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Australia Plans More Spying on Citizens
Posted by
michael
on Sun Jun 09, 2002 01:01 PM
from the jumping-on-the-bandwagon dept.
from the jumping-on-the-bandwagon dept.
sg_oneill writes "The Australian Electronic Frontiers foundation report that the Australian Government is looking at introducing changes to the Telecomunications Interception Act giving Government Agencies (NOT just police!) the power to intercept email, voice mail and SMS messages without a warrant. Considering the concurrent proposals to introduce legislation to allow banning of organisations suspected of terrorist links, am I the only one suspecting Australia is about to have a whole lot less political parties?" I think our most recent Australia spying story was about the Australian government spying to win elections.
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Australia Plans More Spying on Citizens
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Email is not and never was secure. (Score:3, Informative)
--Blair
Re:Email is not and never was secure. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Hold on a minute sir, we're almost done. Gotta make sure 'Aunt Edna' and 'hip surgery' aren't terrorist codewords. Then you can have your mail. Oh, and we're keeping the detergent samples. My socks are dirty...errr...I mean...it's a dangerous chemical compound, and we don't know what your true motives are."
Would that outrage you? What makes email special, such that it's okay for the feds to read that?
For people concerned about this story... (Score:3, Insightful)
GnuPG [gnupg.org]
Right On! (Score:4, Funny)
; )
democratic spirit (Score:1)
We win our freedom.
We come up with a system of government to protect our freedoms.
Time passes.
The government THE PEOPLE put in place to protect these freedoms is slowly but surely taking them away.
Is it 1984 yet??
What's the reason? (Score:2)
Australians are not the only ones, Try Europe (Score:2, Interesting)
Police to spy on all emails
Fury over Europe's secret plan to access computer and phone data
http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903
Well its not that surprising..... (Score:1, Funny)
Procedural Minimum for Democracy (Score:4, Interesting)
-Democracy 'with Adjectives', by D. Collier and S. Levitsky [nd.edu]
The paper I link to (which is academic but pretty accessible - I'm a biologist, not a political scientist) is about military juntas in south america, not Aussies.
I raise this point because I think John Howard [pm.gov.au] (the prime minister of Australia) is Australian for Hitler. A modern Democracy can survive all matter of scuminess, but if this proposal goes through, Australia will need an adjective (such as crpyto or pseudo) to qualify their form of government.
Re:Procedural Minimum for Democracy (Score:4, Insightful)
As an Australian, I agree, in a qualified sense. In his mind it's OK to suspend or abolish democratic freedoms in order to ensure that people he doesn't agree with can't be heard or be politically active. (Another example from recent history is Nixon -- government "by any means necessary", legal or illegal).
For many years Queensland under Joh-Bjelke Petersen had a law, intended to stop street marches, that banned the public assembly of four or more people if such assembly had not been previously cleared by the police. It looks like we're moving back to those days... along with John Howard's racist issues on immigration (lock up the non-white illegal immigrants), we should soon be the new old South Africa, if you know what I mean.
Phone != SMS & security != taxation (Score:1)
Access to voice mail should also mean access to the room containing the recordings... so will this also replace the notion of a "search warrant"?
Sounds ugly when applied solely to the police. But look at the collection of agencies who stand to benefit from this law: Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Immigration Department. So this may be a back-door way of gaining more prosecutions of those most hideous of criminals: tax dodgers!
If it makes you feel any better, Australia's gov't is not alone [canadianliberty.bc.ca] in this type of thinking. -AD
Duh! (Score:1)
Understanding (Score:3, Funny)
But on a serious, more blunt note: Should these people wait for terrorists, and by that I mean ANY TERRORISTS AT ALL, to give a rat's ass about them before enacting broad "anti-terrorism" legislation? Are the Australian people really going to swallow this crap?
"Big Brother Strikes Again?" (Score:1)
+sigh+ (Score:2)
+sigh+
Not just emails at stake, regular phone calls too. (Score:2)
Such transmissions are also stored (even if only for microseconds) on routers while in transit. This would possibly make them susceptible to be intercepted without a warrent.
In other words, only pure analog phone messages would require an intercept request. Phone calls that go through digital switches would not.
IANAL, I've just dealt with the courts too damn much.
Oppoition (Score:2, Informative)
The grimmest comment about government (Score:1, Troll)
We may get to see for the first time in an English-speaking country the first example of the domino effect claimed by the US National Rifle Association... where banning the private possession of firearms inevitably leads to control of political speech and association ending in totalitarian democracy.
You can't have legitimate political campaigns where elected government officials are using electronic surveillance not only against known terrorists and criminals, but against political opponents as well. That's why the Watergate scandal ended President Nixon's political career, because his people got caught doing exactly that.
