Australian Visitors Must Declare Illegal Porn To Customs Officers 361
Australian Justice Minister Brendan O'Connor has advised visitors to take a better safe than sorry policy when it comes to their porn stashes, and declare all porn that they think might be illegal with customs officers. From the article: "The government said it changed the wording on passenger arrival cards after becoming aware of confusion among travellers about what pornography to declare. 'People have a right to privacy and while some pornography is legal and does not need to be disclosed, all travellers should be aware that certain types of pornography are illegal and must be declared to customs,' Mr O'Connor said."
What???? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What???? (Score:5, Funny)
After sampling each one, their customs officer will tell you which ones are illegal.
Re:What???? (Score:5, Funny)
After sampling each one, their customs officer will tell you which ones are illegal.
They are welcome to my epilepsy medication but I don't think they will enjoy not being able to stand up for the next twelve hours.
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Next thing, they will want you to declare the illegal drugs you carry...
That is just about as logical as this. FTFA, "Making a false statement to a customs officer carries a fine of up to $11,000 dollars while bringing in objectionable material, such as child pornography, can incur a fine of up to $275,000 and 10 years' jail.".
What kind of moran will declare ANY material with that kind of deal?
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The whole point of customs is to stop the stuff coming into the country - that's all. As long as you declare it and hand it over, that's as far as it goes.
Yes office, (Score:5, Funny)
"I have some bestiality on my computer, but you can see clearly that the girl is ENJOYING IT!"
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Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what. I personally think it does say a lot by our society that it's acceptable to slaughter adolescent animals simply because we think they taste well, but if you let one of them lick your naked body it's somehow animal abuse even if the creature in question suffers no ill effects.
Damn will my karma burn for saying this, but while people like to pretend zoophilia is bad because it hurts animals, the real reason it's considered unacceptable is because we have freaking problem with sex. Food does not cause the same reaction, and thus few people care that we are raising animals with the intent to kill and eat them.
Similar complete failure of logic is seen in the anti stem-cells crowd, many of which will happily eat eggs, bacon or chicken, while at the same time declaring IVF and embryonic stem cell research as unacceptable attacks on the sanctity of life.
Now go on, try to justify it. All the usual arguments basically boil down to "it's ok to kill animals because they taste nice", which does make it seem rather hollow when the same people condem zoophilia.
As it happens, I'm not actually a zoophiliac. Merely a vegan who finds it a bit twisted that we seem to consider it worse to let an animal have sex with you than it would be to kill it.
Re:Yes office, (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn will my karma burn for saying this, but while people like to pretend zoophilia is bad because it hurts animals, the real reason it's considered unacceptable is because we have freaking problem with sex.
We don't let adults have sex with minors.
All the same reasons apply to sex with animals.
It's not so much about harm as it is about consent.
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We don't let adults eat minors.
All the same reasons apply to eating animals.
It's not so much about harm as it is about consent.
FTFY
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What if you wait until the animal has been slaughtered (which is, in this hypothetical example, what eventually will happen to it) and then have sex with it? At that point it's an object, and consent doesn't matter, right?
So by that logic, zoophilia totally okay if you add in a side order of necrophilia.
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It's not so much about harm as it is about consent.
How does an animal about to be slaughtered for food give consent?
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it's acceptable to slaughter adolescent animals simply because we think they taste well, but if you let one of them lick your naked body it's somehow animal abuse
Herr Rothstein, you are under arrest by order of the Grammar Nazi Party!
If you slaughter an animal and eat it, it tastes good.
If you let one of the lick your naked body, it tastes well.
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know about you, but I don't want to eat any adolescent animals that have been running around licking people's privates.
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Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Insightful)
As it happens, I'm not actually a zoophiliac. Merely a vegan who finds it a bit twisted that we seem to consider it worse to let an animal have sex with you than it would be to kill it.
No, you are pretty much correct. I'm no vegan (far from it) but I think you are spot on correct. The whole concept is just our fear of anything relating to sex.
Think of it this way:
Carefully touch a bull's testicles and derive some pleasure from it: People will flip out at what a horrible crime it is.
Take a sharp knife, slice open the scrotum, remove the testicles, bread them and saute them and call them rocky mountain oysters and eat them. People will give you money for them.
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Interesting)
- Dan.
Re:Yes office, (Score:4, Funny)
I think GP's point is that we don't routinely butcher 14 year olds. Though the idea is intriguing.
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Funny)
I remember seeing a sex therapist talk about how he was invited to discuss beastiality on a talk show of some kind, and there was a guest who had "married his horse." One of the points the guest tried to explain is that, if a horse didn't consent, you'd be dead.
