What ever happened to the separation of Church and State?

Censorship Australian Style 2012

"The Christian lobby says children as young as 11 are regularly accessing porn online. Research had also found that 84 per cent of boys and 60 per cent of girls had been exposed to internet sex sites accidentally." Michelle Gratten, 9th November 2012: http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/backdown-on-internet-filter-plan-20121108-290qr.html#ixzz2BhVpWh1G

As a child growing up in the 1960's - 1970's I was "accidentally" exposed to porn, not through the internet of course which was only available widely in Australia by the time I was in my mid 20's. My father had a "collection" of porn magazines, hidden badly, we found them "accidentally" as Michelle puts it. When you are 5 you are not looking for porn, you are looking for secrets, lollies, treasures. You are at your nosiest as a little child and those who will remember know that curiosity takes you for a walk and you just have to follow. We were all very little and went through this "collection" with eyes ever widening, utterly transfixed amidst much giggling. Even when you are little you can't look away from some imagery. Colourful and intriguing? Yes, but harmful? No. In the years that followed New hiding spots for the "collection" were randomly discovered. Some of the imagery I encountered remains vivid to me and it taught me a little about the naked form in a way. Not in a disturbing way the Christian Lobbyists will be sad to know or find difficult to understand. Images are powerful but they can't alter the essence of who we are. We are more than the sum of our individual experiences which include what we are ingesting or digesting through seeing, hearing and reading. Statistic such as those quoted by The Christian Lobby, if correct, only tell us that children encounter porn (who'd have thought) but not that this is harmful. Statistics also tell us a significant percentage of sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by religious leaders such as priests or similar, nuns,  or officials belonging to various denominational religious bodies, which we know, without requiring statistical proof, is harmful to children.

Why the Christian Lobby is not concentrating more on addressing the sexual or physical abuse of children by Catholic, Anglican etc, nuns, priests and others belonging to the Christian Church realm is beyond reasonable comprehension. Abuse of children within these bodies existed prior the internet and still does. A form of Nanny cam lock on the Australian internet is not any sort of solution to protect children but represents a real and potentially damaging attack upon what  freedoms of expression, thought and access to information we do have in this country. Such an act of parliament would open the door wide to do so for any purpose deemed to be harmful to the public palate. Art, literature, music, poetry, thoughts, ideas, politics all could slowly be sucked into a sticky web of censorship for reasons of public protection. Political rivals labelled harmful etc. And, all in secret. Suddenly and without warning a site and or its content could be deemed harmful and blocked. Attacking the perpetrators of any internet visible crime such as child porn and shutting down that industry at its source is the solution. Finding and shutting down the physical criminals, the who and where they operate. Technically internet filters will be detoured around by correctly skilled and resourced criminal networks. Use of the internet to locate and target them using their own medium is the logical remedy. Still this does not address the ultimate aims of The Christian Lobby of course which deems all porn harmful. It isn't, it never will be and it isn't criminal though some forms of porn may be, normal adult consensual porn is not in and of itself evil, harmful or illegal.

The internet is of course a kind of unfettered filter in itself and mostly it is a valuable delivering in its warts and all way a summation of human generated content. Good, bad and ugly the public domain needs to remain visible to us, not hidden. The laws and processes to address the criminal aspects of the net additionally need to remain transparent and open to challenge when wrongly or unfairly applied. Just as with the physical world, open and transparent works best in the digital space. Secrecy in law supports suppression of information which conceals actions that may further suppress our natural freedoms and rights. Then we will have censorship and Government power over the individual is ensured to be lead out of balance. If Government is pliable, yielding and swaying to suit a Lobby or Faction with greater influence than the general public then the temptation for Government is to widen the ambit of legislation beyond its original scope. In order to curry or gain favour in tough political times a Government under the influence can be tempted to make changes that suit a few but damage the rights of many. This is never more the case when acceding to religious or cultural pressure when it is the case that human rights must come first and foremost before the religious or cultural. Bad legislation by weak Government leads to bad Government through corrupted decision making. Religious influence over Government decisions is undesirable any way you look at it. Religious causes that successfully apply pressure to produce legislation of questionable benefit outside of a religious criterion is religiously inspired cronyism and it is insidious as it will ultimately destabilise secular democracy. 

Barely concealed attempts to enact legislated censorship such as the internet filter bill must not take 5 years to fail. Though we can't blame the Christian Lobby necessarily for attempting to pursue their religious agenda by influencing our socio-political framework via their political sympathisers, that they are formally being give so earnest an ear by our Secular Democratic Government is of great concern. 

What ever happened to the separation of Church and State? 

It is more than of passing concern now that this Labor Government, since Kevin Rudd, are not just seeming to be but are full on emerging as more religiously reactive, sensitive, acquiescent and influenced overall.The Christian Lobby and the current Labor Government are obviously too close. It would otherwise never have taken 5 years to rule out this filter nonsense and if they were listening to public temperament at all, we'd have legally recognised same sex marriage in Australia by now. Clearly the Australian Government are not listening to what the Australian people want, it can't hear them as it is only a few are being provided their full attention.