If this disturbing Australian trend goes to completion, how long before media outside AU realize that Australia is no longer a "free country"? Probably after we get significant numbers of people applying for "political asylum" in the US.
The only suggestions I have for Aussies if this doesn't get stopped, and if it's gotten this far, your elected officials probably no longer care what you think are:
1. You may already have seen the very last free election in Australia in your lifetime.
2. If you are serious about freedom, your options are:
think of a way to fight the new regime (isn't it too bad you gave up your guns?)
or
leave.
I recommend departure. If you live among a people willing to vote away their freedoms even when there is no obvious threat, I can't see any good reason to risk death and imprisonment for them. The people who tend to do best during a migration are those who get out first, they have the best chance to find jobs and housing before the hordes of refugees show up behind them.
For those who would neither fight nor depart, don't worry. I'm sure your regime will continue to call itself a democracy and even allow the facade of "free elections" for a while. Of course, your choice will only be among the parties the government allows to continue. And the forms of free enterprise that the government approves of.
I wish you Aussies luck. You'll need it.
No, I'm not offering the US as an example of perfect democracy, though we've had stolen Presidential elections in the past and 0wN3d legislatures and our democracy has survived. As to whether it will continue to do so, I certainly don't know.
Steve Irwin (Score:5, Funny)
Irwin picks the prime minister up by the neck...
"Wow! Look at this beauty! What we have here is a rare Australian Brown-Nosed Prime Minister. Very valuable too, large corporations will pay big bucks for a fella like this one here."
The prime minister starts gagging and choking...
"You're all right, Mate. You're all right. You have to be careful when dealing with these buggers. I don't want to let go of the neck because then he could call his elite guard and then I'd be in a world of trouble. They'd come running and attack me with their projectile defense mechanisms. They wouldn't understand that I'm not trying to hurt the prime minister, I'm only trying to educate the public."
The PM is grasping for his computer, but Irwin holds him out of reach...
"Let's walk over to his computer and take a look at how he survives. Notice the program he uses to search his prey's email and telephone conversations. Very sneaky, but it's that survival instinct that allows him to maintain his dominance in the political jungle. That's why we call him the prime minister. Yeah? OK, I'm gonna let him down slowly, and hopefully he'll be too busy gasping for air to call for help and I can make my retreat."
International political action? (Score:2)
Perhaps Amnesty International [slashdot.org] would be a good place to start?
Time for a change to the democratic system (Score:3, Interesting)
Most Western "democratic" countries operate a system that involves the election of representatives who are chosen by the people to speak on their behalf in government.
The unfortunate reality is that these representatives are almost always looking out for their own interests ahead of those of the people who elected them. "Power corrupts" as they say.
These representative systems were devised hundreds of years ago when it was simply impractical to run a true democracy and, at the time, they constituted the most democratic solution to the problem of allowing the people to dictate their own future.
Clearly it would have been absolutely impractical to have every citizen voting on every decision related to the running of the country.
But it's now the 21st century and things have changed -- a lot!
Now we have the power to let individuals exercise their own democratic right to have a say in the decisions made by government.
Several years ago I proposed that we now have the technology to implment a truly democratic system that would effectively impose strong checks and balances on the excesses of our elected representitives.
I documented this system (as it applies to the New Zealand political system)
here. [politics.co.nz]
The idea is to acknowledge that an elected representitive is effectively doing little more than exercising the proxy of the voters in their constituency.
Until now, the only real democratic right that citizens had was to elect a different representitive at the end of each term. Now that's a very coarse form of democracy and offers little protection for the public.
My suggestion is that each voter be entitled to withdraw their proxy and exercise it individually if they choose to do so on an issue by issue basis
In the event that a government tries to pass legislation which is not supported by a majority of the voters, those voters can recover their proxy and vote against it.
The technology to allow such a "recoverable proxy" situation can be as simple as a telephone, ATM or Internet connection.
Unlike other proposed improvements to the democratic process which involve cumbersome methods such as regular referenda, this system allows our elected representitives to carry on as normal, exercising the proxies of their constituents-- but simply reserves the publics right to say "no" when that representitive decides to place his or his party's interests ahead of the majority choice of the people he/she has been elected to serve.
Of course politicians don't want a bean of this proposal -- because it would significantly curb their ability to rort the system and remove their ability to place self-interest ahead of the public's right to be democratically represented.
A change like this would likely require a massive outcry by public -- and our politicians would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
What do you think?
