Australia Taps More Phones Than Entire U.S. 277
An anonymous reader writes "Last year Australian authorities tapped more phones all United States authorities combined. Australian phones were tapped at 20 times the rate of phones in the US according to this article in the Sydney Morning herald. The fact was revealed during a debate in the Australian parliament. The government is attempting to pass new legislation to to make it even easier for the country's domestic spy agency ASIO to tap phones." Update: 09/16 14:07 GMT by T : Julian Assange writes "The Australian is also running the story and has better stats." Thanks for the link.
Big deal (Score:5, Informative)
It's not as much the phone taps that are in place that worry me. It's the taps that should be there and that are prevented by corrupt officials.
Land of the free. Yeah sure, but only when you've bought your local politician/whatever.
Re:being tapped (Score:1, Informative)
There is a discussion on www.dumblaws.com->Discussion Forums->Country Laws->Check out Sweden!
http://www.dumblaws.com/forums/vbulletin/forumd
Re:Does Australia have a constitution? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/docs/constitution.cfm
Re:Phonetapping just-in-case, fishing for crimes? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, no. Just something wrong with my copy-pasting. What I was supposed to copy-paste was supposed to include this: "more than 2150 warrants were issued for phone taps in Australia, but only 1490 in the US".
-> which goes down to: 2150 australian warrants -> 1023 arrests
-> 1490 US warrants -> 3683 arrests
Re:Does Australia have a constitution? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Does Australia have a constitution? (Score:3, Informative)
As I understand it D-notices was/is a somewhat bizarre scheme, a kind of gentleman's agreement between newspaper editors and the Department of Defense whereby the DoD would supply the newspaper editors with privilaged access to certain information if they agreed not to publish it. It wasn't a legal thing as far as I am aware - the editors could (and some did) tell the DoD to stuff their D-notices.
With regards to freedom of speech in the UK it is something that is pretty fundamental. For instance UK journalists and newscasters are really hard questioners and don't give politicians an easy time in the way they do in many countries...
The Australian is also running the story (Score:1, Informative)
POLICE are being given authority to tap telephone conversations at
such an unprecedented rate that Australians are 20 times more likely
to be bugged than Americans. But despite the rate of tapping
increasing ninefold over the past decade, the ability of Australian
authorities to secure convictions as a result of listening to
telephone calls is lower than in the US.
In the past four years alone, the number of phone-tap warrants
approved by the courts and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal has
tripled from 675 to 2157 - one-third more than all state and federal
taps approved in the US.
In contrast to the US, our national security authorities, including
the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation, do not
publish statistics of their bugs.
The extent of the tapping has prompted federal Labor justice
spokesman Daryl Melham to call for a new body to oversee the use
of phone taps by Australian police, possibly based on a model used
in Britain , which has a chief surveillance commissioner.
"There is an urgent need to strengthen the resources available for
external scrutiny of telephone interception activities and other
forms of intrusive surveillance," Mr Melham said.
Labor analysis shows that only seven of the 2164 police applications
for interception warrants were rejected by the courts last year.
Since 1999, when Administrative Appeals Tribunal officers were
first given power to issue warrants, numbers have increased sharply.
AAT officers now issue 94 per cent of all warrants, Family Court
judges 5 per cent, and Supreme Court judges only 1 per cent.
The Australian Council of Civil Liberties said the explosion in
warrants showed that police were forum shopping and targeting
sympathetic judicial officers.
Cameron Murphy, secretary of the council, demanded the federal
Government publish more detailed information to reveal if a handful
of judges and officials were responsible for most of the warrants.
"We think Australians would be aghast if they knew so many people's
phone conversations were being bugged," Mr Murphy said.
Labor also warned that Australian police were achieving far fewer
criminal convictions per phone tap than US authorities.
Between 1996 and 2001, US police made 3.31 arrests and secured 1.55
convictions for each phone tap.
Over the same period Australian agencies made only 0.63 arrests
per phone tap and 0.46 convictions.
A spokesman for Mr Melham said technological advances were part of
the reason for the explosion in tapping.
All telecommunications providers were now required to construct
their facilities so that police could tap phones centrally instead
of climbing telegraph poles.
Re:Big deal (Score:2, Informative)
So therefore, it is still a big deal
Re:does anyone believe these figures ???? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Suspicious ... (Score:3, Informative)
In the US I am free from Church Tax.
In the US I have freedom of speech and assembly that is far beyone what I would in Germany.
I was in Germany this summer visiting my family and while I was there they were arresting people for being in a neo-nazi organization. They had commited no crime other than being raving idiots. My point is, in europe they are much more willing to take away free speech rights when they disagree with you than in the US.
In Germany you also don't have the right to be protected from self-incrimination the way you do in the US.
I could keep rambling, but it really dosn't matter. The people in europe are OK with the fact that their Govmts are more restrictive, so to bad for them it is their choice.
Re:Does Australia have a constitution? (Score:3, Informative)
No. It involves the Offical Secrets Act,[..]
Nope, I think I was correct in my orginal post. From the official web site (www.dnotice.org.uk):
"The DA-Notices are intended to provide to national and provincial newspaper editors, to periodicals editors, to radio and television organisations and to relevant book publishers, general guidance on those areas of national security which the Government considers it has a duty to protect. The Notices, together with a General Introduction, details of the Committee and how to contact the Secretary, are widely distributed to editors, producers and publishers and also to officials in Government departments, military commanders, chief constables and some institutions. The Notices have no legal standing and advice offered within their framework may be accepted or rejected partly or wholly."
I have also read an opinion piece about D-Notices by the editor of a national publication (I don't remember which), in which he said he basically ignored them. It is a system that apparently used to work - when it was a gentlemen's agreement type thing - but doesn't really any more.
Re:does anyone believe these figures ???? (Score:2, Informative)