Oz Govt Pushes Ahead With ISP Customer Data Retention

angry tapir writes "The Australian federal government is pushing ahead with reforms that could see consumers' information kept on file for up to two years by ISPs. This could include the data retention of personal Internet browsing information which intelligence agencies could access in the event of criminal activities by individuals or organizations."

Money Quote

[Namarrgon]

“Crooks and terrorists will just use encryption or secure services to provide nothing but meaningless data - it's Mr or Mrs Average whose lives could be turned upside down by data breaches or bureaucratic spying.”

Now if only that quote had come from the Attorney General, instead of Electronic Frontiers Australia...

Re:Conclusion of the report...

[Sorthum]

Or tor. Or VPN endpoints overseas. Or ssh tunnels.

I don't really see how legislation can reasonably expect to keep up with technological innovation.

Looks like...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm voting Greens again.

Re:Wow! Teetering on the edge!

[coastwalker]

Don't kid yourself, the security forces have been monitoring for years, Carnivore started in 1997. I don't think many people have qualms about the spooks looking for nutters with explosives from their IP traffic.

Its just time to start opening the data up to regular law enforcement agencies so that they can openly take to court all you criminal copyright thieves and put you in jail. Because we all know by now that 'home taping kills music' and that copyright infringement is 'Terrorism' or 'Pedophilia', just ask Hollywood or the RIAA.

You might feel that this is a little excessive, especially as the next tier of petty bureaucrats to be given access to your traffic will be Local Government and Social Service droids. Don't kid yourself that the Sheeple are going to object to this, after all it will be done to catch 'Terrorists' and 'Pedophiles', and anyway Facebook will be telling them what to think by then anyway.

Isn't it weird how we fought a cold war for half a century against totalitarian communism and now we are becoming totalitarian democracy's.

Its a bit disappointing.

It doesn't cost the government much

[dbIII]

Yes, costing the ISP a packet for storage (which they will pass on to you) while the government is free to go on and makes more pointless laws to tinker with the net.