Conroy, McClelland, the Chinese government and irony as a form of ironmongery ...

(Above: spot the difference? Hand the person who said "smaller screen" a cigar. Or possibly a glass of wheatgrass juice. Oh okay a gluten free beer. Sheesh, we were just trying to hand out a prize).

[N]o organization or individual may produce, duplicate, announce or disseminate information having the following contents: being against the cardinal principles set forth in the Constitution; endangering state security, divulging state secrets, subverting state power and jeopardizing national unification; damaging state honor and interests; instigating ethnic hatred or discrimination and jeopardizing ethnic unity; jeopardizing state religious policy, propagating heretical or superstitious ideas; spreading rumors, disrupting social order and stability; disseminating obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, brutality and terror or abetting crime; humiliating or slandering others, trespassing on the lawful rights and interests of others; and other contents forbidden by laws and administrative regulations. (here)

Oh okay, it doesn't take much to set me off. Leastwise not when the Intertubes and this Federal Government of Oz - click your heels and find yourself in Kansas in 1984 - are involved.

There I was having a laugh about the Chinese Government releasing a white paper about the Intertubes, and having the cheek, apparently without a sense of irony or humour, to scribble:

The Internet provides unprecedented convenience and a direct channel for the people to exercise their right to know, to participate, to be heard and to oversee, and is playing an increasingly important role in helping the government get to know the people's wishes, meet their needs and safeguard their interests. The Chinese government is determined to unswervingly safeguard the freedom of speech on the Internet enjoyed by Chinese citizens in accordance with the law. (China: Internet Freedom Is Important, Except When Other Things Are More Important).

You can get a copy of the full text of the white paper here, courtesy the China Daily, but of course it's the exclusions, exemptions, watering downs, and dodgy brothers wording that produces a sublime example of double think. Not spread rumours, not propagate heretical or superstitious rumours? Sheesh, the intertubes would be dead within the week. But as a catch all, it's surely admirable. Any censor worth his salt would love the phrasing.

Why you could have a go at anyone about anything you like if you follow the impeccable logic embedded in the wording. I'm thinking of having a go at Chairman Rupert for trespassing on my interests, or my lawn, or my right to quiet enjoyment of the pond, when he keeps on sending those pesky, squawking loon columnists my way. I know, I know, I click on them, but it's only because I want to check on how they've been spreading rumors, disrupting social order and stability.

Oh yes, there's irony and then there's big brother, but of all the ironies this Oz Labor government has recently cooked up, the latest intertubes folly is a doozy.

While getting all agitated and upset about Google's "biggest breach of privacy in the known and unknown universe, and possibly the fourth dimension", the news has leaked out, thanks to ZDNet, that the Government wants to out-Google Google. Huh, that's not a breach of privacy, you can imagine the Attorney-General's Department muttering, this is a breach of privacy.

You can read about it here in Ben Grubb's Govt wants ISPs to record browsing history, which was picked up in the Herald, in Big brother wants all your bits and bytes, and in the usual way of things, it's clattered around the intertubes like a tin can attached to a wedding getaway vehicle.

The idea, and it's a monstrously simple one, is that the ISPs of Australia will need to log and retain their customers' web browsing data, and store the information for a couple of years so that anyone with an interest can pilfer it and have fun with the knowledge, and leak it and play with it, and spread it around, in the sure knowledge that some manure will stick.

Oops, I meant the government can keep it hanging around for a couple of years, in case it might come in handy in criminal proceedings. Come in handy. Love that phrase.

Of course it's all for the very best possible reasons, to ensure social harmony, and eradicate criminality, and provide enhanced security, in much the same way as the Chinese government is only interested in harmony (they love the notion of harmony), and of course it's a profound beach of privacy.

Everybody's reacted in a predictable way to the news, and why wouldn't you, since this Government seems to want to keep shooting itself in the foot. Bloggers are brooding, Are we being governed by people who haven't read 1984 (Que, 1984? No point in reading the 1984 newspapers, 1984's been and gone), but I think it's a bloody marvel.

The Attorney-General is of course that goose the Hon Robert McClelland, MP, Member for Barton, who not so long ago stood up and sanctimoniously and righteously did a double header with the goose Stephen Conroy, as they berated Google up hill and down dale.

They were all over the press with it, with outraged headers popping up all over the place like mushrooms. Robert McClelland refers Google's snooping to federal police, and Police investigate Google, and well, you can Google more if you like.

At the same time, tag teamer Conroy was doing his level best to whip up alarums, fear, doubt and uncertainty, as he launched Cyber Security Awareness Week, and invited fifty young Australians to help him quell the unruly intertubes. (Funny, the way President Obama launched a National Cybersecurity Awareness Month back in October of last year - does a week rather than a month avoid intellectual property rights?)

They even launched a bloody booklet. You can get it online here, but you know what, the booklet fails a basic test in terms of valuable information. Here's what it should have said:

Install security software and update it regularly. Otherwise the government might be tracking you.

Turn on automatic updates so that all your software receives the latest fixes. Who knows who might be eavesdropping. Like the government.

Get a stronger password and change it at least twice a year. Not sure if it'll stop the government, but it's worth a try.

Stop and think before you click on links or attachments. Remember the government might be tracking that information.

Stop and think before you share any personal or financial information - about yourself, your friends or family. Wouldn't want the government to know all about it and use it to nail you to the wall.

Know what your children are doing online. Make sure they know how to stay safe and encourage them to report anything suspicious. Like the government tracking their every movement online. Did you know your fifteen year old child looks at porn? Time to answer that government official knocking on the door?

Not to worry, I'm sure that the government is doing the very best for all of us. Why I see that Senator Conroy's internet filter has already caught a prominent Tasmanian ABC identity in its web.

What's that you say? The filter's not switched on yet, and it was just a matter of investigative policing?

Well I never. Still no harm at all in intruding in to every aspect of Australian lives online, because someone has to think of the children.

And whatever happens down the track, I hear you loud and clear. We certainly shouldn't just give the cops more money to tackle online crime, when the decent option is to treat everyone as a suspect and a potential criminal, and track and censor and restrict and limit and hedge and bind them with briars in every imaginative way the government can imagine ...

So we can achieve harmony, and be at one with the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, back to that lovely phrase up hill and down dale. I had a look around, and there's the free dictionary upping its services in relation to words and idioms. Here's what you get:

I was wedged in between Redruth and a stout old gentleman, and in spite of the swift motion and the cold night air, I must have dozed a great deal from the very first, and then slept like a log up hill and down dale through stage after stage, for when I was awakened at last it was by a punch in the ribs, and I opened my eyes to find that we were standing still before a large building in a city street and that the day had already broken a long time.
Treasure Island by Stevenson, Robert Louis View in context

And warn't it me as had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill and down dale in Bridewells and Lock-Ups?

Great Expectations by Dickens, Charles View in context

Before I begin my harum-scarum day-- grinding away at those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down dale, all the country round, like a highwayman--it does me so much good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that here I am again.
Bleak House by Dickens, Charles View in context

Golly, I love the possibilities of the intertubes. What's the bet that between them, the Chinese and Australian governments can singlehandedly ruin its potential? With Google way back in the field ...

Perhaps this poem by William Blake, The Garden of Love, an oldie but a goldie, is a better closer:

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut
And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

Now that's a song of experience. Oh and by the way, it's not too late to mention Google Launches Encrypted Web Search. What a hoot. (And my partner, leaning over my shoulder to snoop at my screen, says, a little too cheerfully, and so the Government can get fucked!)

(Below: a couple of jokes. Government advice on internet security, or how to help the Government help you, followed by a jolly picture of the gang of six).