Uproar in Australia over plan to block Web sites

[w8khk]

Gun Ownership - It's The Law In Kennesaw

KENNESAW, Ga - Several Kennesaw officials attribute a drop in crime in the city over the past two decades to a law that requires residents to have a gun in the house.
 
In 1982, the Kennesaw City Council unanimously passed a law requiring heads of households to own at least one firearm with ammunition.
 
The ordinance states the gun law is needed to "protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants."
 
Then-councilman J.O. Stephenson said after the ordinance was passed, everyone "went crazy."
 
"People all over the country said there would be shootings in the street and violence in homes," he said. "Of course, that wasn't the case."
 
In fact, according to Stephenson, it caused the crime rate in the city to plunge.
 
Kennesaw Historical Society president Robert Jones said following the law's passage, the crime rate dropped 89 percent in the city, compared to the modest 10 percent drop statewide.
 
"It did drop after it was passed," he said. "After it initially dropped, it has stayed at the same low level for the past 16 years."

http://www.rense.com/general9/gunlaw.htm

[W7XXX]

But still, it would cut the sites off from most of the public.  Only a few knowledgeable computer geeks would be capable of defeating the filters.

We had a porn filter on the computer system at work when I used to teach school.  About 30% of the pages you tried to visit would be blocked as "unacceptable content".

Once, after hours, I tried to look up some data about radio antennas on an engineering site, but the damned porn filter blocked it.  When I got home I checked out the site, and there was absolutely nothing there unrelated to radio engineering.

Needless to say, it was virtually impossible to use anything like an online foreign language dictionary, a large percentage of sites with world history content, or most sites with videos.  The filter left the internet on school computers almost totally worthless.

Exactly Don! My wife is a school librarian and her boss because he hates censorship has the filters set at a minimum. This means that the kids savvy in computer can access some porn sites, etc. The solution instead of rendering the computers useless as a reference library as you stated, was to have an aide assist in watching what the kids are doing. The computers are set up where the kids cannot erase history to cover their tracks and each kid has to sign in, so any offenders are caught either by the aide or when the librarian or aide scans the visited sites for offenses. The punishment is expelling which gets the parents attention since they lose their tax supported babysitter. Should a kid bring up a prohibited site by mistake, then they are required to report it immediately to the librarian. This releases them from punishment. Their failure to do so leads to a guilty verdict.

This system works and granted it cost the taxpayers more for the aide, but it allows access to necessary educational sites. Should the light filter stop a site it shouldn't, the librarian has the ability to allow the site should it prove acceptable.

Apparently the Australian government doesn't think its citizens are competent enough to control themselves and their children.

[W3RSW]

...they aren't apparently.

You get the gov't you vote for.
You get the gov't you pay for.
You get the gov't you forget to monitor.
You get the gov't activists want if you are a silent majority.

Most people want to 'just get along.'
Works great in comfortable times, in comfortable nations with territory, means of defense, and resources that no one especially wants or wants to mess with.

The trouble comes when your easy pickings... you've lost your reason for existance as a nation or state, you've lost your compass (call it 'moral' if you want, direction might be a better description.)

Then you become absorbed shockingly easily by another nation or state with any sort of drive.

[ka3zlr]

I still say after all these years, the biggest mistake that was allowed to happen in history was the burning of the library at Alexandria...and that's just one time that happened... 

A close runner-up occurred more recently - the looting of the Baghdad museum, stripping it of a priceless collection of cultural artifacts dating back to the dawn of civilization.

"Coalition" forces just stood by and watched without intervening, shortly after the fall of Saddam. 

But they wasted no time protecting the oil ministry, which remained one of the few untouched buildings in ravaged Baghdad, because it was immediately placed under round-the-clock surveillance by the troops.

FB Don i know what you mean and understand fully...i do like having fun with my sorry attempts at Nazi-ism...as an act back at them... We knew this was coming,...  I'm surprised it's beginning in Aussie land though...But...it's coming...none the less...

Now thing is..How much grief is it going cause to just to Log on and post to forums an such...How much will the net cops take and store...on an individual operation...how much throttling will there be...



Time will tell....

