South Australian Government gags anonymous speech

[Sarad AV]

this doesn't make sense. this is more or less same as de-anonymising the
voters secret ballot.

say 3 people are contesting the election and you make negative comments about
the first and the second contestant on the internet. That pretty much means
that everyone gets to know that you are voting for the third. it defeats the
whole purpose of a secret ballot.

Sarad.


--- On Wed, 2/3/10, R.A. Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com> wrote:

> From: R.A. Hettinga <rah at shipwright.com>
> Subject: South Australian Government gags anonymous speech
> To: cypherpunks at al-qaeda.net
> Date: Wednesday, February 3, 2010, 8:15 PM
>
<http://www.news.com.au/technology/south-australian-state-government-gags-int
> ernet-debate/story-e6frfro0-1225825750956>
>
>
>
> South Australian Government gags internet debate
>         From:
> AdelaideNow February 02, 2010 8:30am 327 comments
>
> Web commenters will have to give their full details when
> discussing the SA
> election. Picture: File.
>         Anonymous comments
> banned for SA election
>         Michael Atkinson says
> speech still free
>         Media says censorship
> is 'draconian'
> SOUTH Australia has become one of the few states in the
> world to censor the
> internet.
> The new law, which came into force on January 6, requires
> anyone making an
> online comment about next month's state election to publish
> their real name
> and postcode.
>
> The law will affect anyone posting a comment on an election
> story on The
> Advertiser's AdelaideNow website, as well as other
> Australian news sites.
> It could also apply to election comment made on social
> networking sites such
> as Facebook and Twitter.
>
> The law, which was pushed through last year as part of a
> raft of amendments to
> the Electoral Act and supported by the Liberal Party, also
> requires media
> organisations to keep a person's real name and full address
> on file for six
> months, and they face fines of $5000 if they do not hand
> over this information
> to the Electoral Commissioner.
>
> 'Still free speech'
>
> Attorney-General Michael Atkinson denied that the new law
> was an attack on
> free speech.
>
> "The AdelaideNow website is not just a sewer of criminal
> defamation, it is a
> sewer of identity theft and fraud," Mr Atkinson said.
>
> "There is no impinging on freedom of speech, people are
> free to say what they
> wish as themselves, not as somebody else."
>
> Mr Atkinson also said he expected The Advertiser to target
> him for sponsoring
> the law.
>
> "I am also certain that Advertiser Newspapers and News
> Limited will punish me
> personally, viciously for being the attorney-general
> responsible for this
> law," he said.
>
> "You will publish false stories about me, invent things
> about me to punish
> me."
>
> The Advertiser's editor, Melvin Mansell, said: "Clearly
> this is censorship
> being implemented by a government facing an election.
>
> "The effect of that is that many South Australians are
> going to be robbed of
> their right of freedom of speech during this election
> campaign.
>
> "The sad part is that this widespread suppression is
> supported by the
> Opposition.
>
> "Neither of these parties are representing the people for
> whom they have been
> elected to govern."
>
> The Right to Know Coalition, made up of Australia's major
> media outlets
> including News Limited, publisher of The Advertiser and
> parent company of
> news.com.au, has called the new laws "draconian".
>
> "This is one of the most troubling erosions of the right to
> free speech in
> Australia for many years," Right to Know spokeswoman Creina
> Chapman said.
>
> Ms Chapman also pointed out that newspaper blogs such as
> AdelaideNow were
> moderated and publishers and broadcasters took
> responsibility for the material
> they published.
>
> Liberal doubts
>
> Opposition justice spokeswoman Vickie Chapman said
> yesterday while the Liberal
> Party had supported the amendment to the Electoral Act, she
> believed it would
> be too broad to implement if it included Facebook and
> Twitter.
>
> Ms Chapman said Mr Atkinson should introduce a regulation
> to limit its scope.
>
> "It is clearly not the intention of what we understood that
> to be," she said.
>
> The SA law - which could also apply to talkback radio -
> differs from federal
> legislation, which preserves the right of internet users to
> blog under a
> pseudonym.
>
> The law will apply as soon as the writs for the March 20
> election are issued.
> The writs for the election can be issued any time between
> now and 25 days
> before the election. The law will then lapse at 6pm on
> polling day.
>
> Mr Atkinson said there was no intention to broaden the law
> to take it beyond
> the period of elections.