-----Original Message-----
>From: R R <>
>Sent: Apr 5, 2009 5:11 PM
>To: 
>Subject: Your censored blog.
>
>Dear Tom,
>
>as an Aussie who runs a website I have been following the ISP filtering
debacle closely.  I was disturbed to find that your blog commentry has been
made inaccessable due to someone complaining.  Even the "read it anyway"
button simply recycled me to the 'blocked' screen.
>
>Despite going for a major dig I can't see any way of making my objections
to your being censored known to Google.
>
>I am therefore writing to ask you a favor and a question.
>
>The favor is, would you please be so kind as to e-mail me the text of your
blog entry;
>
>http://terracottainn.blogspot.com/2009/04/freedoms-on-internet-under-
attack-in.html
>
>Firstly I want to read it myself, and I'm hoping you will help to protect
my own "1st Amendment Rights" that we don't enjoy here in Australia.
>
>Secondly I would like your permission to re-post your text to anti-
censorship sites here so others can read your opinions.
>
>Cheers,
>
>-Roly
>http://ozvalveamps.elands.com/
>

---

Re: Your censored blog.
Sunday, 5 April, 2009 10:45 PM
From: 
This sender is DomainKeys verified
"Tom Mulhall" <>
Add sender to ContactsTo: 
"R R" <>
Hi Roly,
We have a couple here from Australia right now. This is their 7th holiday
with us in 4 years. We really don't have the freedom of the press like most
of the world thinks. ex-President Bush destroyed our media. My opinion was
so it couldn't report on government wrongdoings.

If you look at Reporters without
Borders:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporters_without_borders You will see
even Australia without a guaranteed freedom of the press has a freer press
than the US.

Here is my story:

"Freedom of the internet under attack in Australia

What is the biggest threat to western democracies? IMO, it is not
terrorists, it is our own incompetent and corrupt politicians.

Sadly, in the US we have lots of bad politicians, but we are not alone.
Australia has a board that now officially blocks internet sites. And worse,
they do not even list the sites that are blocked and the board has no over
site. Now I can see blocking child porn sites, and sites that tell people
how to do criminal activities, etc., but not disclosing sites they block is
scary for civil rights..

Who knows when these people will decide nudist sites are bad. If our FCC
wanted to fine CBS TV millions for Janet Jackson's famous nipple slip, who
knows what governments will try to "protect" us from.

Here's the story:

"SECRECY, said British judge Sir John Chadwick, is the badge of fraud. He
was speaking in the context of financial fraud but it seems equally to
apply in Australia where governments wear the badge while robbing us of our
freedoms, all the while pretending to do precisely the opposite.

We have over the past decade descended down a path of official deceit where
governments erode our freedoms of association and expression while making
it an offence to speak of their fraudulence.

It began in the hysteria of a post-9/11 world when the Government stole our
presumption of innocence and the protections of habeas corpus under the
pretext of protecting us, and then made it a crime to speak about its
trespasses....

Secrecy became an end to itself, behind which the Government and its
minions were able to hide their worst excesses and intimidate their
victims.

Now, under the pretext of protecting us from corruption on the internet, a
government of a different colour hides its abuses of power behind another
veil...

More specifically, they should have been outraged over the Government's
blacklist of 10,000 sites which were to be added to another 1300 identified
by the unelected and faceless Australian Communications and Media Authority
to be filtered out of our consciousness.

Just what might we be protected against? We may never know.

The ACMA list was said to be mainly of child pornography sites, but last
year Broadband and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy could not even
define the grounds for restricting the 10,000, although they were supposed
to contain "illegal and unwanted content".

Now we learn the ACMA list of banned sites has mysteriously grown to more
than 2300, with no public inquiry and no rights of appeal. Worse, we are
not allowed to know what is on the proscribed list and anyone who wants to
rescue us from our ignorance is threatened with up to 10 years in jail.

An outfit called Wikileaks put online a leaked list of what purports to be
the banned list, including entirely innocent sites and blameless
individuals. For its trouble, it was threatened with huge fines and placed
on the blacklist.

Conroy denies the veracity of the list but we may never know because it is
a dark secret shared by the Government, the ACMA and a favoured few who
stand to get fat by perfecting the internet filter...

What next? Who next?...

It is a Kafkaesque exercise in mindless tyranny that is unworthy of one of
the world's oldest, proudest and previously durable democracies.

Secrecy may be a badge of fraud. It is also the flag of frightened men."

For the full story CLICK HERE:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25215388-23272,00.html

How does this effect nudists? We may be next with our sites censored. If
the state of New Jersey serious thought about banning Brazilian bikini
waxing, governments can easily decide that nudist resorts are illegal. They
do that to nude beaches in the US all the time.

Here in the US, ex-President Bush in his famous speech explaining why he
thought terrorists hated Americans. He said "They hate our freedoms." So of
course what did he do. Instead of reasserting his belief in the Bill of
Rights, he decided to take away our freedoms too. One of the biggest ones
was the governments wiretapping every single phone call and collecting
every single e-mail in the US. I guess Bush and Cheney felt if you take
away Americans freedoms, terrorists won't hate us as much.

Censoring the net is no different that what China, North Vietnam, middle
eastern countries and other totalitarian regimes do. It is sad that people
are letting our governments get away with this.

But, sadly because of the conservative press who doesn't want to rock the
boat, we don't have true investigative reporting like we used to during
Watergate.

Citizens need to wake up. Remember what Benjamin Franklin said: 
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security,
deserve neither liberty or security." 

Too bad politicians never seem to learn from history.


Tom
http://sunnyfun.com
1-800-786-6938
Follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/tcotta 

Yes, you have my permission to repost my post to anti censorship sites.

Good luck. Someday we will take a holiday in Autralia as we have met so
many nice Aussies.

Tom

===