[KL7OF]

"We have met the enemy, and he is us!"  POGO

[K1ZJH]

Right now it appears that every internet search is recorded and stored. Going back to that tragic crime where a 2 year old was allegedly murdered by her mom, the FBI has a list of related websites visited by the mother.  That is scary stuff.

[KB2WIG]

      it's O.K. 


The innocent have nothing to fear.



klc

[ve6pg]

..interesting...
..during the war of 1812, the militia from penn. would not cross into canada, to invade. they stood on their constitutional rights to  "defend"  the united states. this was at the battle of queenston heights, any many actions after.
.
  they made it clear, they would  "defend"  the u.s., but saw no reason for offensive action. if the canadians invaded the states, they would fight, but saw no reason for offensive action, during  "mr. madison's war"...

  ..look it up...

..sk..

[ka3zlr]

But...

 Will there always be room for the AM Gangstas...mien fuhrer(s)...?...

[W4EWH]

The computers are set up where the kids cannot erase history to cover their tracks and each kid has to sign in, so any offenders are caught either by the aide or when the librarian or aide scans the visited sites for offenses.

The next thing you'll see will be that the librarian sues the town for creating a hostile work environment where (s)he is forced to watch p0rn.

At some point, the school will realize that it's impossible to monitor the net, and go back to having the kids read (gasp!) books.

Bill, W1AC

[Tom WA3KLR]

..during the war of 1812, the militia from penn. would not cross into canada, to invade. they stood on their constitutional rights to  "defend"  the united states. this was at the battle of queenston heights, any many actions after.
.
  they made it clear, they would  "defend"  the u.s., but saw no reason for offensive action. if the canadians invaded the states, they would fight, but saw no reason for offensive action, during  "mr. madison's war"...

During the War of 1812 the British hung out on the Canadian shores of Lake Erie and would make forays into the Sandusky Bay and down the Sandusky River and then RUN/RETREAT back to the Canadian side.  It all depends on your point of view.

Look it up.

[ve6pg]

...no question tom, but not a point of view, a point of history.....the militia from penn, would not cross into canada..they would stand and fight, on american soil, to defend themselves, but not go on the offensive....
..as far as sandusky, yes and no...there was a slaughter of american troops, at the river raisin..but after the attacks, the british/canadian troops withdrew to fort detroit, which was captured in the summer of 1812 by british troops... as a matter of fact, the surrender of detroit, (by general hull), was done without firing a shot. he was terrified of an indian massacre...hull was captured, and held in prison, in quebec city.. he was paroled back to the states...harrison, the govenor of the indiana territory, was on route, to detroit, when he learned of the surrender...for quite some time, there was a rallying cry "remember the raisin", to instill patriot feeling in the states...
..the troops who were slaughtered at river raisin, were in winter quarters, and not expecting any action, until the spring...the winter of 1812/13 was very harsh, and most troops were not equipped for the winter...most of the dead were not found, until the snow melted in the spring of 1813...after the slaughter, the british troops withdrew, to fort detroit, for the winter..

..sk..

[Ian VK3KRI]

In short, all other rights are subject to being taken away if the citizenry cannot stop the government from doing so. Thus, weapons.

So US governmental responsibility ultimately comes down to the ability
of the people to rise up in an armed rebellion against the government?

Was the Civil war an example of this - US history not really being my
strong point, but was this effectively an attempt by the southern states
to overthrow or change the policy of the 'United States' by force or
at least an armed defence against the imposition of control from the
north?

Admittedly , I'm 1000s of Km away, living a society that generally sees
US gun culture, as seen in the media, as somewhat weird, but it seems
to me that the emphasis on the 2nd amendment seems to be a diversion
from the rest of the US constitution which looks to be a fine document
and one that I wish the founders of Australian federation had taken
more notice of  ( well apart from prohibition, but you can't get it
right all the time)

                                                        Ian VK3KRI

[ka3zlr]

In short, all other rights are subject to being taken away if the citizenry cannot stop the government from doing so. Thus, weapons.

So US governmental responsibility ultimately comes down to the ability
of the people to rise up in an armed rebellion against the government?

Was the Civil war an example of this - US history not really being my
strong point, but was this effectively an attempt by the southern states
to overthrow or change the policy of the 'United States' by force or
at least an armed defence against the imposition of control from the
north?

Admittedly , I'm 1000s of Km away, living a society that generally sees
US gun culture, as seen in the media, as somewhat weird, but it seems
to me that the emphasis on the 2nd amendment seems to be a diversion
from the rest of the US constitution which looks to be a fine document
and one that I wish the founders of Australian federation had taken
more notice of  ( well apart from prohibition, but you can't get it
right all the time)

                                                        Ian VK3KRI

Hello there Ian,

 It is a Great thing the Constitution, Abraham Lincoln had a vision, like the original designers, the ability of which to See past the petty indifference's and the skin effect of people in general...and consider the whole in pursuit of Liberty and personal freedom, Justice an "The American Way" an he was shot for it...he was a great Human being..others have paid the same price..

 It's becoming an untouchable edifice, in some words i guess..it's a shame..it's very self explanatory and complete...Polished..that's the problem OM..more time is spent trying to edit out the righteousness of the original design concept in lue of allowing cracks to appear for the furthering of certain elitism's... to pick a word...

 I was always amazed an awed for the period the creators lived in and how Complete the thought process was, and provided us a document(s) to live by that needs No Interference...It's Self explanatory...

 There's an underlying thread that has grown in our country, more an more folks are realizing this..the net provides a great medium for debate and sharing..and this is becoming an irritant to the selective few that feel theirs is the direction that we the free need to follow like sheep...We are not Sheep...No one should be treated like sheep...

 Under the right conditions of education, Honest upbringing, open knowledge awareness, this system works...Tilt any of these and we have what is happening today...in my opinion...The family system is acted on constantly, awareness is diverted, an education is controlled an lead...oh well...

73 om
Jack.


 

 

 

[Tom WA3KLR]

Tim,

The War of 1812 - We were at war with Britain.  We were not at war with Canada.

Ian,

1. The people cannot always rely on the "government" being true and honest to the constitution.  If you rely on the Federal Army and the citizens have no guns then one day when a dictator takes over, you have no ability to do anything about it.  It's much easier to keep your country from being taken over rather than let it get taken over and then try to get arms and fight to take it back after the fact.

To understand this principle that our founding fathers did so well, is not a matter of intelligence.  I work with fellow engineers who say we don't need guns.

2.  I wonder if you can see the American TV show called "Jericho".  takes place now.  The situation is that a person in the U.S. government decides to take over half of the U.S.

3.  During the American Revolution, only about 3 % of the population actually took part.  Most people keep their heads down and go along with the occupiers and won't stick their necks out, figuring we will win but I will let the other guy do the dangerous work and I will reap the benefits.  This is the way it is.

4.  Our Civil War - The southern U.S. wanted to secede and form a separate country.  Based on many things, different culture really, belief in slavery, and other economic issues and more.  Every country usually has at least one civil war.  Lincoln worked to keep the United States together.

 Reducing freedom of the press is another chip at the freedom.  If you have no guns and are content, you are 2/3 of the way to takeover.

[KB2WIG]

 " So US governmental responsibility ultimately comes down to the ability
of the people to rise up in an armed rebellion against the government?  "

If you look at the origins of the United States, ie., the violent overthrow of a government, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution makes sence. Also, many people do not know that the Constitution would not have passed without all of the first 10 Amendments.


klc

[ve6pg]

..that's true tom, but canada was a british colony, and attacked many times by u.s. forces...york (toronto), was invaded in the spring of 1813. the american invasion fleet sailed from sacket's harbour, new york. the u.s. forces occupied the town, before leaving, they burned it to the ground.. this became a common thing...shippmans corner (st. catherines,ont) was burned to the ground, as well as newark (niagara-on-the-lake)...in reprisal, british/canadian troops burned black rock (near buffalo), and other places, most infamous was washington. the war had many battles on canadian soil, it was not a refuge for british troops to hide...

..sk..

[W7XXX]

The computers are set up where the kids cannot erase history to cover their tracks and each kid has to sign in, so any offenders are caught either by the aide or when the librarian or aide scans the visited sites for offenses.

The next thing you'll see will be that the librarian sues the town for creating a hostile work environment where (s)he is forced to watch p0rn.

