Yay! I’m now at PurpleFae.com

I am here now.

Australia Day and the DLC

 

The Digital Liberty Coalition is currently trying to organise material and goodies for anyone wishing to volunteer to hit the streets and spread awareness.

Any town or city, if you’d like to give an hour or two of your time – let us know by emailing volunteers[at]dlc.asn.au and we’ll see if we can organise getting gear to you!

Depending on who your state coordinator is, your city may have something special planned. Many coordinators have a Facebook group too for locals interested in volunteering for events to help stop the internet filter proposal. So find whatever is most comfortable for you – social networking, email, MSN, phone, forums or IRC – to contact others getting active!

After the last local meeting, it was decided that Brisbane will be having a low key day. Local volunteers will be distributing material and chatting with the public around the CBD between 11am to 2pm. Please contact me at qld[at]dlc.asn.au if you’d like to help out in Brisbane on the day.

After Australia Day, our next event will be during university o-weeks nationally. If you’re currently attending uni, please get involved! We’re also interested in student clubs wishing to get involved.

Another thing to keep in mind… at present, March on Canberra in March will be held on the weekend of the 20th. However, this will be confirmed once things such as permits and event management team in ACT is officially in place. If you can help the ACT crew, please let DLC know ASAP.

Make sure to sign up to the mailing list at www.MarchInMarch.org to get updates on this event or leave feedback/ideas on the forums at NoCensorship.info.

DOO EEET! World’s Greatest Shave

I know I rarely write, I’m a hopeless blogger! But I would like to direct your attention to a team made of pure win: Team Websinthe shaves (or colours) for a cure!

Twitter:
RT http://is.gd/fObO Team Websinthe announces a blogosphere ‘Shave for a cure’ Team for Leukaemia research. Click + Join for great justice!

So what are you waiting for! Join the team or sponsor!

Personally, I’m going to colour my hair. I’m a whimp these days. I use to have shortish hair but since I’ve grown it I’ve lost my tomboy charm. Main problem is I have rather dark hair so temporary wash out colouring or coloured hair spray doesn’t actually work in most cases. I believe I will be requiring bleech or my hair will not be outrageous enough for the cause! I may go and find somewhere to get it professionally bleeched prior to the day so my team can have more fun spraying my hair with random colours. Adding colour to hair that you can’t see kills half the fun, we don’t want that! Actually, I may get more donations from mates if I say I’ll go blonde prior to it… they wouldn’t think I’d dare do that. Ahh, yes! hmmm.

I’m known for retarded hair do’s anyway:

No, they are not real dreadlocks.

That was the first time with dread extensions braided in. For some reason I don’t have a photo when I had green dreads :< And dammit, I’ll have them installed again once summer is over! Fake hair is awesome. No bleech required, just the tolerance of not washing your hair throughly is needed. Sounds kind of gross I know but it doesn’t really get that dirty… unless you wear fake dreads in summer… then you sweat… then you smell… charming.

WikiLeaks, Hidden Reports, Trials Postponed

So I came off a graveyard shift this morning and  slept all day. Now catching up on the chatter about developments on Conroy’s filter…  looks like we had a fun day!

So here’s a summary and some nice links to reports:

• Thailand’s secret Internet blacklist has been leaked on Wikileaks.
• Followed by Denmark’s blacklist too.
• Conroy responded to the Sydney Morning Herald (Who revealed there was a filter feasibility report done early this year) with this press release and the DBCDE has now released the report. Download it here.
• It’s also worth reading this blog by one of the authors of the report, Associate Professor Bjorn Landfeldt.
• Trials will commence now in Mid-January instead of on the 24 December.

Conroy’s Plans to Now Filter P2P

The internet filter proposal has now got even worse (or well, more laughable really), with Senator Conroy announcing on his latest blog post that the “live” trial will also be testing P2P filtering:

“The Government understands that ISP-level filtering is not a ‘silver bullet’. We have always viewed ISP-level filtering as one part of a broader government initiative for protecting our children online.

Technology is improving all the time. Technology that filters peer-to-peer and BitTorrent traffic does exist and it is anticipated that the effectiveness of this will be tested in the live pilot trial.

Stephen Conroy“

Just keep side stepping questions and changing the proposal (at the last minute, seems rather messy to me) as you see fit, Conroy. Hey, that hole you’re digging for yourself – you may just reach China!

Deborah Robinson

Nothing but appalled and enraged by Deborah Robinson’s latest low act to silence those with an opposing viewpoint.

Australian Women Online are one of the few supporters of the mandatory internet filter and like many other filter supporters, don’t seem to listen to logic when someone from the anti-filter movement tries to reason with them. People are entitled to defeat their opinion on an issue, but throwing insults or laughing at your opposition is not an effective rebuttal.

