This will not happen on iServ - ever

The South Australian Government has passed a law that will require anyone who comments on the upcoming South Australian general elections in an online forum to include their full name and postcode in any posts they make. Additionally, it will be the responsibility of any online forum administrator to collect the full name and residential address of anyone commenting on the elections and keep these records for a period of six months.

Due to the inability of iServ's administrators to verify any supplied personal information, assuming that such information would get supplied in the first place, iServ will not take part in this activity and anyone commenting on the South Australian elections may do so without fear that their identities can be traced.

To facilitate this, iServ's logging processes that record a visitor's IP address and other similar generic information will be disabled from the time that the first thread relevant to the South Australian elections is posted to the day after the elections have been staged, that being the 21st March, 2010.

Please read this article for further information on this act of bastardry on the part of the South Australian Government.

I suppose that this, and copycat acts on other websites, will become a test for those governments in democracies like Australia who want to test the water with nazi-like censorship regimes. The stark reality is that this measure by the South Australian Government is far worse than the proposed Internet filter being pushed down our throats by the Commonwealth Government.

It is a national disgrace that Big Brother's frontiers are stretching to breaking point and whilst the South Australian Constitution does not grant the right to free speech it doesn't deny free speech either.

The punishment for refusing or failing to provide any personal information on demand to the South Australian Electoral Commission carries a $5,000.00 fine. Again, this is a national disgrace and a completely barbaric law that takes away a person's choice to privacy and their ability to speak freely about the failings of their government.

Written at 18:31 on 2 February 2010 by Lord Watchdog.

Comments

Dan Mr Altruistic Member #: 9 29 January 2006. Posts: 402.	Posted at 19:43 on 2 February 2010.
	Hear hear! Let the games begin

Lord Watchdog Top Dog Member #: 2 28 January 2006. Posts: 537.

Posted at 10:27 on 3 February 2010.

The South Australian Attorney General, Mr Michael Atkinson, has backflipped today and will repeal the law retrospectively after the general election that will be held on the 20th March. This is a win for democracy but just as importantly, it means people can comment on elections without the fear that their identities will be tracked by stalkers as often happens on the Internet.   ------------------------------------------------------ Regards, Lord Watchdog.

2009dev40 Member #: 218 6 November 2009. Posts: 56.

Posted at 14:26 on 20 February 2010.

Yep! how about this: QUOTE: MICHAEL Atkinson, meet Aaron Fornarino - the man you say does not exist and is a "fictitious" Liberal Party creation. This was from the AdelaideNow website (dated 3/2/10) which goes on to say: QUOTE: Yesterday, on radio station FIVEaa, defending his internet censorship laws, Mr Atkinson said the new legislation was necessary because people such as Mr Fornarino were plants for the Liberal Party. "I'll give you an example; repeatedly in the AdelaideNow website one will see commentary from Aaron Fornarino of West Croydon. That person doesn't exist," he said. "That name has been created by the Liberal Party in order to run Liberal Party commentary." When asked how he knew Mr Fornarino did not exist, Mr Atkinson said: "Because I've been the member for the area for 20 years, I've lived here for longer. "I have the up-to-date electoral roll and I just know West Croydon people very well." But Mr Fornarino does exist. He lives in a flat on Port Rd, about 500m from Mr Atkinson's electorate office. He has since met the 'non-existent' being in person and has apologised. The Attorney-General has no real clue about Internet censorship - censorship is about filtering/blocking/masking personal details or information (such as comments which might be racist, malicious or even contain foul language) which could prove damaging to someone or a corporation - therefore removing such content from public view. Removal of anonymity is not censorship - it's an invasion of privacy and a violation of our civil rights. He should have done his homework more on the subject before passing a law about it. What he has done is allowed people to violate the same privacy laws the Federal Government handed down in the first place. He should (A) repeal this stupid law (B) step down as Attorney-General after the State Election. He is so full of it. That's like asking IRC Admininstrators to turn hostmasks off for each normal user who joins so everyone can see a real IP as well as demanding them to supply real names rather than nicks! It's a crock. I hope this 'law' doesn't extend to blog sites like Twitter and Facebook. The SA Government has failed big time - so much for privacy laws. It's a case of one law for them one for us - it sucks. They've been trying to fuck us up the arse for years and now it looks like they might have succeeded in doing so. Wankers! I'm with the majority of people who are against this.

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