Question

Wiremu set up a blog, “Aotearoa Liberation Front”, which promoted Maori culture particularly the playing of Maori traditional musical instruments such as the koanau, or flute. Sometimes he posted material calling for the setting up of an independent Maori state within the confines of the Urewera National Park. His posts also recommended the non-payment of taxes and the refusal to cooperate with the authorities in any form. He refused to pay his dog licence as matter of principle. Many people followed his example and refused to pay their dog licences in protest at what they saw as excessive taxation by the government.

In the Prime Minister’s opinion Wiremu was a dangerous radical. After a particularly inflammatory post calling for the forcible occupation of the Prime Minister’s official residence, Vogel House, as an “act of resource reallocation” the Prime Minister lost her patience. At her weekly press conference the Prime Minister announced that the government was to introduce a law requiring internet service providers to install firewalls that would restrict access to certain designated websites. She singled out Wiremu’s blog as a particular target, “Decent people should not have to put up with nonsense encouraging home invasion. I have a young child and I don’t want her put in danger by some wild eyed radical invading my house. We are all New Zealanders and talk of setting up a Maori mini state is socially divisive.”

Wiremu objects to the proposed law which would restrict access to certain websites, including his own. “It’s a breach of my human rights. It’s a breach of the Treaty of Waitangi. Article 2 guarantees the preservation of Maori taonga, which includes Maori music. They can’t do this.”

Answer the following questions in no more than 600 words in total:

Can “they” create a law that would require internet service providers to install firewalls restricting access to certain designated websites and which may be in breach of the Treaty of Waitangi as Wiremu argues? Why?
Explain what legal steps Wiremu can take to oppose this proposed law or to prevent it being enforced.

Answer 1

An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. Internet service providers may be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privately owned. Internet services typically provided by ISPs include Internet access, Internet transit, domain name registration, web hosting, Usenet service, and colocation.

Internet censorship is the control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet enacted by regulators, or on their own initiative. Individuals and organizations may engage in self-censorship for moral, religious, or business reasons, to conform to societal norms, due to intimidation, or out of fear of legal or other consequences.

The extent of Internet censorship varies on a country-to-country basis. While most democratic countries have moderate Internet censorship, other countries go as far as to limit the access of information such as news and suppress discussion among citizens. Internet censorship also occurs in response to or in anticipation of events such as elections, protests, and riots. An example is the increased censorship due to the events of the Arab Spring. Other areas of censorship include copyrights, defamation, harassment, and obscene material.

At their most basic, firewalls work like a filter between your computer/network and the Internet. You can program what you want to get out and what you want to get in. Everything else is not allowed. There are several different methods firewalls use to filter out information, and some are used in combination. These methods work at different layers of a network, which determines how specific the filtering options can be.

Firewalls can be used in a number of ways to add security to your home or business.

Firewalls protect Businesses

• Large corporations often have very complex firewalls in place to protect their extensive networks.
• On the outbound side, firewalls can be configured to prevent employees from sending certain types of emails or transmitting sensitive data outside of the network.
• On the inbound side, firewalls can be programmed to prevent access to certain websites (like social networking sites).
• Additionally, firewalls can prevent outside computers from accessing computers inside the network.
• A company might choose to designate a single computer on the network for file sharing and all other computers could be restricted.
• There is no limit to the variety of configurations that are possible when using firewalls.
• Extensive configurations typically need to be handle and maintained by highly trained IT specialists, however.

The need of Firewalls for Personal Use

• For home use, firewalls work much more simply.
• The main goal of a personal firewall is to protect your personal computer and private network from malicious mischief.
• Malware, malicious software, is the primary threat to your home computer. Viruses are often the first type of malware that comes to mind. A virus can be transmitted to your computer through email or over the Internet and can quickly cause a lot of damage to your files. Other malware includes Trojan horse programs and spyware.
• These malicious programs are usually designed to acquire your personal information for the purposes of identity theft of some kind.
• There are two ways a Firewall can prevent this from happening.
• It can allow all traffic to pass through except data that meets a predetermined set of criteria, or it can prohibit all traffic unless it meets a predetermined set of criteria.