Good news (Score:2, Informative)
Australia has gotten the government it deserves... (Score:1, Flamebait)
Australians have always been been politically apathetic, and apathetic in general. They're not civic minded people to begin with, plus anyone with ambition is quickly pulled down. Australians whine about everything, but no one wants to get involved. "Not me, not my job, mate." So they turn to government to solve all their problems, everything from keeping wages up and food prices down, to people driving too fast, to keeping the kids off drugs. Well, with that comes a price... and they're really paying it now.
They're paying *for* it too. Something like 1 in 6 Australians is directly on a government payroll. Unemployment is high, and gaming the system of government handouts is a national sport. Half the country is working to support the whole other half. This is not good.
Simple circumvention (Score:2, Insightful)
Well for email thats easy, use a forign web baised email.
Voice mail dont use your telcos "Message bank facility", use an answering machine, or if you like those anoying menues set one up with a modem and a computer.
For sms it's a little harder, if you realy dont want someome looking in on that sort of thing, buy an integrated phone / pda type thingy with GPRS and load up an instant messaging type client that has an SMS portal (ie ICQ) that way you can still recieve sms messages, and you can still send sms messages to phones but your incoming message never get "stored" on an australian server(if your IM is conecting to a forign server). They still pass through aussie servers and telco equipment but they arent stored.
P.S. I'm an aussie and i realy doubt this bill will actualy pass. I was listning to a story about this on the radio and not only are the other partys rejecting most of the bill but i wouldn't be suprised if some liberal party members cross the floor and vote it down
It will never get through the upper house ... (Score:1)
Big deal (Score:1)
Not really surprising... (Score:1)
1st. They take all firearms from all citizens.
2nd. They take away all warrent protections that keep police from abusing there power.
3rd. (future) I wounder how long it will take to do away with thoughts pesky free elections.
Democracy just gets in the way when the government know whats best for you...
I'll be buggered. (Score:1)
Well I live here (in Queensland) and what can I say. This will never get through. The politicians argue the absolute bloody crap out of everything, even themselves, and even the sensible bills that really should pass without even a second glance are debated for weeks/months/years not over their content but for political brownie points.. can you imagine how unspeakably pathetic the parilement session will be like when this baby gets to being debated?
The political system in Australia sucks because of the friggin massive beuracracy involved. It is so damn slow, and the two major political parties are extraordinarily anti-constructive - they argue about EVERYTHING simply because they think it's their f*cking job, "I'm the opposision therefore I must oppose _EVERYTHING_" kind of attitude.
Hmmf. I knew people were ignorant of other people, but jeez... what do you take us for?
Are any of you aware that we have a federal government that has no representation in ANY of the states? That's right. "Everyone" voted the liberal party to run the Federal government, and for the state elections the labor party won each of the states. Kinda funny huh? You can imagine how little gets done.
Simon Creamy: So.. sorry about that bitch fight the other day in parliament.. can we get a federal grant to build a new hospital/invest in Universities?
Peter cost-a-lot: Johnny says no, screw education, go to a private Uni/school, we've gotta "protect our borders" or something...
Hehe come to think of it that was kinda lame. Anyway I'm off to the real world.
- Paul
OZ = New USA (Score:1)
I wonder where you Americans are going to come when you finally screw up/blow up your environment. Lets see, which country has a butt-load of space, but not may people. Wow! Australia does!
As for the Australian government trying to get more spying powers... Well, the Australian government is just a front for the US. John Howard is a wanker (As are most politicians).
Government response to anti-terroism bills (Score:2)
As scary as that possibility is fortunately it looks like is unlikely to happen, at least to the full extent of the initial bill. The anti-terrorism bill issued by Attorney-General Daryl Williams that was going to give him the ability to ban political groups/parties deemed terrorist in their actions so far has been rejected by senators [smh.com.au]. Thus forcing Williams to back down on the anti-terrorism bill [smh.com.au].
I am not sure how this affects the proposed changes to the Telecomunications Interception Act, because I am not sure if this one big anti-terrorism bill or a series of seperate bills. Eitherway it reflects the fact that most senators in Australia are sane and wont stand for these crazy new laws, at least in their current form.
Now if only the government would come to their senses about the mistreatment of refugees, though that's whole other issue,
What a relief! (Score:2)
More debate (Score:3, Interesting)
More and more, people seem to be focusing on those issues beloved so much by the media, such as law and order, border protection and the nebulous political hotcake known as "The Bush" (which basically boils down to the higher cost of living in rural areas). As much as I hate to say it, no one has much time for trivial issues such as civil liberties when there are so many other things to be outraged over.
It doesn't help things that, these days, political parties like to present themselves as being totally committed to a given point of view. The effect of this is generally to silence the lower ranks, and of course to neutralise any dissent within the Government to official policies. A similar effect usually happens within the ranks of the Opposition, but currently it *is* split on several key issues, though it's disheartening to see the Government leap on this and shouting out words to the effect that the Opposition is in disarray.