(Perhaps more interestingly, the punchline of his story was that he asked the guest if it was a female horse, and the male guest was extremely offended at the suggestion that he might have been gay.)
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Interesting)
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OFFICIAL BALLOT - GENERAL ELECTION
November 4, 2012
Complete the oval ( ) at the left of the name you want to choose. You may vote for a person whose name is not on the ballot by writing in the person's name and municipality of residence in the write in space and completing the oval at the left. If you make a mistake you may ask for a new ballot. DO NOT ERASE.
NATIONAL
_________
UNITED STATES PRESIDENT
Your vote for the candidate for United States President shall be a vote for the elector supporting that candidat
Re:Yes office, (Score:5, Insightful)
Then why is it ok to kill and eat them? Are you saying they can consent to having their lives ended in adolescence? Can a hen consent to living its life on an area less than that of an A4 paper ?
It's hypocrisy no matter how you try and twist and turn it.
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I know this is slashdot, but I do prefer to be called "miss" .;)
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Because they're animals. You can kill them, but you aren't allowed to torture them.
Well, in the context of what we are discussing: We are allowed to have dogs chase them down tear them up in an already unfair fight before we come in and shoot them until they are too wounded to keep running from us, then knife them to death, video tape the whole thing including the after death humiliation of skinning and impromptu sports games with non-tasty body parts. It's fine to show these videos to your kids, actually your kids were probably there to see daddy being a man. However, if these animals we
Re:Yes office, (Score:4, Funny)
>Ever seen a frog and a pig getting it on? No, because that would be disturbing
Welllllllllll...............
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVE60zwXx1k [youtube.com]
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...Try reintroducing some protein into your diet...
DOH! Unable to complete joke... My employer monitors my activity...
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By that order of thought, posting on /. is not natural (ever seen an animal do it?), yet females eating the males after having sex [sciencedaily.com] is.
Or maybe that argument is bollocks because the correlation between "natural" and moral is not strong at all.
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So, miss Parrot, choose wisely now... Would you rather be eaten or will you bend over?
Fixed that for you.
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And then people will marry turtles.
is tub girl illegal? (Score:5, Funny)
Hope the customs workers have therapy coverage on their health care plans....
I like the cut of your jib (Score:5, Funny)
Yes...it's a good idea. Much fun. But if you really want to creep the guy out - go mental with it.
Tell the customs worker that you have a lot of porn on your laptop and you'd like to declare it. Then show him hundreds of pictures of feet. Just feet. Nothing else. And while he pages through them to determine their legality, act like you are fighting becoming aroused. Moan. Drool a little bit.
For bonus points make it something really odd. Bell towers or Volkswagen bugs or cigar smoking women cutting into birthday cakes.
Remember kids - what's porn for one person may not necessarily be porn for another.
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For bonus points make it something really odd.
Er, so you mean more odd than feet?
Last time I looked, "foot sex" was still considered to be a fetish rather than mainstream.
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Re:Yes office, (Score:4, Funny)
> The girl is moot, she's being paid for it, she doesn't have to enjoy it. But think of the dog!
Girls, dogs, sex, porn...
and now you've dragged Moot into this. I've got a bad feeling about this!
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and now you've dragged Moot into this. I've got a bad feeling about this!
No, it's perfectly okay. Moot wishes to be teh little girl, so that counts as consent.
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European dark age churches have taken over the state (government).
That's Australia for you. (Score:3, Informative)
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fucking censorship
A word caution: even non-fucking porn can be banned in Australia.
Trust me, I found out the hard way during my trip down under.
Re:That's Australia for you. (Score:5, Funny)
Amazing, considering Australia was founded by thieves, murderers and whores.
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Amazing, considering Australia was founded by thieves, murderers and whores.
Apparently even thieves, murderers and whores have standards. Who would have thought it.
Re:That's Australia for you. (Score:5, Funny)
It's worse than that; I believe they were British.
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<_kr4m3r> so many fucking criminals, its bullshit
<foniks`> heh, if we sent all the criminals to some empty continent and just left them there to die
<foniks`> and showed up like 50yrs later like, "sup?"
<foniks`> whatd u think they'd say?
<FoSZoR[bg]> something along the lines of, "G`Day mate"
Source [bash.org]
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Glad to comply (Score:5, Funny)
Is there some kind of catalog or web site I can browse to see examples of what's legal and not?
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I think it's better if you don't know, since the law only require you to declare porn if you THINK it's illegal.
