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Australia Spying On Its Own
AVIDLY INTERESTED writes: "Well well, the Australian government has been caught out spying on its own citizens, despite denying for years that they do this type of thing. This story at The Age shows that the Defence Signals Directorate listens to just about every bit of communications in Australia. The interesting thing about this story is the background to it. In this case the govt spied because they were trying to win an election, and needed evidence to demonise a ship that was docking in Australia carrying a bunch of refugees. National security be damned, this is echelon for political gain. Is it happening anywhere else?"
You would have to be pretty niave to not think so. 200 years or so in the good old usa has created a power structure so entrenched, vile and corrupt that it will take a revolution to root them out.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
"Is it happening anywhere else?"
I think it's happening in U.S.A and in all major country in the world ready to spend money on this kind of project.
GOVERNMENT ABUSES POWERS - Film at 11!
Ho hum, another day, another government to topple...
Back in the old days, France used to be much like this. The government would be all high and mighty, and yet the peasants would actually be quite carefree and an open minded people.
Australia in recent years seems to have taken a turn for the worst. I'm a libertarian, but I can definitely say that Australia stinks of 'Liberalism' right now. Is the country run by a bunch of soccer moms who are scared their kids are going to be raped if everyone in the country isn't kept under constant surveillance? Probably.
Australia is advocating a 'no-privacy' state.. and I can't help but think that that stance will put off a lot of companies from doing business there.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Excuse me for being stupid, but I've gone through whatever docs I can find on this site, and even tried to find a forum where I can ask Slashdot related questions.. but nada. So I'm asking here.. how comes my posts now all have a score of 2 even after they're just posted? I notice it's not a Slashdot wide thing cuz other people still start with 1.
can be found here
personally, I think that spying on citizens is like masturbation. Everyone does it, no one admits it, and in the end it gets you nowhere.
I think wackybrit complains about having too much karma. You know what to do...
The Australian Liberal government SUX. They have screwed up broadband in our country and are clueless with IT. I hope they spy on these packets of data. You JERKS SUCK BIG TIME.
The Government had deployed the damn SAS
to the ship. Of *course* they'd intercept
civilian communications of they had troops
in there. They'd be negligent not to.
Nice to see Desmond Ball dragged out again.
Any time the press wants a nice grab from
someone who is reliably anti- the security
and intelligence forces, they trundle out
old Des.
Give this one a miss, guys. You're being
lied to.
This might be of some interest...Of course every transmission made is monitored.. Power is inherently fragile; knowing the moves of your enemy in advance is a key to protecting your power. Make your own conclusions, obviously.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
From the German government's Lauschangriff to Echelon to the NSA to my provider [Hi, guys! Keep up the good work!] to some company that routes my data to people I haven't even heard of, I would just assume that anybody who can listen in will listen in. Germany does have a constitutional Right to Privacy that the U.S. Bill of Rights doesn't, but I don't think that is going to impress too many of those people - what am I going to do, sue the people who run Echelon?
My suggestion: Live with it and use crypto where you can.
For what's worth, it's probably happening everywhere else... Scale and incidental public exposure are the most likely to vary, but that's about all that varies.
Give a man a hammer, he'll start seeing nails all around him... Give a goverment means to spy on it's citizens, it'll start seeing enemies all around the place...
--
And on the seventh day, God was arrested for tresspassing.
Funny, when I read the story, I didn't see that stated. I read a number of statements saying that the DSD's intelligence gathering was within Australian laws and supervised by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. The DSD also reports to the cabinet and (I think) a committee on intelligence. I read that the Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, asked for an inquiry and I read that the opposition said that they now generally don't trust the DSD, but no actual facts. (Aside: Does anyone else dislike the term "unAustralian" (or whatever nationality you please)? Simon Crean used the term and it really ticks me off.)
Well, the government still has the same policy after the election. The main people saying that the government is using this for political gain are the people who don't like the government's actions, or who dislike the government generally. For all you Australians who think the government is doing this for political gain: Phillip Ruddock (immigration minister, primarily responsible for refugee decisions) is a member of Amnesty International, and has been for a long time. John Howard (Prime Minister) has demonstrated that he doesn't mind taking unpopular decisions every now and then, especially when quite a long way from an election. Have you ever considered that these two, and the rest of the government, might (a) know more about the situation than you (and their info isn't full of media bias); and (b) may have a different value system to you??? (Shock horror!)
What was said is the following: Transcripts of phone conversations between the International Transport Federation, Maritime Union of Australia and the crew of the MV Tampa were used by the government to formulate a political response... One wonders why the phone conversations were useful. I assume that if the political response was simply lies, lies, and more lies, then the actual facts probably wouldn't be that useful. I'd be interested to know exactly how the phone conversations were used, although that probably is classified information that we won't find out for another 50 years.
Of course, government monitoring of its citizens has been going on for as long as there have been governments. However, 9/11 has excellerated this trend considerably. Australia has had a massive backlash against what many there consider excessive immigration. Australians feel they are in danger of being overrun by immigrants and they also fear terrorism. I think they -- like a number of other countries -- feel that these two issues are closely linked.
The backlash against immigration started well before 9/11 but the terrorist attack intensified this backlash. I think that this is happening -- though to a lesser extent so far -- in both the U.S. and in Europe. Surveillance has increased dramatically and will continue to increase.
I think that this is going to lead to massive investment in surveillance by many countries all over the world not just in the West. Governments across the globe will engage in surveillance at levels way, way above anything we have ever seen in history.
Paleolithic
This is maybe why so many governments have opposed any kind of encryption standard, they hate 3DES, they hate Blowfish, they hate PGP, etc... simply because their programs that they use simply havent got the power to track all activity AND to spend a very long time decrypting encrypted data. Id personally agree with what other people have said here about this tracking activity being pointless, since anyone with data they even remotely care about protecting from prying eyes will have it encypted several times before it goes anywhere near the internet. The only kind of data they are going to intercept is some guy having an affair with his wife...
http://www.webhostingtalk.com
Make it idiot proof and someone will make a better idiot.
No one's forcing you to communicate with other people, just like no one's forcing you to use Windows...
(If you can't detect the sarcasm in the above statements, you really shouldn't be roaming the Web without a guardian)
Some thougts:
Under normal circumtances (at least here in Holland) a judge has to aprove a tap to prevent abuse of these powers. Was this tap cleared by a judge? This would it make much worse since the control mechanism that SHOULD contol abuse. If not than it's clear that the people who caried out this tap doesn't care for a clearancy.
I don't know what more damaging. A mislead judge or some people that tap into private conversations without a warrent!
Australia's not that powerful a nation. I don't mean to badmouth Australia, but really, it isn't up there with the larger powers of the world that can fund entire South American dictatorships with their spare change, or nuke this planet and possibly the moon out of existence with only half of its nuclear arsenal. So this makes me wonder... what are countries like the United States, Britain, Russia, or the combined force of the European Union doing with THEIR resources?
With the power and money of the United States, I'm starting to wonder if this whole "Middle East" area is really just a set of Hollywood sound stages. And if they aren't, then Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are most certainly super-advanced molecular AI programs that have been created using a combination of Martian and Plutonian alien technologies.
Or if their aims are closer to the ones that the Australians chose (political gain), then these "homosexuals" and "fetuses" are most certainly a right wing fabrication that has reached a global scale through the use of flamboyantly dressed male holograms and "sonogram" machines that are actually just downloading black-and-white video images from the global satellite network code named "Holy Satellite System of Wonder, Goodness, and Jesus".
Instead of "It's a joke. Laugh.", I think I should use, "It's a joke. Calm down. Please."
What is happening in Australia is a kind of sickness, a governmental sickness. There are people who like to sneak around, rather than have a real connection with others. If they can attach themselves to a government that believes in, or accepts, secrecy, they find that they have endless money, and they can do whatever they like. Given the nature of secrecy, and the nature of bureacracy, there is never true accountability in a secret bureacracy.
Angry people often like to cause trouble if they can avoid being held accountable. Secret troublemaking by government is a dream job for these people.
Secret agencies in the U.S. are much bigger troublemakers than those in Australia. The article, What should be the Response to Violence?, has links to about 600 pages from major news sources that tell the story. For example, there is a section about a secret agency of the U.S. government that trained Arabs to be terrorists. Also see the sections, To understand the present conflict, consider the past, and Understanding the CIA.
Bush's education improvements were
Uh...Australia started out as a penal colony, as I recall...an island of prisoners a'la Escape From New York.
:)
Did anyone tell the government that this is no longer the case?
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
The privacy icon would be better for this story.
According to the story that was on Slashdot on Monday, Comacast is intercepting packets and reselling it to marketers. "This allows them to not only log all http requests, but to also log the response." Lets see if they are logging the requests and the response, maybe somebody other then marketers might want that info.5 23 6
Here is the story.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/02/12/013
Great people don't need people to complete them, great people complete other people. -- Matthew Pawlikowski.
Is water wet?
