Outspoken civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) believes the legislation which will cover text and images placed on the Web, including archived mailing list emails and messages to newsgroups, is -profoundly flawed" and is being rushed through Parliament before most people become aware of it.
Amongst other things the Bill, which is expected to be debated in Parliament by the end of the month, -criminalises making available information unsuitable for children online, even if the content is only made available to adults," EFA executive director Irene Graham said in a statement.
"The proposed laws will not make it any easier for parents to protect their children from offensive material on the worldwide Internet, but they will restrict adults' freedom to communicate with each other online," Graham added.
Another concern of EFA is that the Bill, in a number of ways, criminalises material online that is quite legal offline, according to EFA.
For example, under the new law police could commence criminal proceedings against an Internet user before online content has even been classified, whereas NSW law applicable to offline films and publications prevents police from commencing prosecution until the material has been classified. Furthermore, police are not trained to apply classification guidelines, -nor should they be," EFA states. -No useful purpose is served by empowering police to commence criminal proceedings on the basis of a wrong guess about the classification."
"The Bill should be suspended until its full ramifications have been investigated, criminal justice issues and practical problems adequately addressed, and appropriate amendments made," Graham said.
"Failure to give proper consideration to the particular problems presented by the Internet in comparison with traditional media censorship will result in ineffective and unworkable legislation."
According to EFA, a similar Bill was introduced to the South Australian Parliament by the Attorney-General Trevor Griffin in November 2000, and due to strong community and industry opposition was referred to a Parliamentary Select Committee.
The Committee's report is scheduled to be tabled on November 27, 2001.
The Office of NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus had not returned calls by press time.
