By now you’ve probably heard about the government’s plans to filter the internet in New Zealand. It’s coming soon to an internet connection near you.
At Tech Liberty we believe that:
- the filtering won’t work to stop the production and distribution of offensive material.
- that it poses a risk to the security and stability of the New Zealand internet.
- that filtering is the wrong approach and will inevitably be misused in the future.
We want the filter stopped.
We’re looking for other people who feel the same way to join us in forming a coalition to oppose the implementation of the filter.
Join the coalition
If you want to be part of the it, please contact us at stopthefilter@techliberty.org.nz and tell us how you’d like to get involved and what you can do. We’re going to need all the help we can get.
Sign up in support
If you want to register your support and be on the mailing list, send us an email at antifilter@techliberty.org.nz and ask to be added to the internet filtering mail list.
When the internet filter was announced, one of our primary objections was that it was a secret censorship scheme. The list of banned sites was kept secret and there was no oversight of the entries on the list. As the experience of Australia and the UK has shown, this tends to lead to abuse as sites are blocked for no good reason. It also conflicts with the general thrust of the rest of NZ’s censorship regime in which all decisions must be published.
Being believers in open and accountable government, we made a request under the Official Information Act for a copy of the filtering list and the inspector’s reports that were used to justify adding sites to the list.
The Department of Internal Affairs refused our request for a copy of the list:
Continue reading Internet filter list to be kept secret →
New copyright infringement act fair and practical
23 Feb 2009
Wellington, New Zealand
With the release of the text of the new copyright bill proposed at the end of 2009 we finally see the end of guilt on accusation, and see in place a sensible and well reasoned process around protecting copyrighted material. The new text deals with the majority of the issues that Tech Liberty has been concerned about, restores due process and privacy for those accused, and spells out a fair set of obligations and responsibilities for ISPs in handling users who infringe on copyright via their services.
Continue reading Media Release: Tech Liberty supports new copyright bill →
Why is Tech Liberty opposed to an Internet filter that is claimed to block access to child pornography?
We have been asked this question from time to time, with the unspoken implication that by opposing the filter we are unwilling for something to be done about it, or that we are monsters who support such material. We do not support the production or distribution of such material. While we believe that free speech is an important value that should not be lightly overridden, we also accept the right of societies to choose to censor.
The production and distribution of child pornography are serious crimes that should be eradicated but that does not mean that any solution should be immediately deployed without question. In this post we attempt to debunk some of the popular myths about Internet filtering.
Continue reading Internet Filtering Myths →
There have been recent claims that access to a number of international websites was deliberately blocked for New Zealand internet users.
Clare Swinney at InfoNews writes that Orcon, Slingshot and Telecom have blocked access to infowar.com and prisonplanet.tv, sites run by documentary maker and conspiracist Alex Jones.
Continue reading Technical failure, not censorship →
Internet NZ has released a position paper (PDF) that rejects the governments’s planned internet filtering scheme. Jordan Carter, InternetNZ Policy Director:
InternetNZ supports a safe environment for people online, and absolutely deplores the availability and use of child abuse material, However, a government filtering system, centrally operated, is not the answer.
The report says that the proposed filtering system:
Continue reading Internet NZ rejects government internet filter →
Defending civil liberties in the digital age