At some point, the school will realize that it's impossible to monitor the net, and go back to having the kids read (gasp!) books.

Bill, W1AC

Her library is still about books and encourages reading and using books for reference. There is a yearly "Battle of the Books" and constant exposure to books. But when kids come to the library to do research, the internet offers the best resources. No school can afford to buy reference books that would equal the vast resources of the internet. So far the system has worked effective and efficient and any exposure the librarian has to porn is brief and rare and part of their job. There are parents that object to some books in her Jr. High library simply because of a four letter word ... the head librarian refuses to pull them and tells the parents, if you don't want your kid reading this book, then you tell them so and enforce your rules and administer punishment. Whether print on paper or digital on screen, lines have to be drawn on what is appropriate. Drawing those lines is difficult and if drawn so strict as to limit a library (digital or paper) useless, then might as well close it down. If a parent objects to libraries in public schools, then send them to private school or home school them. The same with the Australians, those that are offended and support putting such strict filtering on the internet as to render it useless for other educational purposes, then let them have their own servers, don't render the entire internet useless or crippled.

Example: With heavy internet filtering, my call W7XXX would be blocked because of the 3 x's.

[W4EWH]

No school can afford to buy reference books that would equal the vast resources of the internet.

I don't think the Internet's resources are as vast as some may think. With the exception of the various projects like Google Books (which are digitizing works that are no longer copyrighted), most of the Internet is geared to advertising products for sale. That, however, is another debate, for another time.

Before debating censorship, I feel it's important to step back and ask "why bother?": after all, the whole idea is to teach children how to obtain information quickly, organize it effectively, and report on it within their deadlines. In other words, the whole idea is to train them to be a manager in a factory, and stumbling around the Internet won't accomplish that goal.

The Internet has no organizational framework for its information: there is no card catalog, no Guide to Periodicals, no Library of Congress Catalog system. There is no structure. Google and other search engines provide only a list of sites in decreasing order of popularity, not usefulness¹.

Children may want the Internet, but they need a well organized, easy-to-use, consistent way to obtain the information they require to rehearse their future roles in industry. I submit that a few DVD-Roms, which would cost only a few dollars, could provide them with all the material in the Library of Congress, the National Library of Australia, The British Museum, The King Fahad National Library in Saudi Arabia, The Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem, and Paris’ Bibliotheque Nationale - or The Louvre -, totally free of any commercial interest or risk of computer viruses. It would be a trivial excercise to make that information available to the world from a few file servers at strategic locations, either inside or outside whatever firewalls exist, thus obviating the need for local investments.

The question is, in other words, "What are we trying to accomplish here"? If we're trying to teach children how to use search engines, then an Internet connection is the way to go. If we're trying to teach them how to think critically, to select references carefully, and to frame their positions in facts and proper illustrations, then it's not needed.

My 2¢. YMMV.

73,

Bill, W1AC

1. For purposes of this debate, I'll leave aside the issue of search-engine-optimization and simply point out that it exists and that it degrades (a lot) the value of search engine outputs.

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

In short, all other rights are subject to being taken away if the citizenry cannot stop the government from doing so. Thus, weapons.

So US governmental responsibility ultimately comes down to the ability
of the people to rise up in an armed rebellion against the government?

Well, actually, the government is the people. The people (citizens) have all the power and rights. We cede some of the power to the government but can take it away any time. This is how it is supposed to work. Most US citizens don't know this.

Was the Civil war an example of this - US history not really being my
strong point, but was this effectively an attempt by the southern states
to overthrow or change the policy of the 'United States' by force or
at least an armed defence against the imposition of control from the
north?

Somewhat. Many opinions. The south threw off the government by forming their own country (or trying to). Lots of states rights issues too that I won't go into here.

Admittedly , I'm 1000s of Km away, living a society that generally sees
US gun culture, as seen in the media, as somewhat weird, but it seems
to me that the emphasis on the 2nd amendment seems to be a diversion
from the rest of the US constitution which looks to be a fine document
and one that I wish the founders of Australian federation had taken
more notice of  ( well apart from prohibition, but you can't get it
right all the time)

                                                        Ian VK3KRI

If you just watch the media (news, TV and movies) you'll get a highly skewed view of things.