+++ath0
It has been mentioned in subthreads above, so this might be modded down as redundant. However, since several posters are arguing that freedoms are being taken away by the Evil Liberal Soccer Moms of Australia, I'll risk it by saying that John Howards Liberal party in Australia is actually deeply conservative. Their main opposition is the Labor party which are more social-democrat/liberal in the European sense.
As for you libertarians who seem to think liberals are the greatest threat to freedom, who are the ones currently taking away US freedoms in the old excuse of national security? It ain't the liberals anyway.
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
They we're supposedly listening in on the communication between that Norwegian carrying the 400 Afghani refugees and the Norwegian government also. These refugees would have drowned had they not been picked up - and the Norwegian ship had a crew of 15 and was not designed to carry 400 people out to the open sea...
Currently I'm living in Australia - nice people. But they're experts when it comes to ratting on each others. They've got posters around encouraging you to "dob in" who ever you see do anything "illegal". Can't even ride a bike without a d@#n helmet here.
replace "our" with your.
* Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you *
girl
They were spying on phone conversations to a ship which was boarded by SAS troops!
So the SAS troops in and of themseleves weren't sufficient to neutralizae any security threate posed by the Tampa?
Funny, when I read the story, I didn't see that stated. I read a number of statements saying that the DSD's intelligence gathering was within Australian laws and supervised by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security.
Not everything printed in the newspaper is true. Conversely, not everything that isn't printed isn't true. The DSD can and does intercept anything and everything it can, but according to whatever rule book it follows: any intercepted communication where one or more parties to the communicationa are Australian and the communication is not related to a serious criminal matter or one of national security is supposed to be deleted. Of course, we trust them to do this implicitly.
In addition, conversations between the captain of the Tampa and both the compnay that owned her and the Norwegian government (under whose flag the Tampa is registered) were passed on, all while the government was trying to negotiate a solution that served its own best interest. Needless to say, the edge this would have given the government in such negotiations could have been considerable.
The main point is that intelligence is not supposed to be used for the advantage of any Australian political party (under section 2A of the Intelligence Services Act, IIRC). The idea of spooks interfering in the political process by giving one side an advantage over another (either by the simple supply of information or by engineering a certain outcome to a politically sensitive situation through the supply of information) is quite frightening.
Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters... What on Earth does this story have to do with the above? It's kinda outside the scope of the site wouldn't you say? I read the first few lines, expecting a link to some device that was purportedly used, somehow relating to computers or even just cool gadgets. I found nothing of the sort. So why run this story? The only conclusion is that /. is jumping onto the "Australia is naughty" bandwagon. I'm an Australian, and damn proud of it, and whatever the world has to say about my country won't really bother me... except when it begins to become a popular way of thinking. There have been articles in American newspapers that went close, but didn't quite come to, calling Australia racist. That's an incredible insult to every Australian, and is indicative of the current international opinion of Australia. Kind of ungrateful to one of the Western nations that gave unconditional support to the USA's "War on Terrorism" in the wake of September 11. 5 months on and it's time to pile shit on Australia. And the point of that little rant is that it is so pervasive an attitude that now even /. has been tainted by it.
Honestly guys, pull your head in! I know it's a shitty situation, don't worry, our govt is in a lot of trouble over it. The majority of Australians are just as concerned by what's happening as the rest of the world is. But perpetuating anti-Australian propaganda isn't helping my country solve it's problems, and it's only tarnishing Slashdot's good reputation.
Dave
I love the statement our foreign minister Downer said in a press conference, "... there has been no SIGNIFICANT breech of protocol ..."
Oh, and I apologise to the shaved monkeys.
Robert Anton Wilson
Eavesdropping's effects on Australian politics has a long history. The American NSA had a secret installation which eavesdropped on Asia which began to come to light under Gough Whitlam's left wing government. The government was actually thrown out of office by John Kerr, who had been on the CIA's payroll. American spy Christopher Boyce, who was stationed at a TRW location that received CIA, said that the CIA helped throw out, or overthrow, the Whitlam government. Not a big deal in the states, except to Christopher Boyce who's still sitting in prison in Kansas, but certainly a significant event in Australia
Puhleease !!
Spying on a foreign registry vessel in international waters which had been directed not to enter Australian territory, but which then did enter in some sort of Norwegian Invasion. If comm intercept ability does not exist for occasions such as this, then why does it exist at all?
Oh, BTW, of course this happens everywhere, but moreso. Especially in the US where people are "told" they are "free" and don't have the education system to question the fact. Try making a few phone calls or sending a few emails about how you're gonna sh**t the pr*s*dent, and see who comes knocking at your door. And that's without the external threat of a Norwegian ship invading your sovereign territory under duress from a bunch of Iraqi queue-jumpers with designer luggage stuffed full of cash (no exageration).
