
In the 21 years since this blog was founded, I have been harassed at various times by journalists, representatives of NGOs, and officials of foreign governments. Notable instances include emails from the Norwegian police and phone calls from the British press during the Breivik crisis in 2011. The most recent harassment occurred in 2021 and 2023, when the government of New Zealand tried to force me to take down Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto (see posts about what happened here, here, and here). Mr. Tarrant, as you may recall, is the young man who massacred fifty-one people in two different mosques in Christchurch, the largest city on South Island in New Zealand, in March of 2019.
My sins concerning his manifesto have now come to the fore again, but this time the objecting party is the Australian government. Yesterday I received the following email:
I scrutinized the message carefully, and it seemed legitimate. However, email scammers are often very skilled at spoofing government communications. Both attachments were PDF files, which can contain damaging malware, so I handled the message with an abundance of caution.
This was my reply:
Unfortunately, your two attachments are in PDF format, and may potentially contain malware, so I cannot open them. As a result, I am unable to comment on their content.
If you are willing to send the same material as a plain text file (.txt), or as text in the body of an email, then I would be able to read it and respond. But I will not open any attachments that may contain malicious code. In addition to .pdf, such formats include (but are not limited to) Word documents (.doc, .docx, etc.), Excel spreadsheets (.xls etc.), HTML files (.htm, .html, etc.) and various compressed file formats such as .zip.
Regretfully,
Ned May
a.k.a. “Baron Bodissey”
https://gatesofvienna.net
Late last night I received a response from the Australian Stasi: I was ordered to take down Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto forthwith, or face severe consequences.
This sort of thing brings out the Scot in me: I’ll nae submit to ye! My first and strongest reaction to attempts at unjust state coercion is always defiance.
It seems the Australian government, acting through the eSafety Commissioner, has targeted Gates of Vienna under the Online Safety Act of 2021 and the Online Safety Amendment of 2024. Like similar legislation in Europe, it permits Australia to arrogate unto itself the right to go after foreigners who violate it.
I assume the relevant portions of the Act are the ones described in Wikipedia:
In 2024, the government published the Online Safety (Relevant Electronic Services—Class 1A and Class 1B Material) Industry Standard 2024 which contains criteria relating to which content must be removed. Class 1A material typically refers to content relating to child exploitation and pro-terror content. Class 1B material refers to content including extreme violence, content related to the promotion of crime, and content related to illegal drugs.
The eSafety people in Oz accommodated my desire to avoid opening PDF files by pasting the same material in the body of their email to me. The text taken from the two previously attached documents is an incredible combination of dystopian Orwellian procedure and mind-numbing bureaucratic bumf. After reading the first two paragraphs, my eyes glazed over, and I found it hard to concentrate on the rest. However, since I had to format the whole thing for posting, I eventually took it all in.
The text is very long, so I’ll include it at the end of this post. This is the relevant portion for our purposes:
You are required to comply within 24 hours of being given this notice, or within such longer period as I allow if contacted by you with a request for an extension of time.
Section 111 of the Act provides that a person must comply with a requirement under a removal notice given under section 109 of the Act to the extent the person is capable of doing so.
Failure to comply with a removal notice may result in enforcement action, including the commencement of civil penalty proceedings for a civil penalty order of up to a maximum penalty of $825,000 (AUD) each day for each contravention by a body corporate following the end of the period specified for compliance with the Notice.
[…]
Service on which the material is provided: Gates of Vienna Location of material: https://gatesofvienna.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/tarrant-manifesto.pdf Description of material: The Material is a 74-page manifesto titled ‘The Great Replacement’ written by Brenton Tarrant, the perpetrator of the 2019 Christchurch terrorist attack. On 29 March 2019, the Classification Board classified the 74-page manifesto Refused Classification (RC), pursuant to section 9A of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 (Cth), as it directly counsels, promotes, encourages and urges the doing of a terrorist act. Further, it directly praises the doing of a terrorist act in circumstances where there is substantial risk that such praise might have the effect of leading a person (regardless of his or her age or any mental impairment that the person might suffer) to engage in a terrorist act.
That alarming $825,000 daily fine is in AUD. In USD it would be $577,500. Not so bad, but still, one day’s worth would bankrupt me, making all the subsequent days superfluous.
Based on the actuarial statistics for a geezer my age, I have about 1,800 days left. Therefore, since I have no intention of complying, they might as well fine me US $1,039,500,000 in advance. That way they’ll get exactly the same amount of money from me, and it will save them a lot of paperwork.
This is the kind of thing Vice President JD Vance has decried, so I don’t really have to worry about the current administration helping out the Aussies. However, when the next Progressive regime takes over, things could change. And there’s always the possibility that the OzStasi might do an end run around the feds, and solicit the assistance of the People’s Commonwealth of Virginia under its new Commissar, Comradess Abigail Spanberger. There’s no telling what might happen then…
Nevertheless, I will not comply.
I sent the following reply by email to the office of the eSafety Commissioner in Australia:
Thank you for getting in touch with Gates of Vienna.
I am an American citizen who resides in the United States, and, as such, am not under the jurisdiction of Australian Law. The company that provides web hosting for my site is located in the United States, and therefore lies outside the jurisdiction of Australian Law.
I believe strongly in the free flow of information, whether good or bad. Mr. Tarrant is an abhorrent person who committed an atrocity; nevertheless, it is useful for all interested citizens to understand the way the mind of a homicidal psychopath works. In addition, with the passage of time, his manifesto will gain historical relevance, just as Mein Kampf and the Koran have historical relevance today. Despite their violent, psychopathic content, the last two works may still be legally published in Australia, if I am not mistaken. In any case, the publication of all three is legal in the United States.
I intend to continue to make Mr. Tarrant’s manifesto available to anyone who wishes to download it. My doing so does not mean I support or agree with its sentiments; quite the opposite, in fact.
Cordially,
Ned May
a.k.a. “Baron Bodissey”
https://gatesofvienna.net
Once again, for those who are interested, Brenton Tarrant’s manifesto is available here.
Below is the full text of the email from the eSafety Commissioner.














