Aussie Rules Changed to Let Customs Search for Porn
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Laptops and mobile phones to be searched for porn before entering Australia.
Customs and immigration officers in Australia have been granted new powers to search laptops and mobiles for pornography.
New questions have been added to the Incoming Passenger Cards for business travellers and holidaymakers visiting Australia including a question related to the possession of pornographic material.
The new additions have received very little media coverage in Australia and appear to have slipped under the radar of public consultation according to Colin Jacobs, chairman of the Electronic Frontiers Australia. Speaking to the Brisbane Times, Mr Jacobs said: “It’s hard to fathom what the pressing concern could be that requires Australia to quiz every entrant to the country on their pornography habits”.
Campaigners have argued that the searches are extremely intrusive into the private lives of travellers. President of the Australian Sex Party, Fiona Patten said in a press release: “If you and your partner have filmed or photographed yourselves making love in an exotic destination or even taking a bath, you will have to answer ‘Yes’ to the question or you will be breaking the law.”
The critics of the new scheme have said that the term “pornography” is too general and vague. The law should apply to illegal pornography especially in relation to child pornography, but “normal porn” should be exempt.
Authorities are keen to reassure travellers that tact and discretion will be used by officers who search through personal computers and mobile phones. “Including an express reference to pornography is intended to enhance the interception of prohibited pornography at the border, by making passengers aware that some forms of pornography may be a prohibited import,” a spokesman commented.
Once again the penal colony of Australia is being jerked about.
I am against this very much. I am also against child pornography too. But taking away our rights like that, WOW!!!
The question should read: “Are you carrying CHILD PORNOGRAPHY in any form?” rather than booby shots of my wife…
Get a grip AUSTRALIA.
Ahahhaahahhaah that’s one of the best jokes I’ve ever heard!
Maybe Australians are afraid of European style in sex so they want to ban it from the country? Ahahahahhaah
LOL
ahhahahah, can’t stop laughing!!
Try ‘get a grip Australian government’ instead of generalising my whole country! I certainly didn’t vote for this act to be passed and I have no doubt most of us didn’t either.
I love it how you throw around the term AUSTRALIA as if every Australian is behind it. Maybe you should direct your criticism towards the Australian government? Jerkoff.
That’s just the dumbest thing ever!!!!
are total wankers now?
They used to be admired and respected, but then they became a bunch of panty-sniffing voyeurs, fishing through your belongings for a pic of your wife.
Australians aren’t the wankers. It’s our governments and especially our current communications minister. I certainly didn’t vote for this. What do you do when the government in power moves the goal post once elected? Porn is cool, child abuse is not.
I wish you wouldn’t say all Australians, as most of us are the normal people whose rights are being violated. We are not allowed to buy R18+ games, which goes against our rights as adults and now we aren’t even allowed to keep our normal pornographic interests private.
Are you really that much of a douchebag that you have to slander the whole country?
P.S. your wife really enjoyed her time without you. I’ll send YOU the pics, love Australia xx
Ban Australia from your tourism plans people. They seem to have lost the plot completely. Stupidity at its best.
Just because people have had access to a sewer pipe attached to a computer for 20 years, doesn’t mean the material is legal in all jurisdictions.
Rape and bestiality would be the primary shots of the law, followed possibly by what comes under that. I’m sure boobie shots are fine, if not embarrassing (but why would you have that stuff on a computer?).
Only recently on Border Security did a guy have a DVD taken off him. This is a step up of that.
Your poorly thought out comments miss the point entirely. Said point being that child porn is not distributed by physical transport any more. It is instead moved about via the “sewer pipe” as you put it – which is not interfered with in the least by “panty sniffing” at the border.
When you say “rape” you mean like in “Gone with the Wind” and bestiality like in the Twilight series (she’s in love with a wolf). That’s the problem with the these kind of laws – who decides where the line is? I think it’s best left up to the individual.
It does make you wonder why bestiality is against the law. It’s not my thing, but really, why is it illegal?
And as for why I have pornography on my computer, why not? If I’m traveling I get lonely and want to get off – orgasms are not evil, not a bad thing.
And the boobies comment, there is a problem where the Australian government declared war on small breasts because they “could” be underage.
Who cares?! If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you don’t have to worry.
Having nothing to hide and having your privacy invaded are two very different things.
I have nothing to hide when I take a dump, but I’d still feel pretty uncomfortable if Australian customs wanted to watch me do it.
Hear, hear.
This is ridiculous. A complete invasion of privacy. Really backwards.
You’re right. I mean why not let the government snoop through our stuff – after all, they know best!
I bet you’re the kinda sick person who would look forward to cavity searches before boarding planes (1) because you enjoy having a finger up your arse, and (2) you like to shit on privacy.
I am sure this is what every oppressive regime says. Wake up.
“If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you don’t have to worry.”
-Anonymous
Yep, makes total sense.
