Digital Right Ireland reports Freedom of Information request reveals the country’s Dept of Justice has been proposing filtering the Internet for some time now.
To the amazement of all, myself included, nations of the Western world – the proverbial pillars of democracy – are practically tripping over one another trying to filter the Internet as fast possible.
Australia, France, New Zealand, and the UK either have laws in place or are nearing the final stages of implementation. Now Ireland is reportedly the latest to consider similar filtering legislation.
According to Digital Rights Ireland, the country’s Dept of Justice has finally responded to Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed this past January, and though most have been denied, the denials in themselves are what’s most telling about what the govt’s up to.
“Looking at this list (available here) it becomes clear that for some time now the Department of Justice has been proposing the introduction of internet blocking in Ireland – and has been doing this under the radar, without any public consultation or legislative approval,” says the group. “Indeed, it is clear from the list that the Department is not planning on introducing legislation but instead intends to introduce this new form of censorship without any legal basis, based on the now discredited Norwegian and Danish models.”
If you look through the items refused you’ll see just how insidious the plans are.
One involves a copy of the minutes from a meeting between the DOJ and mobile phone operator Vodafone on the “introduction of Internet filtering” that took place on June 29th, 2009.
Also refused were some pages of detailed minutes of a July 2008 meeting between the Office of Internet Safety (OIS) and An Garda Siochána (DOJ?) regarding the “proposed introduction of blocking technology.”
In August 2009 the DOJ even went as far as to develop operational procedures for the implementation of ISP-level filtering.
It’s hard to argue against the fight against child pornography – impossible in fact – but filtering the Internet will have ostensibly little effect on the problem. Criminals will only turn to trusted methods of evasion like VPN, FTPs, P2P, etc..
All filtering will do is deputize ISPs and put the power of judge, jury, and executioner in the hands of unelected commercial institutions.
As the US Ambassador to Australia, Jeff Bleich, pointed out recently in that country where a similar Internet filtering proposal is being considered, the US has had considerable success fighting child pornography without having to filter the Internet.
“We have been able to accomplish the goals that Australia has described, which is to capture and prosecute child pornographers … without having to use internet filters,” he said. “We have other means and we are willing to share our efforts with them … it’s an ongoing conversation.”
Perhaps those efforts need to be shared with Ireland now as well.
Stay tuned.
Drew is dead on. Security and safety will be used as it is for every draconian control put on us. The U.S. is already monitoring everything, yes everything for years. (See AT&T secret rooms). The reward is two fold for fascist fans, the RIAA and MPAA will obviously jump for joy, but the government-media partnership will rejoice in regaining their control of information (so they think). People are talking TO each other now, instead of listening to state sponsored propaganda. With controls in place, the majority will be spoon fed again and only the fringe that are savvy enough to bypass will avoid it.
If my life gets ruined because i downloaded some movies, i will f*cking murder people.Simple as.
The same corrupt, ignorant, dumb cogs that turn the vice tighter and tighter on citizens rights and pockets, in Court, in the Dail,will also feel cornered, will also feel scared, will also feel helpless and unspoken for.
Because that is what us consumer cattle ‘citizens’ have become.
I am almost in gaol from these corrupt cogs, almost.
I take solace in the fact that they cant catch us all, and im sure they feel the same.Just wait for the ACTA to roll out, and it will, it has already been paid for.
For over a year now, I’ve looked at China’s continual assault not as something that was something out of the norm as a result of the governmental system, but the possible future of Western societies. The harder the fight, the more of a delay there will be before the war on the internet and freedom would be waged on home soil.
The US criticising China for a horrible human rights track record with respect to the internet is ironic. As we see governments in more Western socieites propose such totalitarian regimes like a global plague rapidly spreading and approaching North America, just know that it’s not as though we weren’t warned.
It’s not a question of if this sort of thing will be coming to the US, but a question of when. It will bne of no surprise that they would go on record to say, in effect, “but everyone else is doing it, so we should too!” Pirating straight from the record labels playbook of policy laundering.