Background: The German government is pushing to establish internet filters. In a first step, Federal Minister Ursula von der Leyen nicknamed Zensursula pressured most major internet service providers to sign a secret contract with the BKA about implementing an unspecified technology (probably DNS manipulation) to block access to web sites on a confidential list. The federal parliament is debating a bill on internet blacklists.

Zensursula advocates the use of secret blacklist to "make it more difficult" for child abusers to commercially trade video documents of their deeds. However, even members of government have expressed their concerns that the technology will be used to block other content. Other politicians are already coming up with wishlists to block access to online casinos and unlicensed use of copyrighted material.

A coalition of lobby groups lead by the "association of video and media retailers in Germany" and other questionable NGOs raise their voices for further access blocking. Proponents of internet filtering spread the message through mainstream media that people opposing censorship are either criminal child abusers or a "minority" of internet "lovers".

A petition against internet filters has been signed by 88000 voters so far. Pro-filtering politicians (that is the majority of government and parliament) have ignored or ridiculed the petition. The same parliament under the same government has passed a statue against internet censorship, especially in China, just one year ago. And on Australia's leaked blacklist there is the website of a dentist.

The image above was made with the GIMP (original file) and is licensed CC-BY-SA. Photographs of Hu Jintao, Kevin Rudd, and Angela Merkel have been retrieved from Wikimedia Commons with compatible licenses.