Domain Name Hijacking and Telstra, the new Internet Police

leeanneart.com not available 15/10/11

Last Thursday our internet was cut off by Telstra and we thought that this in itself was bad enough.

Not so.

Sometime under the cover and distraction of Telstra’s removal of our internet connection our Domain names were hijacked (stolen). Read about domain name hijacking via the links at the end of this post.

leeanneart.com & vakras.com were taken by unknown persons and were no longer in our control or ownership. If we had still had internet access when our domains were hijacked we would have been alerted.  Our sites associated with these domains were hosted (stored) on our server which connected our sites to the WWW. When we were cut off by Telstra our sites disappeared from the WWW. 

If we had not first been disconnected, then the hijacking of our domains would have made our sites disappear from the WWW instantly. Because of the nature of the hijack we would have been aware of this the moment that it occurred. 

Under the cover of our lack of internet it was likely that the perpetrator held the expectation we would fail to notice in time to retrieve them, or felt that we would not have understood what had occurred. 

Who knew of our lack of internet? That Telstra had disconnected us? When to strike so that they could steal the domain names? Who might benefit from this?

All interesting questions. 

There are protocols and processes to secure domain name ownership. Through impersonation and deception or by the application of technical knowledge (hacking), or because of flawed security procedures these protocols can be breached, as has happened in our case. It is only through timely discovery and persistent, dogged follow-up that we now have both domains back under our ownership.

Fortunately we did discover the theft fairly quickly and alerted every authority we could. Melbourne IT, the domain name registrar, could not do anything over the weekend when we discovered this late Saturday morning15 October 2011.

The type of action Telstra have taken against us, described as "excessive", the timing of Telstra's actions, the consequences which have flowed from Telstra's actions, and the question of who stood to benefit from them, are all in question.

The Victoria Police Fraud Squad are actively investigating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domain_hijacking

http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/hijacking-report-12jul05.pdf

Addenda to "The SLAPP"

Consequesnces 2007

Telstra (ISP real name now uncensored) has removed our interent access and static IP.

Demands were made to Telstra by Mr Cripps via his lawyers that we were to remove not just references to the 2009 exhibition debacle but our entire websites or Telstra would become a respondent in the Defamation matter brought against myself and Demetrios Vakras by Mr Cripps.

We had already acted reasonably and had under protest censored all the sections of our websites as per the demands made by Cripps, Cripps' and Telstra's various lawyers (all "BIG" company legal firm as per their own claims) sent to monster us.

We drew the line at removing our entire sites voluntarily. The removal of our sites and our internet access should constitute an outrage. We view this as unreasonable, unethical, bullying and harrassement by litigation. Without proof, without deference to innocence, without ethic, reason or the application of logic we are harrassed off the internet just as we were kicked out of our own exhibition in 2009.

Telstra'sresponse is that anything that exposes them to liabilty must be dealt with in this manner. Nothing was stored on their servers. They claim they can do this and indeed they have done this. They can do it to anyone. If you don't like what someone says just threaten Telstra or any ISP. Use the standard method, you are frightened, threatened, defamed and you will get what you want relatively cheaply in this country.

Cripps and his kind can merely threaten to make Telstra a respondent and Telstrasimply rolls over and exposes its belly to exhibit they are no threat.

Telstra disconnected us at 10am this morning.

At about midday we received a call from Telstra business customer service(sic) to ask how we "...were enjoying our plan"? I suspect our feedback will not "...be recorded and utilised for training purposes".

The following sites are currently gone from the internet:
www.leeanneart.com
www.vakras.com
www.phantastart.com
www.daimonas.com
www.phantastsurreal.com
www.humanisttranshumanist.com

Dark Days and the TELnoone Censorship Menace

TELnoone or we will sue!

Is electronic censorship by our service providers, following absurdly risk averse conservative standards, a growing and sinister censorship menace not simply to the internet but to the entire concept of a modern, open society?

In modern Australia we delude ourselves that we have openness, transparency, freedom of opinion, freedom of conclusion and a basic right to free speech. There is a postcard on display in my workplace, one of those free ones with a funny quip or pithy statement which announces..."Everybody has the right to complain!" It is amusing and because we do assume it is the case we immediately think "Yeah, damn right I do" as we read it.

The reality is you do not have the right to complain, not publicly.

If you disagree and think we do have these rights as natural provisions then think on how transparent, open and free you find the following.

The webpages listed below have been censored by Telnoone (1) an ISP I cannot name because they have threatened me that by doing so I will bring their "brand into disrepute" and that this will result it a shut down of my internet. They have informed me of this threat in an email today.

Since 4pm last Friday 7th October, I and my partner have attempted to fight against their first demand "...to remove the following articles and associated links by 4pm Monday October 10..." I've only altered the company name to "protect" it as per their demand.
(1) Telnoone is not the real ISP name it is the enforced censored version. I take no responsibility for any inference made by any reader further to that. I have not named the company in question.

Dear Lee-Anne, 

It has been drawn to our attention that content hosted using your Telnoone Business Broadband service has breached our Acceptable Usage Policy as it could result in Telnoone incurring a liability to another person.

