Senator Stephen Conroy, and creepy is as creepy does ...

(Above: our favourite portrait of Senator Conroy by Penny Bradfield. We've run it a few times and can't get enough of it. You can find out more details about Penny Bradfield and her photography here. Good one Penny, you got da eye).

Every so often, we like to pause to remember why a vote for the federal Labor government is impossible, so long as Senator Stephen Conroy is at the helm of Communications.

We'll be voting for the Happy Birthday party, in lieu of a bright spark setting up a local branch of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.

Conroy has been at it again, sounding off in a way that suggests he's in the business of imitating Screaming Lord Sutch:

The Government’s net filter trials early last year had found there were substantial technical limitations with blocking any more than 10,000 sites using a blacklist-based approach. In response to a question from Greens Senator Scott Ludlam about how the Government would implement a filter based on more than 10,000 blacklisted websites, Conroy boasted he has been told of filtering technology that could block “up to 50,000 sites”.

“Technology evolves,” Conroy declared, noting that the question was hypothetical. (Conroy: We'll block 50,000 sites).

Being a boofhead of the Victorian right, Conroy best understands the baseball bat and the steel-capped toe as a form of political discourse.

Which is why in recent days he's decided to take on Google. Because Google has been very sniffy about his spiffy Chinese government inspired internet filter, and without Google's help Conroy will struggle with high-traffic sites.

Heck, he'll struggle in so many ways it's hard to contemplate them all right now, at least if you can remember the epic days of grand old censorship, which gradually broke down when people realised that talking about John Thomas and Lady Jane didn't mean the end of the world, so much as an indifferent D. H. Lawrence novel.

The best thing that can be said about Conroy's grand plan is that it will stimulate the private sector, with solid trading in suppliers of proxies and VPN's.

Conroy has of course been talking up Google's collection of wi-fi data - while building its street view mapping service - as a colossal breach of privacy - the biggest in the history of the Western world if you can believe his delusional, outlandish, outrageous rhetoric - never mind his colossal proposed breach of my privacy via his great big new filter.

Google has apologised and moved on, but Conroy doesn't have the glimmer of the concept of an understanding of the meaning of an apology or a back-down. That's the way it is when you're a hammer in search of nails.

Personally I find it fun while on a bus to use the iPad to check out the passing parade of wifi addresses and see if there are mugs about who've forgotten to put a password on their wifi. Dear lord, we even found one of our nearest and dearest had failed to seal off their open network. Tip to grommets - your computer system password is not the same as a wifi password.

As usual when reading tales of a dangerous jungle of an internet, with Senator Conroy purporting to don the guise of a white knight - like Google vs. Stephen Conroy - half the fun is in the comments, and Altakoi delivers up a beauty:

Multi billion dollar corporation at the heart of the internet vs marginally lucid politician from the ineffectual government of a mid-sized country. It's a close call.

Conroy might think it's clever politics to have a go at Google, using the well known meme of privacy to stoke the paranoid flames.

"This is a company that says 'do no evil' but tries to pretend it is not motivated by profit and that it knows best and 'you can trust us' when it comes to privacy. Unfortunately there are no safeguards. They consider themselves to be above government." (Stephen Conroy accuses Google of biggest privacy breach in Western world).

But when he starts talking about Google as being a bit creepy, does the honourable Senator have any idea of how he presents as more than a bit creepy? Like his line, trust me I'm from the government, and you can trust us, and we know best about what to censor, and don't you worry about safeguards, because if you talk about safeguards and freedom, don't you realise you're sounding like a pedophile. Or a lover of pedophiles.

Never mind that his grandiose filter places his government above the people, and decides what adults might want to access and watch, or not, as the case might be.

Because there's no doubt that Conroy, and governments to follow, will attempt to use his great big new filter for purposes of social engineering. Conroy is already on record attributing the deaths of teenagers involving Nembutal to euthanasia websites, and how better to deal with that problem than to ban such websites.

Indeedy, how easy to deal with any pressing social problem by banning pesky difficult websites. Or troublesome, worrisome social network sites that upset concerned governments - in the manner of China, or Pakistan if the secular atheists decide to run a little lookalike cartoon contest.

Meanwhile, it's fun, at least if you like a dash of irony with your tabasco sauce, to use Google to check up on how Conroy's latest splash has garnered him headlines all over the place.

You can even pick up a full Senate transcript of his rant at various places, including here in Conroy attacks Google: full Senate transcript. I do love the way Google's service - Senator Conroy news - instantly brings to your fingertips an abundance of articles detailing the latest in Conroy's war of the creeps.

Why it might even bring you to these comments in Google says Communications Minister Stephen Conroy won't listen:

"Right now, he's decided that filtering's all about Google, for some reason," he (Alan Noble, Google Australia head of engineering) said.

"Singling out companies like Google or Facebook is distracting. It's not about Google, it's about you, me, all Australians."

Mr Noble said Google had been in talks with Senator Conroy about the policy for up to two years, but they had recently broken down.

"We've had extensive discussions with Senator Conroy through the past two years," he said at the company's I/O event in Sydney.

"We've been pretty clear in our views about filtering and stuck to our guns but clearly Senator Conroy is pushing his view very hard.

"Right now, no, I don't think he is listening (to us)."

Never mind Google. Conroy also isn't listening to anyone, including the United States:

Other major internet service providers, including Yahoo, have also criticised the filter plan, describing it as heavy-handed, as has US ambassador to Australia Jeff Bleich.

Echoing a view expressed by the US State Department, Mr Bleich said there were other ways of policing illegal content that would not impinge on freedom.

"The internet needs to be free," Mr Bleich said in April.

"We have been able to accomplish the goals that Australia has described, which is to capture and prosecute child pornographers... without having to use internet filters." (Google hits back at Conroy).

Seems that the only way to make Conroy and Chairman Rudd listen is via the ballot box. A pity, but if push comes to shove, the Loony party is going to be a shoe-in in my house ...

Oh yes, and Google owns Blogger, which drives this site, for free, but it's hard to see any conflict of interest at the moment, since they haven't thus far censored this site, while Conroy seeks the powers of totalitarian governments.

And that concludes our monthly rant about Senator Stephen Conroy. Tedious, but when you see a goose of a nail, what's a hammer to do? And now for a couple of more conventional portraits of Senator Conroy in action: