National Human Rights Consultation Submission 

AGWW-7N3RYW 

Name: Tanya Cumpston 

Submission Text: 

I believe that Australia could do a lot worse than to enshrine
 
in our constitution the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
 

 
I believe this is advisable, as the current government is in danger of
 
introducing legislation for the mandatory filtering of internet access that
 
could violate several of its Articles, as outline below.
 

 
Article 10.
 
"Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an
 
independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and
 
obligations and of any criminal charge against him."
 

 
The proposed mandatory filter is based on a so-called "black list", which
 
is to remain secret.
 
There is no provision for the owner of a blocked web site to be notified of
 
the inclusion of its URL on the list, nor is there any appeal mechanism. It
 
would appear that decisions involving the black list are to be made by a
 
single public servant, potentially subject to ministerial influence.
 
This situation seems to be in violation of Article 10.
 

 
Article 12.
 
"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy,
 
family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and
 
reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against
 
such interference or attacks."
 

 
The proposed "opt-out" filter will use deep packet inspection to search
 
through web traffic for keywords. This means that anyone using web-mail to
 
access their emails will have their correspondence examined and possibly
 
blocked.
 
This situation seems to be in violation of Article 12.
 

 
Article 19.
 
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
 
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive
 
and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
 
frontiers."
 

 
The proposed mandatory internet filter will interfere with the freedom to
 
seek and receive information and ideas through any media regardless of
 
frontiers - seemingly in violation of Article 19.
 

 
The fact that the government of the day can seriously consider such
 
infringement of human rights (to say nothing of the previous government's
 
use of indefinite detention, and detention without trial) highlights the
 
need for our rights to be enshrined in the constitution.
 

 
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