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You read about people in third world countries being arrested and harassed for taking photos all the time but I haven't heard anything about the legal situation in Oz. So: photographers, and people who know the law: what's the legal situation in Australia for the following?

1. Alice stands on a public footpath and takes a photo of Ben, who is an ordinary civilian, without asking Ben's permission first or offering him an opportunity to review the photo before it gets printed or published.
2. Charles stands on a public footpath and takes a photo of Constable Dawn, who is an on-duty police officer walking on that same footpath.
3. Ellen stands on a public footpath and takes a photo of Constable Fred, who is at that moment standing beside a car that he evidently just stopped for speeding. The driver, George, is not visible from Ellen's vantage point.
4. Harry stands in a shopping mall and takes a photo of a part of the mall in the general thoroughfare of the mall, say the (unattended) information desk.
5. Iris stands in a shopping mall and takes a photo of Jim, who is standing in a shop, say a Starbucks, inside the mall.
6. Kevin stands on a public footpath and takes a photo of a government office's front door, including a clear view of Lisa, a public servant who is entering the building.
7. Mary stands on a public footpath and takes a photo of a government office's front door, including a clear view of Neal, a security guard at the government office's reception desk.
8. Oliver stands on a public footpath and takes a photo of a military installation, say a Navy ship in dock.

My belief is that in none of those cases should anyone have the right to demand that any of the photographers surrender their camera, erase their photos or come down to the station for questioning. But I know that at least some of these may be grey areas (the shopping mall stuff, for a start) so I wonder if anyone has any links or knowledge to clarify.

Note: I'm not intending to do any of this; I'm just curious.

The judges said that the interpretation of clause 7.1 of the act, which allowed regulation of conduct deemed to be a cause of "annoyance", was invalid because it "affects freedom of speech in a way that, in our opinion, is not supported by the statutory powers".

There was "no intelligible boundary" on what "causes annoyance".

The regulation relating to annoyance "could be expected to have a chilling effect upon the exercise of their freedom of speech because of the very uncertainty about the degree of its infringement upon that freedom", they said.

- Two Sydney activists have won a Federal Court challenge to special World Youth Day laws that carry $5500 fines for annoying pilgrims

Excellent!

Now, protest the WYD debacle all you like. Just remember: attacking a foolish belief or foolish actions is OK; attacking people is not. In some cases, people will feel attacked when you attack their belief in a magic invisible zombie superheroes, so play it by ear. Don't be nasty; leave that to the religious nuts.

And if you still get arrested, don't worry. Just pray to the Doctor and he will send his TARDIS to rescue you, yea, even though you walk in the quarry of Skaro and the Silurians be at your back!

Another day, another chilling effect.

A discussion on the Shambles (SCA Lochac mailing list), that was ranging widely over the topic of Festival sites, got effectively shut down again, just like about this time last year, and by much the same people.  Apparently the discussion was negative and cynical -- or so they claimed.  I was reading it as extremely positive, respectful almost to the point of gushing sycophancy, and no more repetitive than one expects with the typical lead time and lag of a mailing list.  But a couple of people appear to equate discussion with criticism, and criticism with unfair criticism, and so batted their eyelids and begged that the whole thing be silenced.  Now.  Or you're all nasty people.

It's not censorship in the usual sense.  When the List Boss, say, announces that the topic will be ceased for reasons that are spurious, that's censorship - but we haven't had a List Boss that foolish in a very long time, if ever. But when a sweet lass says things like "I've listened to you all complain here... I've listened to people ... off-list become upset at your words", she doesn't need to say which comments she considers complaints, or which people were upset.  People take her at her word, even if she rarely posts anything but that sort of insinuation.  We're a polite Society; that's how we work.

It annoys me to see the usual suspects at it again, especially when they have so little to say the rest of the time.

Here's the principle I work by: if you are intimately involved in Topic X, and you find a collection of people discussing that topic, informally and even ill-informedly, here is a list of things you may do:

1. ignore it;
2. join in; or
   
3. wish quietly that they'd stop.

Here is a list of things you may not do and still consider yourself a mature adult:

1. tell them they're not allowed to talk about it.

The above includes using emotional bullying tactics to effect the same result.  It's not just rude, it's destructive and mean-spirited.

But as I've said before, some people like being offended.  They can't get enough of it.  For these people, I have one thing to say: you're ugly, and your mother dresses you funny.

Got this via email from Senator Conroy's office:

Dear Mr Sleigh

Thank you for your email message. The Minister for Broadband,
Communications and the Digital Economy is interested in your views and
encourages feedback on the issues and activities in his portfolio.

If you would like a reply to your email, please provide your full postal
address and every effort will be made to reply to your questions and
comments as soon as possible. As you would appreciate, the Minister
receives a great deal of correspondence and it can take some time for a
response.

Please note that if no address is provided, a formal reply will not be
sent, although your comments will be noted.

Yours sincerely

MARGARET WHITE
Assistant Manager
Parliamentary Liaison

So they're reading their deluge of hate mail, at least. I think I'll add "put together a good solid argument against censorship" on my list of Things To Do (Urgent) and promptly forget about it.

