Alan Levine (a.k.a. CogDog) is not happy, and I can completely understand why.  He was recently contacted by someone in Australia who indicated that the New Media Consortium website has been blocked by a firewall:

“This strategy is one for which [United States] court systems usually assume innocence until proven guilty, yet in the “Lock ‘em down tight” world of Firewalls, you are guilty until proven innocent. The assignment of “guilt” is not made known or explained, but one has to call some phone number, and plead for innocence?

This is stark raving stupidity, and again, I am baffled by a system that can deny me access to information based on arbitrary means.”

Alas it would seem that Alan has witnessed yet another glimpse of the sheer asinine idiocy of the firewalls currently in place at certain levels of education in Australia. Unfortunately with the looming threat of internet filters it would seem that the Rudd Government has its sights set on even greater control over what its citizens read.

From Wikipedia:

“The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) maintains a blacklist, since leaked,^[3] of websites which would form the basis for the mandatory filter. It has issued a take-down notice and threatened fines of $11,000 per day to at least one website hosted in Australia which contained a link to material on this blacklist.^[4]“

I bluntly question the logic that says such measures can exit in a society that considers itself free or within organisations that would claim to be places of learning.