Of greatest concern to your writer is this statement: "People using the Internet to advocate or facilitate violent protests, for example by spreading information on methods of violently disrupting international meetings and attacking police officers protecting such gatherings ... are amongst those who could be prosecuted under the new offences".
Those convicted under the new offence face up to two years in jail.
Now, your writer has no time for those who use the Internet to advocate or plan violence -- just as they would any other medium. However, what constitutes a 'violent' protest under the legislation? What constitutes the 'facilitation' of a violent protest? Will the author of a Web site, e-mail or instant message be prosecuted if a protest -- originally intended to be peaceful -- then turns violent? If a police officer is accidentally pushed during a protest -- leading to action against the protester -- will the authorities then be able to prosecute organisers who distributed information about the protest via the Internet? What 'violent' activities dealt with under the new legislation cannot already be dealt with under existing laws?
The government, as are many around the world, is clearly angered by the capability of groups with a protest agenda -- often a violent one -- to use the Internet to coordinate their activities effectively. The legislation is obviously designed to curtail their activities.
However, the new offence -- bundled in with a package of measures guaranteed to win community support, such as creation of offences for the possession and distribution of Internet child pornography and the 'rebirthing' of stolen mobile phones -- has some more than sinister overtones, particularly when initiated by a side of politics to whom organised protest is anathema.
The Minister for Information Technology, Communications and the Arts, Senator Richard Alston, already has form when it comes to tackling institutions -- most notably the ABC -- for their unwillingness to depart from what he believes is a 'left-wing' agenda, or one he feels is 'unbalanced'.
The onus is on the government to place a tight boundary on the new offence to ensure that only those who use the Internet to distribute protest plans with the specific intention of causing physical or emotional injury to people are caught in its web. Otherwise, the suspicion remains that the offence could be used to erode the legitimate rights of protesters to gather and collectively voice their views about issues.