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Is there some kind of catalog or web site I can browse to see examples of what's legal and not?
www.australia.gov.au [australia.gov.au]
...and not?
Pretty much everything else on the internet.
I'm pretty sure they've outlawed "ridiculing Australian censorship laws" a few years ago, so this post is a prime example of what's not legal.
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Please declare your Slashdot at the border.
As well as declaring all... (Score:5, Funny)
...recent murders committed, houses burgled, cars stolen, heiresses kidnapped, parking tickets ignored, and Australian ministers ridiculed.
Re:As well as declaring all... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:As well as declaring all... (Score:5, Funny)
No worries mate, if you don't have a criminal record one of our customs officers will give you one at the border.
I foresee great conversations at the customs booth (Score:3, Funny)
Passenger: So, I read that I have to declare illegal pornography.
Officer: Yes, indeed.
Passenger: Well, I do have something on my laptop, but I don't know whether it's illegal. Would you mind having a look and telling me what you think about it?
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something like this? (Score:5, Funny)
Aussie Customs officer: Do you have any illegal porn?
British tourist: I did not know you still need do illegal things to get in here!
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Expectation of privacy (Score:3)
Americans have an expectation of privacy. I doubt you'll have an American declare his/her porn.
Little tip for those who want to reinforce their expectation of privacy. Encrypt your document folders.
Most customs techs won't know how to crack it and if you have a good password it could take years.
Re:Expectation of privacy (Score:4, Informative)
Not a valid defence in England [bbc.co.uk]
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
More to the point it's asking for trouble. "Gosh, I wonder what's in this giant encrypted blob on this guys hard drive?" Just zip all your porn into a file, and rename it to something innocuous and approximately appropriate in size. Anything over about 600 MB you could probably just rename "RedHatLinux.iso" or something. You think they're doing deep inspections of every lap top that comes in through customs? They probably do a search for some subsection of the normal graphic and video file extensions the
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I wouldn't risk my freedom on those assumptions. If I had to take my porn collection across an Australian border I would transfer it with scp.
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"This file seems to be encrypted. I suspect you want to hide something illegal there. Please give me the password, otherwise I cannot let you pass."
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The simplest solution is to have an encrypted file that doesn't look like an encrypted file. Jpg with a TrueCrypt archive attached at the end is never going to be detected unless someone is explicitly looking for it.
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That kind of thing is considered rude for us in here,
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Whereas when I was living in Germany, it wasn't totally uncommon to have someone sit at an empty chair at your table in a restaurant. That sort of thing would cause the manager of the restaurant to be called to have the person ejected from the premises if it happened here in the US. Different things are "rude" to different folks.
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There are cultural ways to indicate that you don't want to be talked to. Your friend just didn't know them.
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I don't know what wierd world you live in but it has been a very long time since anyone has had any "expectation of privacy" when going through customs.
Customs routinely search all your belongings and if you are not careful your orifaces too
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US courts have specifically ruled that the Fourth Amendment doesn't apply crossing international borders.
This expectation of no-privacy going through customs has even been used to justify warrantless searches of someone who is merely near an international border.
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Thanks, I don't know US law precident in this but "Americans have an expectation of privicy" just made me chuckle wrt customs&immigration.
It may be why US customs are some of the worst in the world I have been through (although it may just be low paid grumpy staff). Actually most cutoms are pretty bad but US is getting silly. UK ones are great (but I'm a from the UK). The same holds for mot nationals entering thier home country.
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Ignoring the discussion about whether that's even still true in the US, once you leave your own country you can't keep relying on your own laws, you've gotta put up with whatever laws the country you're in has. If you decided to make a big stand about it you'd probably find yourself not allowed into the country.
self-incrimination (Score:2)
I'm guessing that the Australian constitution doesn't include something equivalent to the US's Fifth Amendment?
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You think the US is any different?
http://www.irs.gov/publications/p17/ch12.html#en_US_publink1000172062
Form 1040, line 21 is where you are to report your earnings from illegal income.
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" Illegal activities. Income from illegal activities, such as money from dealing illegal drugs, must be included in your income on Form 1040, line 21, or on Schedule C or Schedule C-EZ (Form 1040) if from your self-employment activity"
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Think mobsters from the 1930s, who were only ever convicted of tax evasion. If you can convict them for not declaring it, there has to be a way to declare it....
Someone isn't very smart (Score:2, Informative)
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It's so they can fire you for lying on your job application.