‘Ms Caddy’ had posted on AWO’s thread regarding the internet filter, calling out Deborah on her condescending remarks towards posters.

Due to this, her account has now been deleted, as Deborah felt Ms Caddy had “crossed the line”.

Thankfully, someone has copies of Ms Caddy’s posts. To view Ms Caddy’s posts, please visit this link.  Yet another example of Deb being unable to handle a difference in opinion.

Ms Caddy’s is one of the many voices out there that must be heard in this debate. Her story is as follows:

“I am the mother of a child that has been sexually abused. Without going into details of all we’ve been though, you can imagine how tough it has been on my daughter, her siblings and my husband.

My daughter was among other children abducted on their way home from school in Sydney when she was 7. She had “only” been digitally raped. I say “only” because the police caught the criminals before they could do more to her. I wish the other children were as “lucky”.

I wish it never happened, but it did. The only reason things weren’t worse is because the police were able to capture the criminals in time.

What good will a mandatory ISP filter do to stop this? Nothing. An ISP filter will only serve to hide the crimes of these detestable beasts.

Thank you for completely invalidating the seriousness of this crime.”

This woman’s voice, and others that unfortunately share a similar story, are who we need to hear over the ignorant noise created by people such as Robinson.

P.S. By the way, if you’re interested in joining into the discussion at AWO, you need to do so by “12:0am on Thursday, 25 December 2008.”

Sewing Is Great

I have a half constructed pinstripe skirt that has been sitting on my sewing room floor since the end of November. Damn DLC rally took up my time and now I don’t have to energy to finish it…sigh.

Frills and Apples

Sewing is great. I suck at cooking. So don’t even ask me to try. Just ask me to sew pretty things. I do commission work (hopefully, I’ll get around to throwing some things up on my Etsy store in the next month) but mainly ladies clothing. I love lolita fashion but to purchase brand lolita clothing is wayyy out of my comfortable spending limits. So the bulk of what i sew for myself has some sort of lolita vibe to it at least. There’s actually a really epic lolita sewing community at LJ.

When I finally get around to doing a proper photoshoot for my creations,  I  may dump some piccies here…

Digital Liberty Coalition

I’ve been asked a lot of questions about the Digital Liberty Coalition (‘DLC’) so I’ll try and address the main ones here.

If you attended Sydney’s rally, you would have heard Jerry Hutchinson speak on behalf the DLC, our national resources manager. He always welcomes people to contact him and you can reach him at resources@dlc.asn.au.

Another way to get into direct contact with DLC representatives is through IRC:

server: irc.oz.org channel: #nocensorship

Samuel Russell, another DLC speaker at Sydney’s rally, is available on IRC frequently under the alias ‘fifers’. When you can’t get in touch with me, Sam and Jerry are usually the easiest DLC representatives to contact and are happy to help you with any enquires.

THE BEGINNING

The DLC emerged in the last three months due to the lack of awareness and action against the current filter proposal that has been around for nearly a year now. When the issue finally started to get a bit of heat near the end of October, sparking online communities and other groups desiring to take more direct action, DLC pushed for spontaneous rallies on November the 1st. Due to the great number of small grass roots groups forming in this movement, the DLC formed to unify everyone involved to ensure every voice is heard.

ABOUT

The basic objectives of the DLC are listed on our site here. However, our site is fairly bare at present and is getting a revamp in the coming week or two. Unfortunately, due to the time limits for the December 13th event, we focused more on maintaining NoCensorship.info as well as strengthen our networks nationally so our main website hasn’t received the attention it deserves. Now that the December 13th rally has passed, we’re looking to update the website so let us know if there’s anything in particular you wish to see on it.

DLC is currently a middle sized NPO. We’re focussed on net neutrality and are an apolitical organisation. We’re not just interested in defeating this current internet filter, but wish to wipe if off the tables for good.

We utilize guerrilla marketing techniques to spread awareness as we function on a shoestring budget. If you made a donation at one of the rallies, those funds have gone towards offsetting the costs involved in those events.

WHO

Some of us have been activists for most of our lives and others, this is their first taste.

We have coordinators across the country that would love for you to contact them! To get involved, share an idea or give back some constructive criticism about what’s happening in your state, use the contact details here.

Not all of our rally coordinators have ever experience a protest before. They are not your ‘typical activist’ stereotype. However, due to diversity of groups and individuals involved, our volunteers have access to advice, assistance and resources to fuel their local campaigns.