Perhaps we also need some way to mitigate the power of the media corporations. Cynics (or realists?) would argue that these are the entities that really control Australia, and that the Parliament is more or less just a formality. Unfortunately, with the Govnerment pushing to abolish the cross-media-ownership laws (which prevent someone owning both a newspaper and a TV station in the same city, *I think*) the largest media corporations could yet become even more powerful.
Talk-back radio hosts are also quite powerful in Australia, and much to my continuing displeasure, they're mostly conservative. People like John Laws and Alan Jones, despite the "cash-for-comment" scandal recently in which both were found to have been receiving money in exchange for favourable comments towards particular organisations, still seem to be doing the thinking for a disconcertingly large proportion of the population.
I don't think any of this is going to change any time soon. I only hope there are at least *some* sane people at the top. Hopefully they can keep things on track until we work out a way to engage the public interest in issues which affect the democracy we seem to take for granted.
Hmmmm....... (Score:2)
cluge
Political motivation. (Score:1)
The Labour Paty is the Most popular political party in Australia only defeated in the last two elections due to a coalition between the Liberal Party and the National (farmers) Party.
There's been a concerted effort by the current Coalition Government to destroy or at least singnificantly disenfranchise the union movement in Australia which is the main power-base behind the Labour Party. The most blatant evidence of this was the "waterfront dispute" between the totally unionised Patrick Stevedores waterfront and the Farmers Federation/Coalition Goverment which was designed to remove the unions from the wharves with sercurity guards and dogs and replace them with military-trained workers sympathetic to the Farmers Fed. despite evidence at the time that the Unions had been making significant progress toward reforms on the waterfront. Latest evidence of similar tactics today: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/09/1022
Last year, just before the federal election, we had the federal government use the DSD, defence signals directorate, spy on communications between the Maritime Union of Aust. and the Tampa which was involved in rescuing assylum seekers from water close to northern Australia in an attempt to gather information to demonise the Unions and therefore the Labour party during an election campain which is entirly illegal, at least for the time being.
The relevance of this is fairly clear, if the federal government was to be endowed with these new powers entire unions such as the MUA during the waterfront dipute, which became quite violent, could be classed as terrorist organisations and effectively investigated, arrested and interrogated incommunicado without legal representation and all the Union possesions impounded effectively grinding them to a halt. The actions of the Coalition in respect to the DSD issue last year and the waterfront dispute point to this conclusion.
Why? as the coalition pointed out recently, they are massively underfunded compared tot he Union-Funded Labour Party and require massive corporate donations in order to survive and compete.
Potential for abuse? (Score:1)
Has any body disscussed the potential for abuse from unscrupulous government employees? I would imagin it (abuse) would happen...
I'm glad I don't live in Australia... (Score:1)
You know nowadays, just about any legislation could get passed that would not only be completely ineffective, but will threaten your freedom and/or invade your privacy, if it can be justified as part of 'fighting Terrorism'.
But then of course, some of my opinions have been proven to be wrong, and I just hope that this above opinion will never become fact.
This just in... (Score:1)
Government whines for key access.. People with a clue move key generation offshore, and let the geni out of the bottle...
Something about history repeating itself comes to mind...Oh wait...
Less is more? (Score:2)
From Dictionary.com [dictionary.com] (with my emphasis):
Usage Note: The traditional rule holds that fewer should be used for things that can be counted (fewer than four players), while less should be used with mass terms for things of measurable extent (less paper; less than a gallon of paint).
Re:it's amazing (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, that would be bad. Unfortunately, in this case it's not that the government is just allowing it, they are committing the acts!
Re:George Orwell is spiniing in his grave. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does everything involving security/privacy have to come down to the same tired, inapplicable old refences to 1984?
Explain to me how the reference is inapplicable. As I recall, having *gasp* actually read the book, surveillance of individual citizens by the government and control of the populous through manipulation of all news and history was precisely what Orwell was writing about and feared would come to be in the future. So, now that governments throughout the Western world are rapidly enacting measures that enable far greater surveillance of their own citizens and chilling effects on free speach we're just supposed to shut up about it. We should retire the reference to 1984 because you think it's tired and overused, despite it being entirely on-topic to the discussion at hand? Maybe we should ban Kafka from the discussion, since he too voiced a number of poignant and applicable ideas regarding the nature of justice, beaureaucracy, and power? If Orwell is spinning in his grave, it is because governments throughout the western world are interpreting his novel as a howto guide for building morally bankrupt, totalitarian states rather than as a warning against such things.
Re:George Orwell is spiniing in his grave. (Score:3, Informative)