Meanwhile, japester blogged about NetAlarmed, a spoof website on this topic.

Now, what I would like to see is a comprehensive list, broken down by ISP and region, of instructions on how to opt out of the nannyship. Then we could pass it around to everyone we know and get them to do it as a matter of course. The old argument (that we don't want to draw attention to ourselves as potential felons) has less bite if everyone is doing it at once.

aunty_del asks:

I wholeheartedly agree that censorship in general is a bad thing, but why are you so determined to opt out of this? You made a comment previously that it would be better, not worse, for EDoD - why? I hadn't heard about this until I read your previous post, but the worst I could say was that it appeared to be a King Canute project dressed up with motherhood statements.

Here's an anecdote:

Last night, the BatPup wanted me to tell her a story about her when she grows up. Often I tell the one about her getting a job as a selenologist (a geologist on the moon) and joining in the first near-lightspeed colony ship to Epsilon Eridani, but last night I came up with a different one. In this one, she was grown up and in a polyamorous relationship with three other people named A____, M____ and L___ (hint: amongst our friends are nessbrain, baroquestar and lauredhel). She and M____ got pregnant around the same time and each had a daughter -- hers was Rose and the other was Claire, or vice versa, I can't remember. I don't recall how it all went, but it all took place on a farm somewhere and there was a lot of living happily ever after in between changing cloth nappies.

Now, I have no reason to believe my younger daughter will grow up to be polyamorous, any more than she'll grow up to study moon rocks and take a skyhook to work from the Sri Lankan spaceport. But she might. And if she did, she might want to read the venerable old piece of tripepoly manifesto, The Ethical Slut, to see what her Grand Da's generation had to say on the matter (and laugh). Online, of course, because only old farts read books.

But if Net Nannies are mandatory, she won't be able to, because that's got a naughty word in it..

Similarly, if she's ever sexually assaulted (where's my machete?) she might want to frequent whatever forums exist for discussion of sexual abuse. Or maybe she'll be gay, or bi, or into BDSM, or contemplating a trip to West Virginia or Scunthorpe or Arsenal. Too bad, so sad, why not watch Big Brother XXXVII instead?

Censorship is bad. Censorship removes the opportunity for sentient human beings to connect with other sentient human beings in ways that they want to, and should be allowed to. My son and daughters will live, if Conroy and Fielding and the rest have their way, in a world in which nobody has the wrong kind of fun or loves the wrong kind of people. And they'll define what "wrong" is. Just like no GST ever stays at its lowest percentage forever, no net nanny software will remain at its most liberal setting. Installing it is the hard part; once it's there, it's a far easier matter to "tweak" it and "adjust" it and make it "work properly".

I do not want my son and daughters to have to grow up in a world whose information flow is controlled by people I despise. Currently, the information flow is not controlled, and that's the way it should be. If that means that some people are being abused, well fair enough: with great power comes great responsibility, to quote a recent birthday boy. They're not being abused because of the internet -- that's biblical knee-jerking, on par with "if thine eye offend thee". They're being abused by negligent parents and a growing culture of willing blindness. That's not going to be fixed by blacklists, whitelists or any other technological trickery.

That's why.

Received just now from Internode, in response to my question about Winston Conroy's Ministry of Truth:

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your support request with Internode.

As of January 20, we will have to comply with the new internet censorship laws as they will be mandatory.

You may be already aware that you are able to opt out of being censored.

At this point in time we do not have any specifics about being able to opt out.

We would suggest that when January 20 arrives, that you hang onto this ticket and just state that you do not wish to be apart of the internet censorship.

If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please reply to this email or contact our Helpdesk by phone on 1300 788 233.

Kind regards,

Greg
Customer Support Officer

I like that he's calling it what it is -- censorship -- and taking it seriously. Another point for Internode, and a black mark against the Iced Vo-Vo Empire.

Dear Minister,

I regret you have made a foolish decision regarding internet filtering. If the advice you received suggested to you that mandatory internet filtering would achieve your stated goals, then you must, as a matter of urgency, find a completely new and unrelated team of advisers. If nobody has been dishonest in this matter, then someone has been badly misinformed.

The problems with the stated plan are many and varied. You only need to look around at the criticisms now being levelled at you and your department to get a very clear and unambiguous understanding of the mistake you've made.

I suggest you wait until the next time the media are distracted -- perhaps during a cricket match? -- and quietly undo the mess. With luck, it will be forgotten and you'll be OK.

Please note: I am the father of three children. In order to provide them with the maximum protection, I will be opting out of any mandatory filtering. It is the only way to keep my children safe. Your foolish plan would do quite the opposite, and I'm disappointed in you for not seeing that well in advance.

Sincerely, and hoping this is not representative of the quality of decision making of our much-anticipated new government,

: Paul Sleigh :

Sent a couple of minutes ago to Senator the Hon Stephen Conroy. Be sure to do the same, and then contact your ISP and request to opt out of the filtering. Happy New Year!