It seems that every day another one of our freedoms is being taken away, shit on and flushed down the governmental toilet. Today is no different. Only this time theses pencil pushing, limp dick, do-gooder, chumps are striking at the very heart of freedom. There is a plan in place to force Internet Service Providers [ISPs] to censor the Internet for all Australians. They call it a “Clean Feed”.

The reasons behind this are actually good, but just like we’ve seen time and time again, they are taking it too far and at the end of the day only hurting those of us who are doing the right thing. To sum it all up, they want to stop child pornography and protect Australian children who are using the internet. Like I said, good reasons. I have no problems about stopping kiddy porn. In fact I say that anyone found dealing with kiddy porn, raping or abusing children in any way, should have their nuts cut off, cooked and force down their own throats.

The problem lies here. Blocking certain sites will NOT stop this from happening. Most of the kiddy porn is done privately and not part of the public internet. No matter how we try and censor the net, these people will find access to the material some how. Have people forgotten that this problem has been around a lot longer than the internet has. I repeat, blocking the internet will NOT stop the trade.

So what about protecting our children from questionable material. Once again, I’ve got no problem with this. But should we block the internet for everyone, including responsible adults? The answer is a very firm NO! Software is available for every computer that can filter the internet and make it safe for children. This software will actually be a lot more effective as it will be able to block a lot more than what the government plans to.

This is part of being a responsible parent. If you have children and you have a computer that is linked to the internet, you should prevent your children from accessing the internet just the same way as you would not allow them to see an “R” rated movie. If you are not a responsible parent (which seems to be about 80% these days), then this is where the government should step in. Create a law that states that any household where a child is present, must have child-filters on the computers. Any parent found not doing so should then be prosecuted. The responsibility for a child’s safety is with the parent.

So what is it they actually want to block? Well there are a number of web sites, if not all of them, that I personally will never visit. A lot of porn and stuff of “bad taste”. But then you come across other sites like www.tinypic.com. This is a file hosting web site used for sharing video and images. These sort of sites are used to host media files that you then link to on social web sites like MySpace, facebook, forums, blogs, etc. The problem is that as they are an automated process, they have also been used for sharing pedophile paraphernalia. So do we ban these useful sites just because a few people misuse them? Once again the answer is a very firm NO!

And why not? Well where does it stop. As soon as the government has a precedent in place to stop the free flow of information on the net, they can then use this to increase their censorship into other areas. And that is what they are already talking about. No longer is it just about children and their protection, they now want to censor the flow of games, movies and other material that fits into their opinion of what is immoral content.

This needs to be stopped and we are the people to stop it. Take action by visiting www.nocleanfeed.com. There is plenty more information about the issue there and many ways that we can work together to stop this corrosion of freedom. The web site is run by Electronic Frontiers Australia, a non-profit organisation helping to fight for the freedom and rights of Internet users. Sounds like a good thing to me.