UPCOMING ACTION

December 13^th was the first step towards our goal. All memberships, sponsorships and volunteers can help us get campaigns off the ground:

• Awareness Drives. Having information stalls in your town. If you’d like to run one at a local event in your town, let us know! We can get you setup.
• Fundraising Merchandise. We’re currently looking at obtaining DLC shirts or wristbands for sale to help fundraise for our campaigns.
• Important Awareness Campaign Days – Australia Day and university orientation weeks. Looking for volunteers now!
• Some fun stuff we’re still brewing

The next major rally will be ‘March In March’ – Marching on Canberra in March.

UPDATES

• To keep updated on the DLC, visit www.dlc.asn.au
• Our official Facebook group sends out messages on important updates and volunteer opportunities.
• To share your thoughts to the community, check out the forums at http://NoCensorship.info
• To get updates emailed to you regarding ‘March in March’, visit and subscribe at www.MarchInMarch.org

I hope this helps answers questions, leave a comment if you have anything specific you wish to ask and I’ll try my best to answer. You can also give us a call on the numbers provided here.

Rally Against Censorship: BrisVegas Post Report

Well I’ve still not fully recovered from the rally, work needs to be done so it’s time to be off my butt…

I kicked off Saturday, December 13th in great shape – sick as a dog. Been sick for a few weeks and a guess the big day’s stress just wasn’t helping. So before 10am hit I had already gone through wanting to allow my tummy’s delicious goodness come back up on the bus and an interview for Brisbane Times on the phone while running around wondering where the hell I left my purple hat that gained some nice comments all day. Oh and at some point during the hat search 4BC had called too.

Enough bitching from me now – time for sunshine. While Melbourne and Hobart got hit with rain, we got the wonderful summer heat Queensland is known for. For the 200-300 that did brave the heat, one of my volunteers had brought 200 icey poles for the crowd. So hopefully those that missed out on shade got a hold of one, or two or more.

Thankfully, David and the marshals were happy to MC the event. I was planning to but didn’t realise how many people would be interested in talking to me either about getting more involved or for a quick interview (I look so dopey on that ABC clip – protip 1: image(rally + sick) = dopey PR. I cannot hide sickness for the life of me and it probably translated to others as something other than sickness :-/ ).

We had some great speakers on the day. Alas, not everyone could hear. Unfortunately, we only had megaphones as an option. We had two just to backup if one wasn’t working but both weren’t very loud when used in an open, noisy area. I spoke to Sam afterwards to apologise for all the interruptions to his speech. I think we made him stop at least four times – sorry! There’s a bit of a knack to using megaphones that comes from using them a bit. The Greens had offered us a PA system however, I couldn’t get permission on my permit to use it without PLI. By our next event though, the DLC will have PLI coverage so we won’t have the same issue twice!

One big issue that’s come up about the rallies is regarding lefty groups’ dominance at the event. All cities had its fair share of groups come by, screaming free speech but just clouding our message. In Brisbane, I talked with the Council about their presence and informed them that the stalls were not apart of our permit/rally. I believe the councilman went to talk to them but wut’cha’kno, they didn’t need to pack up shop. I’m not sure the reason why they were allowed to stay – one of the rules I had to abide by was to not sell items during the event on the square. Surely selling GLW and badges count… but I didn’t push it with them. They happen to have another councilman, Brett (that I actually know the personality of quite well from numerous times I’ve dealt with him at other rallies) come in on his day off to give me a lawful order to keep people away from the Christmas tree and pedestrians. He also noticed we were playing music without approval so it was removed. Yet the stalls still remained. It boggles my mind.

The article which shows an image of a sign with ‘rael.org’ is one example of the many groups pushing their URLs on the day. For future events we will definitely need to get something organised to encourage people to stay on target. A signs contest with eligibility rules to enter may be one way.

All in all, I believe the rallies nationally were a success. We didn’t bring out the numbers that we were hoping, but we did get media coverage and this in turn along with the material we handed out (we got 2000+ tri-folds out in Brisbane); we are creating more awareness on the issue. The event also encouraged more people to get actively involved in stopping internet censorship so I’m looking forward to see what future campaigns will bring.

Special thanks goes to David Jackmanson for helping handle publicity and things on the day. Thanks to Elissa Jenkins who arranged the free printing and everyone that’s volunteered in the last few months.

To find a collection of footage and coverage of the day, check out David Jackmanson’s blog:

http://brisbaneposts.blogspot.com/2008/12/brisbane-politics-report-on-sat-dec.html

There’s a few knicks and bumps that we need to smooth out for the future that’s for sure but it’s only the beginning. There are a number of ideas, constructive criticisms and concerns many have brought up that I will address in this blog too. So if you do have anything you’d like to suggest to the DLC, please let me know.