SAGE-AU takes on Australian Government over Internet filtering
By DiGiTAL
Advocacy group SAGE-AU has called on the Federal Government to embrace open discussion of its proposed Internet filtering regime in order to ensure the best possible policy outcome.
SAGE-AU (the System Administrators Guild of Australia) expressed its concern after reports that the office of Federal Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, had attempted to silence criticism by a SAGE-AU member of the Government’s controversial plan to filter Internet content.
In a personal capacity, Mark Newton, a member of SAGE-AU, has strongly criticised the Government and its Internet filtering policy on the Whirlpool broadband forum. Subsequently, a policy advisor for Senator Conroy is reported to have expressed “serious concern” about Mr. Newton’s comments to a board member of the Internet Industry Association (IIA) and requested that this concern be passed to his employer, an IIA member.
SAGE-AU is a not-for-profit professional organisation representing system administrators in Australia. System administrators are the technology wizards who keep computers and networks working.
SAGE-AU President Donna Ashelford said the Code of Ethics for SAGE-AU members required them to communicate with users about computing matters that may affect them. “It’s reasonable to state that the issue of Internet filtering is one of substantial impact on all Internet users,” she said.
“The Government’s own figures indicate that all of the filtering systems trialled would impact Internet performance, as well as availability of legitimate services to varying degrees. To this end, Mr Newton has undertaken his duties under the SAGE-AU Code of Ethics to the fullest, and receives the full support for his position from the organisation.
“Accordingly, SAGE-AU calls upon the office of the Communications Minister to respect Mr Newton’s professionalism and independence, as an upstanding individual member of the leading body of System Administrators within Australia. We believe that it is only through full and open discussion of the various options that the Government can achieve the best policy outcome for all Australians.”
Ms. Ashelford said that SAGE-AU’s position on the issue of Internet filtering was based purely on the technical feasibility of an Internet filtering solution. “Specifically, SAGE-AU remains concerned that the filters tested are unable to provide an effective, reliable filtering solution with the performance required for modern broadband connections,” she said.
“The filters tested have demonstrated an excessively high exclusion rate of legitimate Internet content. To this end, SAGE-AU remains opposed to the implementation of Internet filtering in its current form and is concerned about any attempts to silence legitimate discussion of Internet filtering plans.”
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