number of deaths every year. If you are planning to dispute that, be explicit about it. Tell us all how drink driving and alcohol induced violence isn’t a problem for the society.
You accused me of arrogance and a propensity for violence and questioned whether anyone knows that drink driving and alcohol abuse causes problems in the process. I’m calling you on that bit of ideologically induced idiocy Wat. Put up or shut up. Make the case that this doesn’t cost us all money and lives.
Then look at the 4 choices of societal action on offer and choose one of them or explain a fifth.
You attempted to avoid the question by pretending there wasn’t a problem. Just assume that you know that there IS a problem this time and answer it.
BJ
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I have grown weary of tolerance at this point.
BJ
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I enjoy your posts. I’m Interested in reading deeper into the free-market economic philosophy. Are you riffing on Hayek? Austrian School?
What books would you recommend I read?
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I don’t want anyone tapping my phone.
I don’t want anyone sniffing my underwear.
I don’t want anyone spying on my internet searches.
This is all about greedy people gaining money and power by controlling others. It needs to be fought strongly.
Judge people by the real harm they do, not by the things they see or think.
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But real censorship of the net is unlikely in a democracy as there are (other) means to protest about it (letters to newspapers/meetings with your MP, etc). Nor is it apparent that there is any government intent to censor lawful activity or free speech opinion.
Thus it is this issue, rather than election/campaign spending rules, which is the marshmallow fight.
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You miss the point.
Nor is it apparent that there is any government intent to censor lawful activity or free speech opinion.
Once this is in place you will not know what you do not know. You can have no idea whether the state is filtering your traffic or when or to what purpose.
The excuse for it is a good one. Nobody likes child-pornography, but the method contains the seeds of disaster…. nobody will know that there is something to protest.
The election rules were visible to everyone and thus harmless. This is a far more insidious and dangerous thing.
respectfully
BJ
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“Sure we need any censorship of the internet to be transparent and accountable.”
If there is filtering, then this is made known (transparency). Then those who did this can be held accountable. All it needs is someone who is charged with monitoring such filtering and checking that it occured for valid reason.
PS The Law Society wants to limit campaign finance in the hands of representatives of the people and to unlimit private campaign financing (sounds like an ACT/BR programme for the economy).
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You pointed out the need. ’tis true. I am acknowledging the reality.
The fact is that this system is completely NON-transparent and unaccountable.
That is what has me so excitable about it. Once in place , nobody will know who is filtering what.
If that is what “the law society” reckons we need for a good democracy I will accept it as evidence that they have been bought or are victims of excessive inbreeding. However, the EFA in whatever form it takes, is publicly accessible and understandable. It can be overcome and changed through the usual means.
BJ
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Just as Helen Clark was complicit in poor treatment of Falun Gong due to Chinese pressure, so our weak-kneed National government will in future permit internet censorship because of potentially “damaging” access to politically hot websites.
Same as Iran.
Either the internet is free, or else it is a tool for thought control. You choose.
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Here are a list of reasons why Stop the Filter believes that the DIA’s Filtering system won’t work.
http://stopthefilter.org.nz/content/why-the-filter-does-not-work
* http://techliberty.org.nz/dia-is-failing-on-openness/
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