I get sick of having to post this every time I hear this inane argument. But here’s your rebuttal to “I’ve got nothing to hide”.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/10/2054219
“Who cares?! If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you don’t have to worry.”
… says the ANONYMOUS poster. You didn’t post your name, does that mean that you have something to hide?
Child pornography is just a convenient excuse to snoop on people and limit personal liberties. Laptop inspections will not and cannot prevent or deter child predators, but nobody dare speak against these idiotic measures for fear of being labeled “pro child abuse”. The policy makers who use abused children as an excuse to destroy our freedoms are nearly as disgusting as the pedophiles they claim to be fighting.
… you’re a bone head.
I have nothing to hide when my wife offers to give me a blowjob on film in Thailand… but that doesn’t mean it’s cool for Australian custom officials to watch it…
said the Germans to the Jews… before they took everything away.
You and your way of thinking are exactly what is wrong with not only this country, but civilization in general.
No, I will not submit to this breach of privacy. Not in the US, not in the UK, and especially not in Australia.
What happened to the world? Do we fear that terrorism is around every corner? Maybe.
But that is no reason to destroy someone’s right to privacy. That’s exactly what the terrorists want. That’s it! The government is helping the terrorists!! THOSE FIENDS!!
This is one of the dumbest things to ever, ever say.
How about this instead? If the government or police have nothing to suspect or accuse you of first, then they have no right to search you. It’s like allowing the police to enter your house whenever they feel like it, if you have nothing to hide you should allow them to do it any time they wanted.
Or how about they make it even more simple? Allow a camera to be installed in your home so they can protect you, since you have nothing to hide!!!
Porn is becoming more mainstream every day – not so taboo any more.
Surely everyone knows that the easiest way to fool folk is to store everything in a folder named pron?
Works a treat.
Democracy is in tatters in Australia. You will not be asked this question even entering places like Saudi Arabia. But maybe it is a good thing as Australians seem quite happy to have a great filter placed on their Internet by their government, much like China, so maybe they can’t trust themselves and need Big Brother to do it for them.
TrueCrypt is now found on 100% of all devices coming into Australia.
LOL @ the Australians watching that guy take a dump.
PGP Encryption or TrueCrypt! Solves issues, I swear.
Everyone is suspected having children porn?
Allow me to check the staff’s, no, better yet the Aus President’s personal devices.
Everyone should keep their disks encrypted anyhow.
I don’t “have anything to hide” but I will not stand having my basic human rights violated. Tyranny FTW!
Would y’all like to read my diary too?
Sure, bite my encrypted ass…
Why would an American, in particular, take pornography of any (normal) type to Australia? Half the point of going there is to roll around in a pile of naked locals.
Just cancelled my flights to Oz!
I will not go to a country where customs can randomly search my phone/computer for porn, when that porn is perfectly legal.
Guess what, I’m a horny 24 year old! I have porn on my computer! And you can’t see it!!
Keep up Aussies.
World steps forward, Aussies step back.
“Pornography” is the camouflage here. This is really about the Rudd government obtaining unfettered access – without judicial approval – to people’s data storage, to copy private information, trade secrets, and commercially confidential information. They have tried to control the Internet in a more extreme way than even the government of China, and now this. The people who value privacy will reject them at the coming election.
Sigh, meh.
You can FTP data anywhere in the world in no time and no one will know.
Data isn’t like drugs. You don’t have to hide it up your bum.
I have sensitive client information I have been entrusted with. It’s amazing what you get trusted with in IT. It is confidential though, and I would have to deny access. (I don’t by the way have porn on my business netbook, personal or otherwise.)
They shouldn’t be able to breach my right to privacy though, one way or another.
Do these guys know what the Internet is?
Are they aware that even if I delete all of the porn on my PC before entering Australia, a day of visiting an Internet cafe should sort that out?
What possible method would they have of going through my personal effects to check? Is there some “unlucky” officer that gets to watch traveller’s porn all day? Do they have to watch the whole movie to make sure it is all OK? If so, I am downloading terabytes before I next go to Aus.
Also do these morons not think that the kind of person that is into kiddie porn is not also aware of the implications of that and keep the files encrypted or on a removable media away from phone and laptop? The microSD is smaller than a fingernail – there are practically millions of places to hide it.
All this succeeds in doing is inconveniencing everyone that is innocent. What a load of bull.
How is something downloaded from the Internet imported, when I could log on and get it 5 seconds after I get through customs?
Not only is “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” a statement linked with so much evil in history that you should be ashamed of uttering it, but perhaps even more outrageous is that this will cost taxpayer money to make the changes, carry out the (impossible) searches, waste people’s time, and be an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Somebody somewhere have been paid to dream up this waste of money and will probably retire with a state pension.
LOL, good thing for file encryption!
Lus
Next it will be random searches anywhere. They’re obviously using child porn as a cover, a straw man to break down and destroy what little privacy we have left.
“Oh, is that a picture of your wife? I think she is showing too much boob. Come with me, sir.”