The writers of that document believed all men were born with certain rights, including those called out in the document. But the document doesn't give anyone rights, it just affirms them, and clearly points out how the government should not impinge upon them. I don't think anymore attention is paid to the 2nd amendment than the others. Lots of 1st amendment issues in the news and courts all the time. Since 9/11, there has been much about the 4th amendment in the news.

[W3RSW]

Interesting thread.  A lot to comment on but positions similar to mine are already pretty well covered. I do have a thought here (as opposed to the other night  )

Bill said,

The question is, in other words, "What are we trying to accomplish here"? If we're trying to teach children how to use search engines, then an Internet connection is the way to go. If we're trying to teach them how to think critically, to select references carefully, and to frame their positions in facts and proper illustrations, then it's not needed.

Kids have to adapt to the world in which they find themselves, the faster the better . Believe it or not, I still have trouble rapidly 'categorizing' words to find in the dictionary, i.e. alphabetically or spelling enough of the word to find the correct spelling. And this is in the old world paradigm.  Sometimes I catch myself sounding out the ABC's to remember which letter comes before another.  Girls always seemed to be able to do this sort of stuff faster than boys as I was growing up.

So one of the values in learning to use search engines quickly and efficiently has a parallel to the old "find it fast in the dictionary" operation. That is being able to accurately place a phrase in a search engine to not confuse it or the recipient with tons of hap-assed listings of junque.  Kids ought to learn to narrow their thoughts, focus their search rapidly and accurately.  The excercise improves spelling, word preciseness, syntax, common term usage, memory....you name it.  I'll bet schools are making games out of finding info fast on the internet.  If they aren't, they should.

Kind of a similar excercise; In my school system's first grade we had boxes of little cardboard numbers from 1 to 100. Another box was the alphabet.  We lined up in lines of ten from 1 to 100 all the numbers as fast as we could. The numbers were in single digits so a bit of dexterity was needed to keep from spraying numbers all over the desk.  Girls won   .  It was neat learning to count by 5's and stuff this way as you had a matrix instantly visible.
You got a star on your box if you finished first, 2nd or 3rd.  I had very few stars. always lost my numbers...  - ok ,... that explains a lot.  Oh, but I could draw and paint !

[W4EWH]

Bill said,

The question is, in other words, "What are we trying to accomplish here"? If we're trying to teach children how to use search engines, then an Internet connection is the way to go. If we're trying to teach them how to think critically, to select references carefully, and to frame their positions in facts and proper illustrations, then it's not needed.

Kids have to adapt to the world in which they find themselves, the faster the better . [snip]

So one of the values in learning to use search engines quickly and efficiently has a parallel to the old "find it fast in the dictionary" operation. That is being able to accurately place a phrase in a search engine to not confuse it or the recipient with tons of hap-assed listings of junque. 

I think you're making my argument for me: "finding it fast" is not nearly as important as knowing how to do so. But, sad to say, the Internet is a reactive, commercially motivated system which makes it impossible to get consistent results from a search engine, and, as any teacher will tell you, consistency is essential in education.

The all-important "first page" rank of Google results is almost always filled with advertiser-supported commercial sites - not just the ads themselves, but the results - sites which attained that coveted prize by gerrymandering their code to fool the Google search algorithm into placing them there. There is real money at stake here: very few people go beyond page two of the results, so the companies that sponsor these sites pay "search engine optimization" experts to get them there. It's a competition, and that means the "winnner" will be different from one search to the next over time.

Even if that were not so, search engines are, as I said, measures of popularity, not usefulness. Do a Google search on "date of birth of paul revere", and you'll see several different answers  in the first page. We could debate forever about whether children need to know the date of birth of Paul Revere, but my point is that school children are not usually equipped to deal with ambiguity and need consistent answers to their questions.

However, I digress: I'll go back to the issue of censorship and the Internet. I don't feel that the Internet "pulls its weight" when it comes to educating children, and that there are other sources of information which are more accurate, much more consistent, and (when salaries and time are included) cheaper to use than the Internet.

FWIW. YMMV.

73,

Bill W1AC