Ofcourse, what people forget is that Australia witholds the right to let in, or not let in, who we please.
So the government used its own intelligence-gathering arm to get as much information on the situation as possible, before making decisions. And this is bad, uh, how? Its well founded that it was spying and intelligence that helped prevent the cold war turning into WWIII. The Cuban missile crisis proved how invaluable intelligence is in a crisis.
Personally, I think my tax dollars are well spent, thanks anyway.
Anyone who considers arithmetical methods of producing random numbers is, of course, in a state of sin.-John von Neumann
... I can say first-hand that the US government isn't making sig-int out as a large conspiracy. As my parents were stationed at Menwith Hill, I remember seeing English protestors outside the front gate moved away by armed guards from time to time. Granted, this was not an every-day occurence. But, every now and then, you'd see the occasional group of loons camped out in a nearby field calling for "American spies to leave England." Now, keep in mind, these signal-interceptors that NSA utilized for project Echelon weren't in some bunker buried in tall groves of trees surrounded by miles of razor wire. They were giant "golf ball" radar towers that were visible for miles around. This makes you wonder what else the US government has up it's sleeves if it keeps its' sigint relays out in plain view, eh?
I'd like to posit an argument that follows the same lines government officials use to keep encryption away from the public. Government fears that someone who turns rogue might do damage with something like encryption.
How is this any different than letting something like echelon fall into the hands of a rogue government official? If that were to happen, such a person would use that tool to maximize his personal position, be damned the harm it does to anyone else.
But there doesn't seem to be much concern at all about what sort of tools are being laid in the laps of our government bretheren. Their assumption is they are trustyworthy people who would not abuse the powers they assign to themselves, so they fail to incorporate the neccessary checks and balances that are needed for things that are ripe for abuse.
Cameras, echelon, and a whole host of other unchecked powers are being deluged on govt officials and they are starting to abuse those powers before the ink is even dry on the laws.
The proper approach to rulemaking is to carefully guard against the inevitable situations where there is mass incompetence in government. Documents like the US Constituion didn't come about from lofty think tanks that lay far from reality but from bitter and terrible experience.
I seriouly suggest people start opening their eyes. If not to learn and perhaps change things for the better, than to simply watch how quickly the world can change.
Who ever wrote this. You are a champion. In NSW a state of OZ (don't know if u are Oz) police can now randomly use dogs to sniff for drugs on you. Also the government is making a jailtime for whistle blowers. Its shit. We gotta fight back as u say.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
I just want to put out a few facts to all those lovers of John Howard, our prime minister. Was there a slashdot article on the howard governments law to jail whistleblowers. what about the armies right to shoot unarmed civilians brought in before the olympics.
Firstly they are not queue jumpers. Australia has no diplomatic presence in Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan. Therefore they can not apply to be refugees and can not form an orderly queue. wake up to your self and do not believe the rascist lies the Howard government preaches. Secondly the other end of the line was an Australian citizen. That is illegal, plain and simple. Thirdly the law can only be used for threats to national interest. Refugees are not. Fourth 2 wrongs do not make a right. I couldn't care less if it happens in America.
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Come on people. Amusingly enough it seems that there will always be a few liberals willing to take an opportunity to say "hey look...it ain't liberals doing this sort of thing. It's usually conservatives."
How soon we forget.
Halo too bright for wearer.
----------
Twisted Little Gnome - The Podcasting Network http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com
What is the best way to waste the time of government bodies who monitor email and/or telephone conversations? (Please point me to an faq..)
:) )
Just a few thought to be added to:
1/Encrypt with an easy to decypt password (I am not important enough for them to try very hard
2/Send lots of slightly altered binaries/gifs back and forth with your normal mail
3/Browse the hacking/conspiracy/revolutionary web sites
4/Use hushmail.com and/or PGP
5/Talk about unibomber/trade center type conspiracies on the phone
6/Use emacs spook command
7/Mention project echelon and Operation Vengefull
8/Try not to get too wrapped up in this stuff yourself as they are probably not watching you (much).
9/Send around this type of posting..
10/Make conversations over insecure channels based on previous secure channel eg face to face conversations that would not have been likely to be taped
11/Base insecure communication conversations on shared belief systems and/or shared knowledge (for example literary references) that would take some effort for the eavesdropper to resolve.
12/Make insecure communications ambiguous so that the other side of the conversation may work out the really meaning (or demand clarification), the eavesdropper cannot resolve ambiguity by cross examining..
