(The following is a piece submitted for Techgeist’s Open Editorial section. The author wished to only give ‘mrjones’ as his name.)
The Australian government is currently working on what they’re calling the “Submissions to the Freedom of Religion and Belief in the 21st century project.” They’ve collected several suggestions from various outside sources on how to handle religion online. The Church of Scientology decided to get in on the action: proposal 1931 on the page (Word document) is for something which would essentially censor the internet and create a whole mess of problems for a whole lot of people.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS: Recommendation 1: The implementation of Criminal and Civil Restrictions on Religious Vilification. Recommendation 2: Restriction on Anonymity on acts of Religious Vilification: 2.1 Websites created with primary purpose of inciting religious vilification shall be removed or their access to the Australian public restricted. 2.2 Creators of websites whose primary purpose is the incitement of religious vilification shall be prevented from concealing their identity. Recommendation 3: Restriction on Religious Misinformation and Misrepresentation known or reasonably known to be untruthful in the Media Recommendation 4: Include a form of Bill or Charter of Rights into the Australian Constitution, which prevents the Commonwealth from making any law, which ‘directly, indirectly or incidentally’ prohibits the free exercise of religion to the extent of such prohibition
According to the proposal, this whole thing was spurred by Scientology’s own fight against “Anonymous,” which they claim is a group bent on harassing and misrepresenting Scientology.
The proposal itself seems downright dangerous, if not a throwback to the middle ages. Vilification is bad, to be sure, but people have to be free to act anonymously online in the majority of situations. Back in 2007, someone from inside the government leaked a manual on operations at Guantanamo Bay. That’s information which helped shine a light on civil rights abuses. Yet it’s information which would have never come to light had the whistleblower been unable to act with anonymity.
No country can have a law on the books which criminalizes anonymity online in any way without posing a serious risk to its citizens. Imagine if a group cropped up which called itself the “Church of Bob,” and its primary operations were committing horrific murders. No one online would be free to bring this to the public attention. If someone did say something, he would presumably be the Church’s next target.
Scientology’s proposal directly impedes on whistleblowing: it criminalizes saying things online if they are not in the public knowledge. This creates a strange version of reality which resembles a poorly enforced Wikipedia page. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Church of Scientology or the Catholic Church: people need to be free to report wrongdoings and bring things to the attention of the public. Just because a group calls itself a church or a religion of some sort does not mean it should get special treatment.
