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.
http://www.truecrypt.org/
What’s it got to do with you, Kate, what I have on my computer? If I want booby shots, then I’ll have booby shots. If you can’t understand, it might be best if you refrain from commenting upon anything much. You don’t exactly seem to have your finger on the pulse of anything.
It is completely and utterly irrelevant whether or not anyone has anything to hide. The idea that someone has the right to search one’s computer is absolutely insane and completely arrogant. I would like to see the privacy of the people who support this completely taken away for the rest of their lives and see what they think about it.
I’ve been questioned by US Custom Agents on several return trips to the US. While searching my laptop and phone I’ve been blatantly asked if I possess any pornography.
Jeeze, I lived in Australia for a year 12 years ago and it was a great chilled out nation of fine people and laid-back police with a good sense of humour.
When did Oz get so anal? Speed cameras everywhere now, police with disillusions of grandeur, fines for everything, then you throw the book at an F1 driver for doing a burn out and now your behaving like the Porn S.S. – STOP NOW!
Back up, get a grip, stop trying to control everything – it doesn’t suit the nation’s image! Find your mojo again!
I would like to see them try to find my porn on my computer.
“Importing prohibited pronography”.
These idiots know it’s distributed online right?
I’m about to head to Australia in exactly 30 days from now. Seeing all of this pop up… yikes. Thanks for the info.
Encrypt and password protect – if they can’t get in, they can’t see what is there.
If they’re going to be like that, I’ll never travel to Australia.
Isn’t there an Australian ACLU or something?
Damn.
Those who have nothing to hide have just hidden it better.
Hey Kate, the difference is that now when my wife takes a vid of us in bed/bath, we have to share that with every customs officer that wants to see.
The law allows them to search the camera, laptops etc, and if they use a USB that has the search script, what is to stop them copying anything to be sent virally over the web?
What if the search s/w was infected by a computer virus because the laptop before mine has a virus?
Why does my private life now have to be an object of display. I like to close the door when my wife and I make love. I also close the door when I go to the toilet, etc. Privacy laws exist because people value their privacy.
The government certainly does not want privacy laws relating to the citizens, and this latest devaluing of privacy is just another step in conditioning us for that.
This is really simple, the true criminals who are sending child porn, etc, will not be dumb enough to be caught, and for everyone else in the world, it is YOUR responsibility to use encryption!!! www.truecrypt.com is one of the best things to start using.
Good point.
And if I my wife and I have some lurid photos of each other for our enjoyment, what right does the government have to make me share them with a customs officer. What next, if you answer ‘Yes’ you get sent to the line with “Pornographers over here” above it?
Yeah, it’s like it cannot be transferred online! Get your facts right.
As a regular Australian traveller, I find this intrusion into my private affairs both disturbing and a total invasion into my rights as a citizen to free speech and association.
Not that I have any porn on my travel computer, but who knows what they are defining here?
Not only that, but it doubles as a total waste of time and effort… as anyone knows, you can access this stuff online in your living room without even attempting to look!
If there is reasonable suspicion that a traveller has links to paedophilia, snuff rings or whatever, then I would have thought that the visa application process to come here would have identified those persons of interest before they hit a customs official! For Aussies with these interests I would hope that the police were doing their job better than to let you out of the country in the first place!
It can only be assumed that we will all suffer at the hands of the prurient interests of a few diligent customs staff over the coming months…
… keen to rack up some statistics for reporting back to ‘big Nanny’ in whatever department dreamt up this crazy invasion of privacy!
This half-baked idea is stupid, has ill-defined parameters, and is clearly based on someone’s rather sad idea that some form of ‘harm’ comes from normal ‘pornography’. Where is the evidence that drives the assumption? And the underlying question really is… “Why should we be afraid of sex?”
This government would find it hard to find anyone who doesn’t at some point in their life engage in sexual activity (even, goodness forbid, something a bit ‘kinky’ now and then) with another consenting person, or themselves! In many cases, I would reckon, with a little pornography on hand…
So, my message to the Nanny State officials in the Customs and Communications Departments, is to mind your own business, get off our (suit)cases, get your noses out of our knickers and G-strings and go do some real work on the REAL ISSUES, rather than bothering free…
.. citizens with your grandmotherly concerns.
TrueCrypt is your friend. Google it.
This is a disgrace, our govt seems more and more keen on intruding on our everyday lives. Often with the intention of imposing their own religious moral flavour on its citizens.
Vote below the line for whoever will restore your civil liberties.
First their/your guns, and now your porn. No one condones child porn/abuse or the like, but the principle of personal rights and freedom apparently have no place in the country. How lame. Out of principle, no visiting this country for me.
Yes, of course, most people get their porn by buying it overseas and bringing it back in their bag. This is rubbish.
I am done with this frigging crazy country. Hola Canada.
I suggest you familarise yourselves with sec 233 (1) (b) of the Customs Act 1901. After that then look at Reg 4A of the Customs Prohibited Import Regulations 1956. Customs for many years have already had to power to search your electronic devices. In fact the IPC card Q1 has always asked for Porn Material. If you’re against this you have something to hide. Be proud of fetish and being strange.
If they were to search my computer for porn, their eyes would fall out of their sockets before they finished archiving it all.
“Oh, hey, officer, yeah, that drive contains 500GB of videos, all highly compressed. Might take a while to unzip it all. The second drive contains 250GB of images all scattered around 2,000 directories, and as we speak, I’m using my 3G USB stick to download more, make sure to check that all too. Take your time, I don’t leave until Saturday.”
How do they know where to look on my laptop? It’s not like I would put these pictures in a folder, and call the folder “PORN” or “CLICK HERE IF YOU’RE HORNY”. And then put that folder on my desktop, so it’s easy for immigration to find.
So they would have to search through your entire laptop and check your financial files, private emails, etc. And that is what bothers me most! Who says they’re not taking a copy of your data and sift through all that private data later…
Any guarantee on our privacy there?
I don’t want some customs person looking at models and designs I have on my netbook. These are currently encrypted. Do I have to decrypt them?
Don’t you worry about the how, my perverted little friend. TSA agents are highly trained at sniffing out porn with decades of work and personal experience under their belts. Not only can they catalogue naked images of the public quicker than you could pull your pants down but they can always reverse this skill and spot porn categories a mile off.
I think they should get on with their own lives and stop worrying about other people’s!
She is a big slut.
This is insane. Absolutely insane. Have they never heard of the internet? There are tons of free storage services online. Why can’t the illegal porn makers just go to Thailand for example, for vacation, make their illegal videos, upload to a free storage service, and fly back to Australia. If this was a criminal who’s damn business is to make illegal porn, don’t you think they would of thought of this very easy and obvious way of bringing it back? To top it off what may be legal in Thailand in this case might be legal in Australia. So even if the pornographer arrives in Thailand admitting to the crime, and where he uploaded it, the porn hasn’t even arrived in Australia so he might even get away with it. This is one of the stupidest ideas in every way imaginable.
The only people you will be catching by doing this is people who have no idea it is illegal or not the porn they have on their computer and couple’s private moments on vacation. I really can’t understand people sometimes.