ISP Filtering - A Letter To My Member

Okay here's a first draft of the letter I'm planning on sending to my local member:

I am writing to you concerning the proposed introduction of a mandatory ISP filtering scheme by the Australian Federal Government.

I have several concerns regarding this scheme, both as an adult and as a parent.

Firstly, while the report released by Senator Conroy on the effectiveness of the Live ISP Filtering trial indicates “!00% Accuracy” with little to no network impact, it also highlights several glaring problems with the Filtering scheme which to my mind render it essentially useless as a tool to prevent the consumption of RC material.

These range from simply changing which servers your computer uses to find out the addresses of web sites, to the utilisation of common technologies which are free and are used every day by hundreds of thousands of people in the course of their work. The report also points out that the filtering scheme cannot filter either chat rooms or peer to peer software.

This leads me to question the validity of spending the proposed $180 million dollars on a scheme which is so full of holes. Would education of parents not be the better option when it comes to protecting children from the dark side of the internet.

I also have concerns regarding the way the ACMA watch list which the Filter will use is to be run. The claim is that it will be run by ACMA at arms length from the government. However the government through the OFLC will have control over what is determined to be Refused Classification. Given the already conservative attitude towards computer games and the internet when compared to film or literature (no R18+ rating for computer games for example), I am not confident that the government will not be introducing further restrictions on content access.

I am proud of the work being done in Australia's technology sector, especially in the Illawarra region through the Illawarra ICT Cluster, and I am also very supportive of the National Broadband Network. However I cannot in all conscience support this scheme for the reasons above.

While I am but one voice, I am not alone in my concerns, if you could please address them that would be most appreciated.

Thoughts would be welcome.