~Loyal
Re:Someone isn't very smart (Score:5, Informative)
I think the person creating the application form was actually quite clever as two positive (for the company) things happen this way: 1) it weeds out the idiots who admit to taking illicit drugs with some regularity and 2) it makes it much easier to fire someone for lying on their application if the employer finds out they are on illicit drugs.
As for customs, when you enter the US there is a section that literally asks if you're a spy. I hope they're not catching too many idiots that way but it does create a situation where someone who is a spy can be convicted for lying to the government. I figure the same idea applies to declaring illegal porn.
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I like the question about whether I was a member of the Nazi Party of Germany between 1933 and 1945. I was so tempted to tick yes, but I actually wanted the visa...
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Particularly appropriate if you were born after 1945.
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Not only can lying on that one restrict entry, if you lie on that and then later become a citizen they can use it to go back and strip your citizenship and eject you from the country.
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For a fine example of this, one should listen to or watch Frank Zappa/Ensemble Modern's most excellent Welcome to the United States [youtube.com].
Australian visitors, or vistors to Australia (Score:2)
Grammar nazi walking here, move aside.
Why? (Score:2)
Sorry Aussies but today it's your turn. Bring the ridicule on!!!
Just mail it to yourself before you board (Score:2)
This is so easy to get around its not funny. Just like the proposed internet filter. Just take any porn you have and either post it to yourself before you leave or if its on your computer, just encrypt it. Customs officers are by no means nerds and I have my doubts as to what this stupidity will actually achieve. My guess is this legislation was a nice big candy apple for the religous nutters that seem to be taking over this government in a bid to enforce the hard word of jesus while the real sick pedo weir
Re:Just mail it to yourself before you board (Score:4, Funny)
You know customs goes through international mail right?
Oscar Wilde quote (Score:2)
"I have no porn to declare but my self."
Reminds me of a Federal form I had to fill out... (Score:2)
I was applying for Federal security clearance back in college, and the form gave dire warnings of the consequences should they find out I was lying on the form. Some of the sample questions:
- Do you currently deal illegal drugs?
- Are you a member of an organization dedicated to the overthrow of the United States government through unconstitutional means?
- Are you a terrorist?
If you answer "No" to these questions, and they later find out you lied on your form, I have a funny feeling lying on your form is go
How about (Score:2)
Photos of kangaroos with small breasts?
the title is a little misleading (Score:3, Informative)
I am Australian, and have read quite a few stories press releases etc on this subject. The BIG problem with these cards is, illegal to "import" and illegal to "posses" in australia is different. Meaning while it might be legal to own some types in Australia, it's illegal to bring them in (ie import) into the country, and they don't tell you what is what, This is one of the main reasons there has been a large uproar over the issue down under.
There's two set's of rules, they aren't telling you which one is which, and don't give good examples, it's basically a trap
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
who travels with porn?
Customs officers that collect images from their backscatter X-ray machines
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:4, Funny)
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I have porn on my laptop and the times I have traveled with it I have moved it all off but of course the content remains on the HDD and traces in the browser cache, etc. So it may be difficult to delete your entire porn collection and you may forget as well.
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Who among us (people on /. that is) does not IMMEDIATELY search for all images when someone we know asks us to repair their computer?
Especially if that someone is a reasonably attractive female.
Oh, I've had some amazing discoveries there.
And you learn a lot about people by the type of porn they keep.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
Those of us who respect the privacy of our friends/acquaintances?
Seriously, what kind of asshole are you that you'd dig through someone's personal files without asking their consent?
Hell, I may be *curious* about what images/vids they have... but to actually go through with it and snoop on them? What a dick you must be.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:5, Funny)
That type of porn can come back to haunt you when your wife of 3 years find shit you downloaded back in high school. Lucky for me my wife found it amusing and currently jokes the hell out of me.
Lucky for you, your wife found it amusing and doesn't know how to check time/date stamps on files downloaded "back in high school."
Don't worry, your secret is safe with us.
Re:ok, i'll be dumb enough to ask (Score:5, Insightful)
Hint to all those married or thinking about it: if your significant other can't come to grips with the fact that one other person cannot embody the totality of somebody's sexuality, you have settled and in the process are doomed to denying part(s) of your true self for the duration of your relationship. I love my wife as deeply as I do in no small part because she doesn't use "morality" as a cover to be an irrational, paranoid, hyper-jealous ass like so many people do.
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Why is everyone looking at me?
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If I access my data over the Internet while in Australia, does that fall under the same "import" restrictions?
When it comes to downloading its only CP which seems to be illegal here. People have been charged with possession, not importation when caught with that material.