GIGO

Technology and Crimes Reform Bill

Technophobic paranoia and a lack of informed thought means that the Information Superhighway joining New Zealand to the rest of the world could be marked "No Thoroughfare", if the Technology and Crimes Reform Bill currently under consideration is passed unamended.

The Network Society of New Zealand says that the Bill embodies "fundamental and damaging misunderstandings" of the way in which such global computer networks operate. "It is evident that little or no expert technological advice went into the Bill's drafting".

MP Trevor Rogers thought he was doing a Good Thing by stopping electronic pornography from flooding the home terminals of New Zealand's children. Leaving aside the very real question of just how great a "flood" there is, consider some of the provisions and implications (albeit very briefly):

• all users would be cut off from access to any overseas site which was involved in the transmission or reception by one individual of a single piece of objectionable material

Should all New Zealanders be prevented from visiting Amsterdam because one person once went there and saw a pornographic poster?

• severe penalties, including a five-year ban on owning a telephone, could be imposed for transmission or reception of one objectionable item, even if unintended or unsolicited

Should you have your car confiscated because the local strip joint put a flyer under your windscreen wiper?

• access providers (typically universities) would need to monitor all traffic -- thousands and thousands of messages, including private electronic mail -- and the Police would have the power to monitor at will

Should all letters posted to New Zealand be opened and read by NZ Post clerks? Should the Police have complete freedom to read mail, tape conversations and bug homes?

As careful, considerate drivers on the infobahn, we exhort any fellow travellers to let our pedestrian parliamentarians know that trying to keep a few hoons off the street by putting up permanent roadblocks is an ill-considered notion at best -- at worst, it dooms us to being the victims of a cyberspace bypass.

Vicki Hyde is the editor of New Zealand Science Monthly.