Australian Dr. Death Adds Computer Hacking to Workshops

The Australian government has proposed to implement a nationwide Internet filter that would block access to web sites that show people how to kill themselves. In response, euthanasia activist Philip Nitschke has added computer hacking instructions to his workshops on suicide methods, according to the Herald Sun.

Philip Nitschke

Nitschke conducted these workshops, offered to people who are sick or over 50 years old, in Sydney, Perth, Melbourne, and Adelaide in mid-April. He detailed “reliable and unreliable ways of ending lives and explained how to bypass any filter firewall the Government might construct,” the Herald Sun reported.

The government has already banned the sale of hard copies of the Peaceful Pill Handbook, a suicide guide distributed by Exit International, Nitschke’s euthanasia group. The organization now offers the book for free on its web site, and access to it will be blocked if the government’s firewall is implemented, according to Computerworld.

Amazingly, it will not be illegal to bypass the government’s firewall, so authorities likely cannot stop Nitschke’s workshops.

“Under the government’s policy it will not be an offence to circumvent the filtering measures or to show someone how to do so,” a spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy told Computerworld.