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Greetings Australian Government Officials, Members of Local and International Press, and the General Public. We are Anonymous.
Australia - 2/8/2010 - Over the past several years, we have maintained a close watch on the actions of the Australian Government with particular focus on its stance towards internet censorship.
Australia's laws on internet censorship are already among the most restrictive in the western world. Their government filters more internet content than any other Parliamentary Democracy. For some elements within the Government, including Telecommunications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy, this still is not enough. Late in January of 2009 he proposed legislature that would lead to mandatory ISP filtering for all of Australia. The stated goal is to prevent Australia from viewing "illegal and unwanted content" on the internet.
Anonymous' concern with this legislature is twofold.
First, the ambiguity of the term "unwanted content" is completely unacceptable. No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be "unwanted." Indeed, the only possible interpretation of "unwanted content" is content that the government itself does not want to be seen.
More importantly, Anonymous does not approve of the steps already undertaken by the Australian Government to control what their populous sees. Claiming to be cracking down on "simulated child pornography," many depictions of women with small breasts in pornography have been banned. Officials cannot claim that they believe the models in these movies are in fact underage, as the production the titles that have been affected are heavily regulated to ensure the age of the models. Instead they are relying on earlier ambiguous wording that allows pornography featuring models that "appear to be" under 18 years of age to be treated in the same manner as actual child pornography.
The repercussions of this censorship of a natural body type on the psyche of Australian women cannot be understated, but this is not Anonymous' concern. The Australian Government will learn that one does not mess with our porn. No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason.
We are Legion.
We do not Forgive.
We do not Forget.
Expect us.