Digital libertarians form coalition

Another organization that has been invigorated by the Clean Feed project is the national Digital Liberty Coalition.

DLC executive national resources manager Jeremiah Hutchinson said the organisation sprung up response to the content filtering idea because there were countless grass-roots movements “trying to coordinate things”.

“Obviously tapping into those movements was useful, as these people were already adamantly opposed to the censor and motivated enough to do something about it,” Hutchinson said.

According to Hutchinson the national protests held on December 13 were “very much just the beginning, as the fight is a lot bigger than just a few thousand people standing out in the sun on their Saturday afternoon”.

“We will be taking the coalition to Canberra in March to take the fight to Parliament,” he said.

Whether or not the filter goes ahead, the DLC will be looking to use its groundswell of support to push for a specific Bill of Rights in Australia.

Hutchinson said having explicit freedoms, as opposed to “simply implied ones” Australians currently have, is the only way to stop politicians continuously returning to the absurd notion that censorship is wise course of action.

The DLC, like almost everyone else in IT, believes a much better use of the governments time and money would be to better support the Federal Police in cracking down on cybercrime.

“[The AFP] is severely under-funded and its stream of new recruits has been blocked as doesn't have the funds to train any new agents until 2010. That, in my view, is disgusting,” Hutchinson said.

“Why waste money on an easily by-passable and useless filter when we are neglecting the most useful resource that we have in the fight against child pornography? The AFP do a wonderful job of tracking down and punishing offenders and criminals, ignoring their needs and failing to support them is easily the stupidest by-product of the censorship plan.”

In terms of uniting disparate groups, Hutchinson said nationalists turned up at the Melbourne protest and were happily protesting alongside socialists.

“The issue of Internet censorship is one that effects every person in the country, so it isn't surprising to see people come together on this issue, despite political or historical differences,” he said.