The back story: www.adultfyi.com/read.php?ID=41881
Australia – from www.smh.com.au – FOR years the adult industry has fought to keep the government out of your bedroom. Now it is fighting to keep it out of your luggage as well.
The Incoming Passenger Card for people entering Australia was recently changed to ask if they are carrying pornography. If passengers declare they are, customs officials will be able to conduct a search to assess whether the material is illegal.
The Australian Sex Party says the move marks a new era of official investigations into people’s private lives. It notes the lack of a formal definition of pornography means that a variety of erotica may need to be declared.
”If you and your partner have filmed or photographed yourselves making love in an exotic destination or even taking a bath, you have to answer ‘yes’ to the question or you will be breaking the law,” the party’s president, Fiona Patten, said.
”If the question was designed to stop child pornography being smuggled into the country then [it] should have asked about ‘child pornography’ and not about a product that one in four Australians use on a regular basis.”
Customs confirmed the new reference to ”pornography” on the cards, and noted that, in conducting searches, officers were trained to apply ”tact and discretion” in dealing with passengers.
”Including an express reference to pornography is intended to enhance the interception of prohibited pornography at the border by making passengers aware that some forms of pornography may be a prohibited import,” a spokesman said.
The question clusters pornography along with weapons and illicit drugs that people must declare because their possession is restricted in Australia.
Jim Wallace, managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby, defended the question being asked, likening it to quarantine rules for wooden products for people entering the country.
The change leaves open the possibility customs will be able to examine the content on laptop computers and mobile phones.