hypercritical much ?

So as far as supporting the Greens, I’m fairly aligned with their policy thinking – but honestly, I’m not going to “waste a vote” when we have this system of electorates where the winner takes all. I’ll be researching this closer to the election, but if the Greens have barely a presence in my electorate, then I’ll be voting Labor (unless MT boots Abbott out of the Liberal party and commits to FTTH – i.e. I’ll be voting Labor).

If only you could mix and match party policies and generate a custom party; or provide your support to different policies, rather than the parties pushing those policies. Like ancient Athenian democracy, sort of. Interesting… A thought experiment for November.

Only because the biggest reason I loathe to vote Independant is most of the time (in my area at least) their either off shoots of the 2 major parties.

Or even worse they’re sometimes attached to some of the more “misleading” parties (ACL and FF to name a few) and you need a good digging around to check what exactly they stand for.

I think our parliament would be a much better place if there were even more independents in it…”Keep the bastards honest” applies just as much today (possibly even more so) as it did back in 1980 when Don Chipp started the Australian Democrats….

Which is why, last election, for the very first time, I didn’t vote for either of them. I don’t see that really changing in the future.

Specifically where offshore do you think is safe from the dark masters.

Using Facebook is common these days and it retains more information about people than most organisations, including governments.

I think governments are realising most people are ok with giving up their privacy so this is just a logical step to monitor the ones that don’t want to give up their privacy. I think they expect this to not impact them much at the next election.

I can see another big Independent and Greens victory at the next election. All I can hope for is that the general public actually wakes up to both parties. If only we can get more Independent and Greens candidates at the next election. It should be harder for foreign countries to manipulate our politics if we have a more diverse pool of independents and parties controlling our parliament. The Greens may have pushed for the unpopular carbon tax but personally I see them as a better party to vote for than either of the major parties since neither of them want to act on behalf of the citizens of Australia. Just look at Assange as an example of what Labour thinks of its citizens, and not a word of support from the Coalition either. The Greens have been sticking up for Australians, so make sure everyone votes for the Greens and Independents next election, put the major parties last on the ballot. If the Greens didn’t go so well in the senate, we would probably have the Internet filter by now.

Sorry for the long rant, sometimes you just need to get things out of the system to make you feel better. The older I get the more annoyed I feel about how badly our government treats its citizens, how badly it runs our country, the list goes on, and neither side of politics is any different to the other. One wants to sack everyone and pay workers less and give all the money to big companies, the other wants to give all the tax money away, often to their mates, on dodgy deals. Neither side cares about Australia, or its citizens. If they did care, they would show it in their policies, making policies that aim to actually grow our wealth and prosperity, rather than focusing on things like this and the Internet filter, or just saying no to everything.

The NBN is one a few good policies to come out of any Australian government in the time I have been alive. Hopefully it can continue to the point of completion, fingers crossed.

I can only determine my vote on what’s in front of me. What’s in front of me right now is that the government is in favour of a mandatory ISP- level filter, government regulation of the media and internet data retention. That is enough to make me do something at the next election I’ve never done before in my life.

One wonders, assuming this proposal gets up, how many politicians’ email records will be hacked into and leaked before they realise the nightmare they’ve brought upon themselves.

This whole thing is being treated in the same manner as online content – voters seem to be the last priority.

Government security people always ask for more than they can justify and the world never gets better as a result. They can’t tell us how many terrorist attacks they foiled when “security” is supposed to have helped negate potential attacks.

The best description of this process can be found in the words of security guru, Bruce Schneier:

” Our greatest recent overreaction to a rare event was our response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I remember then-Attorney General John Ashcroft giving a speech in Minnesota — where I live — in 2003 in which he claimed that the fact there were no new terrorist attacks since 9/11 was proof that his policies were working. I remember thinking: “There were no terrorist attacks in the two years preceding 9/11, and you didn’t have any policies. What does that prove?”

What it proves is that terrorist attacks are very rare, and perhaps our national response wasn’t worth the enormous expense, loss of liberty, attacks on our Constitution and damage to our credibility on the world stage. Still, overreacting was the natural thing for us to do. Yes, it was security theater and not real security, but it made many of us feel safer. ”

Quote is from: http://www.schneier.com/essay-401.html (on the Aurora massacre.)

Really? Is the government banning and blocking encrypted VPN traffic?

“Did you not know about the part where it will become illegal to not assist in decryption?”

I did know. and I object to it. But banning and blocking encrypted traffic is not the same idea as making it illegal to assist in decryption.

Commercially this kind of behavior borders on negligence, and depending on the subject and/or consequences, could be grounds for legal action. You cant get away with sticking your head in the sand over things like safety.

Cant we sue any (id be happy with even a single lawsuit or ended political career) of the figureheads these daft shadowy manipulators behind the proposed laws are using to try and make it happen. I know many, probably most are immune to many if not all of the normal methods to engage in legal action by virtue of their positions and/or the capacity in which they are performing the work.

But surely there must be some way to pierce the layers aggressively, rather than passive calls to ‘show us’ by sending FOI requests that keep getting denied, and supporting the clearly Sisyphean efforts of people like Ludlam in the hope they prevail. I find it so absurd that there is no way to shatter the mirror the authors of this madness hide behind.

I’m sick of hearing ‘pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’… I want to pull back the curtain and lay the blame where it truly belongs.