They're not all child molesters

Last week, the German police raided Wikileaks related buildings, after the site exposed secret government censorship lists for a bunch of countries, including Thailand, UAE, Australia and Germany. The plans put Australia and Germany in good company -- like China and Saudi Arabia -- who restrict the freedoms of their people.

If all the sites that were censored were those belonging to child molesters, no one would raise an eyebrow. But they're not. You have to wonder about the secret lists as well. Why secret? If the sites are to be blocked to protect the public, then why isn't the public being notified? Why isn't the criteria for blocking sites made public? Why are legitimate and perfectly legal sites also on the list? What legal basis is there for censorship, in free and open democracies?

Most troubling is the fact that in order to censor sites, the government must intercept internet communication -- which allows it to record the surfing habits of its citizens. I can understand this in Thailand and UAE, where the word freedom itself is censored -- but Australia and Germany?

I quote Wikileaks analogy for context, thinking of the blacklists as books in a library:

• Within the libraries and book catalogues of Germany and Australia there are books (web pages) forbidden by the state.
• The government of Australia has compiled a secret list of books it forbids. About 1,200 books are on the list.
• Not even authors or publishers whose books are placed on the list are told their book has been banned.
• Germany plans to adopt and expand a version of the Australian scheme.
• Under the plans of the German and Australian governments, every attempt to borrow a book (read a web page) will be checked against the secret "forbidden books" (forbidden web pages) list.
• If a book is on the list, the attempt to borrow it is noted down in another secret list and permission is refused. If the book is not on the blacklist, permission is granted.
• The list of forbidden books (the blacklist) is a forbidden book.
• The lists of books forbidden in other countries are also forbidden books.
• Any book that mentions the title (URL) of a forbidden book is itself a forbidden book.
• An international investigative newspaper (Wikileaks) reveals key internal documents on the censorship expansion plans for Germany, Australia and other countries. For Australia this expose includes the lists of forbidden books and the presence of clearly political books on the list. The newspaper warns that Australia is acting like a "democratic backwater" and risks following the censorship path of Thailand.
• The article and lists, and then the entire newspaper secretly added to the list of publications banned by Australia.
• The Australian "Minister for censorship", Senator Stephen Conroy, states "Any citizen who distributes [the blacklist] is at serious risk of criminal prosecution". The Minister threatens to refer the leak to the Australian Federal Police.
• That same week, the newspaper releases three more articles on censorship and updates the lists of forbidden books.
• Two buildings related to the newspaper in Germany are then raided by 11 plain clothed police. The police demand the keys (passwords) to a protected room (server) containing the newspaper's printing press so they can disable it. The newspaper staff refuse to comply--both the keys and the press itself have been sent to Sweden, a country with stronger legal protections for journalists.
• The German police then seize what they believe to be the newspaper's archives (a hardrive) and a typewriter (laptop) "for evidence"

Think you're safe here in Canada from this troglodytism? Think again -- although the Canadian voluntary scheme does seem to have merits, there is little available on the Cybertip website in terms of transparency.