Just because people have had access to a sewer pipe attached to a computer for 20 years, doesn’t mean the material is legal in all jurisdictions.
Yeah, uh – since this is something travelers have to take into consideration going to that country, well, I don’t believe in child porn but I definitely don’t believe in invasion of privacy.
Guess I won’t be traveling to Australia any time soon! BOO bad form Australian GOVT bad form!
Encrypt everything… doesn’t everyone do that?
Good luck searching all those laptops.
Mine will come with some of my good friends in the form of PGP and TrueCrypt.
“Oh, I am sorry officer do you need a password for that file? I’m afraid that there is confidential corporate data on that drive… “
Who gives a shit that they can’t search through an entire fucking computer at customs?
And I highly doubt any of the staff have been trained to do anything other than ask you where the porn is, if any.
People with privacy concerns can easily keep their shit private if they need to.
Also, you could just lock your computer and ask for a warrant if they deem the need to open it. Or am I wrong?
Police/customs aren’t allowed to open anything that is locked without a warrant plus reasonable belief which can be addressed and debated in court.
SHEESH.
And while the nice men at the border are looking for porn they can copy/clone your e-mail folder, including all your correspondences with your business partners. You never know when files harvested from your laptop might develop resale value.
They’re basically trying to build a sneakernet firewall around their country. But with a global Internet, files can move around the world and borders are completely permeable to them.
A porn star travels to Australia without a laptop or mobile.
Would the correct answer to the question, “Are you in possession of pornographic material?” have to be YES?
I am naked under the cover of my clothes, analogous to a naked picture of me under the cover of my laptop. My body can be considered pornographic material. Please do not confiscate my body.
“If you have nothing to hide…”, I don’t see people making this claim surrendering their privacy. I guess everyone has something to hide, whether it be porn, corporate secrets, private info, family info, etc. If they want to search people’s stuff, they should allow people to search their stuff… unless they have something to hide.
I’d always fancied seeing Australia, but now I don’t think I’ll bother. Yeah, I have some softcore on my laptop from my years of net browsing. Sod this, I’ll just go see more of NZ instead. No wonder this hasn’t been covered much in the press, they are killing part of their tourist industry.
They are the government. They can do what ever they want. If they want to look at nude pictures of your wife, let them.
Australia also ruled recently that nude photos of women with “A-cups” qualifies as kiddie porn, even if the subject is a 50+ year old grandmother!!
So if you take shots of your wife and she’s not overly endowed, you will go to jail (have fun explaining to the other inmates what you’re in for) and/or register as a sex offender for the rest of your life.
Hey Anonymous on 5/21/2010 1:27:24 PM
Do you film yourself/take pictures of yourself on digital media taking a dump? No. The point is if you have nothing to hide, you don’t have to worry about anyone searching for porn on your computer. If you’re embarrased about them finding it then rightly so. Cut that sewer pipe bringing in crud to your computer.
This comment makes no sense whatsoever.
But for all the upset Aussies:
your government = your country
If your government fails, then so does your country… and there are many recent examples of that.
This is ridiculously Orwellian. Will they be doing brain scans in the future?
“Rape and bestiality would be the primary shots of the law, followed possibly by what comes under that. I’m sure boobie shots are fine, if not embarrassing (but why would you have that stuff on a computer?).
Only recently on Border Security did a guy have a DVD taken off him. This is a step up of that.”
Kate, you’re an idiot.
(Before I finished reading that crap I KNEW it was a woman posting it.) *rolls eyes*
I cannot believe this. I’ll never go to Australia as long as they have a fascist regime quizzing travellers about their personal lives. This invasion is sicker than any porn flick.
There IS one way around this: password protect your computer and turn it off when travelling. That way if anyone tries to access it you can deny them the password. I don’t know about Aus but in the US, it is your constitutional right to deny officials the password because it could possibly lead to your own incrimination if there is sensitive data like inteview transcripts, proprietary info, etc. Just FYI.
Oh, and to the “If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you don’t have to worry” poster – you’re a fucking idiot.
It’s 1984 in Aus.
Invasion of privacy.
Australia will not be on my lists of places to go…
“Who cares?! If you’ve got nothing to hide, then you don’t have to worry.”
This is what I call ironic Mr Anonymous on the Internet.
“If you have nothing to hide… ”
You f*cking moron. Laws were implemented decades ago to protect our privacy. These laws are there for a reason.
Now, in this new Internet era, governments seem to have convinced MORONS like yourself, that privacy should be banned.
Stop f*cking saying that if you’ve got nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear.
That only depends who you’ve got ‘nothing’ to fear from.
What if Hitler was in power & you were a Jew?
Are you starting to get it? Crapface.
That’s what happens when you have a country that has more women than men in it.
Just use an encrypted partition with TrueCrypt, it’s super easy. And they will be completely unable to search it.
Tie me kangaroo down, boy. Tie me kangaroo down.
That.
Oh Australia.
You just want an excuse to look at porn while at work.
regards,
Kickass American Dudeman