We therefore require you to remove the following articles and associated links by 4pm Monday October 10:

http://www.vakras.com/guildford_lane_gallery.html

http://www.vakras.com/exhibitions.html

http://www.vakras.com/links.html

http://www.leeanneart.com/guildfordlanegallery.html

http://www.leeanneart.com/events.html

http://www.humanisttranshumanist.com/

http://www.vakras.com/demetrios/reviews.html

http://www.vakras.com/demetrios/pages/exhibitions_archival_works.html

Failure to remove these articles and the associated links by 4pm Monday October 10 may result in your Telnoone Business Broadband Service being suspended or terminated without further notice. Please note that this will mean that all traffic using this service will cease.

Our Acceptable Usage Policy can be found at: Link removed as it would expose the company.

We obviously did not succeed. At this point we are forced, under duress, to censor these pages to protect our access to the internet. If I could show you the "acceptable use policy" in question you would find it broadly concerns, spamming with email, sending trojans over the internet amongst the listed breaches.

The ISP in question has been threatened with being included as a defendant in a defamation action brought against myself and my artist partner Demetrios by a Melbourne gallery director. This is why TElnoone claim they could "...incur a liability to another person". I as well cannot name the litigious gallery director(sic) because that will expose me to further legal retribution. The law doesn't like it when you talk about the legal(sic) actions being taken against you. This is despite the fact it is a matter of public record with the Supreme Court of Victoria, SCI01484 of 2011. Legal types reading this might also like to know we have brought a VCAT action agains this person see VCAT case number C5251/2011. 

The "articles" (webpages) which Telnoone claim breach their "Acceptable Use Policy" describe an experience where my exhibiting artist partner and I were accused of being racists at our own art show opening by the Melbourne gallery director who cannot be named. This all happened in a public setting in-front of remaining guests at the opening night event (we didn't know anyone by that stage - it would have been nice to have their support now). He kicked us out and would not allow us entry (unmolested) to support our show again.

Any form of reasonable negotiation or use of reason to argue against the charges he brought against us and our art work publicly was rejected. Any recompense or remote chance of an apology was a pure fantasy. We cut our very expensive losses at the time and wrote reviews on this show and our experiences within our own art websites. It was too expensive a proposition to simply ignore, too big an outrage, too offensive and unprofessional an act to leave unaddressed in silence.

We were given advice at the time in 2009 not to take expensive, stressful legal action, we should have ignored that advice. It is our only regret that we took this advice.

We are not sorry to tell the truth and we are not about to deny our right to speak it, write about it and paint it. We do not regret our actions or where it has brought us because it is the truth. It is never ok to give in to bullies and belligerence yet this is what we are being asked to do at every step.

What keeps us so silent in the face of such offensive threats to our freedom to speak out, to complain and tell the truth?

Dark days indeed.

The "SLAPP"

consequences, 2007

At approximately 4pm Friday 7th October 2011 Australia's leading telco, Telstra, informed us we had until 4pm Monday 10th October 2011 to remove a swathe of our websites or they will cut off our internet.

Our websites will be removed in their entirety.

Robert Raymond Cripps and his lawyers have threatened Telstra with repercussions if they do not act against us.

We have no choice other than to fight what is essentially a SLAPP.

For those unfamiliar with the term it means "A strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate, and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition."

It is more commonly used by large corporations to silence the voice of a smaller less well resourced opponent such as protestors, bloggers...individual critics of any type. The usual characteristic of the recipient of the SLAPP is they are individuals or very small organisations.

This system of manipulation of the law is effective if it works. Silencing a protestor, removing evidence of criticism combined with waiting until the "weaker" opponent's funds or support mechanisms are gone has its advantages to the larger more well resourced complainant.

Cripps has finances and legal connections along the lines of the better resourced. His strategy is to defeat us by removing our ability to defend our position legally. Lawyers are costly, the legal system is costly full stop. The legal processes are very, very slow, plodding. These actions make a plodding process move glacially slower. Lawyers and defences to further challenges need to be maintained. Matters, we discovered, do not go through to the courts in a straight line. It may seem naive but it is more astonishment that the processes do not have logic or relative fairness behind them. Rather it becomes apparent that the more a defendant wishes to see the complaint addressed in court, the more the complainant attempts to have it pushed further aside and outside of the ambit of influence by the court.

The result is costs, delay and further entropy of finances. Individuals with meagre financial resources are hardly equipped to engage on a level that can be considered equal. All this motivates the defendant more, perhaps an underestimated side-effect.

In other words what he and his legal team are doing may, indeed it usually does, work (it may not be ethical in the real world but it is legal) but not yet.

Following posts will include the claimed defamatory content Cripps wants suppressed before we even have a chance to defend the truth in a court of law.

He sued us initially for 180k now it is 100k. For a conclusion outside of court according to his demands, we would have to pay this and more (remembering this doesn't address other costs), take down our pages and agree to never mention, write or reference the claimed defamatory content again.

Not going to happen. Not now, nor if the SLAPP and Chilling succeeds. 

At every opportunity I will continue to warn and establish the truth about the experience I and Demetrios were subjected to by Robert Raymond Cripps at his Guildford Lane Gallery.