Slashdot Mirror

I like the way the favicon.ico for the Attorney-General's department looks like an orange three-eyed buck-toothed smiley. That gives the right note of absurdist humor.

The act covers any "representation, or description, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under 18 years of age". So the troll (link?) that repeatedly posts the description of fucking his grandfather as a teenager is causing slashdot to distribute child pornography. tut tut.

We're not worried - we have our trusty anti-terrorism fridge magnets to protect us!

Read the EFF document. Read the legislation.

It's not "without a warrant" - it's "without an interception warrant". The change that the proposed legislation (even the "new" package that's been announced (See here http://www.ag.gov.au/aghome/agnews/2002newsag/56_0 2.htm) is that instead of gaining access to "stored communications" with an interception warrant (think along the lines of email waiting to be picked up, voicemail waiting to be picked up, SMS awaiting delivery to a phone), all law enforcement will need is a search warrant for the premises at which the information is stored (ISP, Telecommunications carrier etc).

It all happens with a warrant - it's just that the amount of resistance placed in the way of getting an interception warrant was always considered to be greater than with a search warrant, despite the propensity of law enforcement to "shop around" amongst Judges to get what they want. (Think along the lines of one judge refusing an interception warrant in the morning, then the Australian Federal Police taking the application back to the court in the afternoon and getting a different Judge...).

Read between the lines, Slashdot flunkies.

You'll be surprised what you find.