13/Use an (Arabic or Irish) (accent or language), [though speaking Irish in an Arabic accent or speaking Arabic in an Irish accent might really confuse].
I thought encrypting everything too much might make it too hard for them to track you and not fire off enough warning signals in their (automated) monitoring center..
So basically I want to put a message [the president will be shot within the next month] inside a lightly encrypted message so when they
decrypt it [maybe automatically] they think they have some information of value, or that they have to act upon, if they act you know they have read your message. Alternatively put in a really good original joke (they are hard to come by [whats brown and sticky? -- a stick] [standards of humour may vary]) and see if it gets back to you through the government listener. These are the two standard cryptography 'red book' methods of seeing if your communication channel is compromised.
I am not a good shot so I'll have to get someone else to do it.
Turloch
'There is a place for everyone in this struggle no matter how big or how small. Let us increase our strength and the strength of our analysis by finding a place for them all.' Bobby Sands
PGP key follows
--
YeP I HaVe NOT BoTHereD To GEt PGp -- yet
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
Enough said.
You know, you shouldn't talk about your partner like that.
1. Official Gvt policy is that conversations involving Aust. citerzens are not intercepted unless it threats national security, involves a serious crime, or lives are at steak.
;)
2. How the hell would tapping some soldier's phone call possibly be a political advantage? Even in the slightest?
GOD DAMN AUSTRALIAN MEDIA PISSES ME OFF. Look at the sydney fires. They dramatised it *SO MUCH*, they RAPED it, they had sad television crew saying "we're here for you", "we understand" a la WTC incident. And made a point of it. Over, and over, and over again. It was sick. Vultures. Emotional vultures. And the brainless, moronic, stupid, idiotic, thoughtless reporters that wrote up every little mishap and mis-interpreted fire fighter routine as "negligence" on their part. Ooh, those bad fire-firefighters, they spent an hour or two with foreign chopper pilots organising flight patterns and planning for a low-visibility area with dozens of other smaller choppers.
Idiots.
The biggest government blunder I'm concerned about is the thousands of barrels of toxic waste that exploded in Perth 11 months ago (appeared on 4 corners the other night). In the middle of a suburb. Coverups before the disaster, and after. Blatent. Malicious, calous, complete and total disregard, contempt, gross negligence and a total failure of the government to do even the slightest for the public that they serve. I can't even begin to describe the scale of this disaster. I'm driveling on as it is. Yet we get crappy little stories like this blown, no, exploded into a proportion of significance that is just hundreds of orders of magnitude more than it really deserves.
This "tapping incident" is just a typical Aussie media write up. If you remove the "for political gain" (how can one get political gain in election from a phone tap from a boat?), it just becomes a routine matter of the army listening to phone conversations in a situation that PROBABLY REQUIRED IT.
But no. The media had to make it sound big, and raped the story beyond belief. Again.
As an Australian citerzen, the biggest national embaressment we have is our media. Actually, I think it's a conspiracy from the murdoch/packer networks to make Australia look really stupid
I R insane 8-)
- Paul
It is probably not common knowledge to those of you not in Australia, but the governement's "tough" handling of the Tampa issue* practically won it the federal election last year.
* - The Tampa issue in a nutshell:
Who told you? I thought that came off my record already...
And what religion where those nice Lebanese (migrant) boys then..
Oh dear..
Do we wan't any more Muslims, educated or not, comming into Australia..
No..
At least Natasha has shut up for a while..
Stupid little good two shoes..
There's nothing new in a government monitoring such phone calls. Hasn't anyone heard of Echelon or Carnivore?
I'm not saying it's a good thing, but we can pretty much assume that it goes on all the time if you don't use strong encryption for your communications. The only thing unusual about Australia in this regard is firstly that this sort of intelligence gets mentioned publicly and secondly we Australians are very good at whipping up one-sided outrage in the national media.
In the same vein, Slashdot has a nasty tendency to go with the "Australians do it again" angle every time that nation is mentioned. "Australia" translates directly to "privacy issue" in the lexicon of Slashdot-level understanding.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
Have people forgotten Watergate? In the US, every political party has been spying on the other, and if they happened to be in power, they were using the powers of the state to do so. Now, do you really believe that that has stopped? I suspect it has just gotten more sophisticated (I mean, Nixon was just plain stupid). And there are so many more possibilities now: a lot of intelligence work has been "privatized" and therefore has been freed of many pesky government regulations, and the US government can always outsource to foreign intelligence services and say "the French did it".
But what's the deal with Australia. I know it's to the left of the states like most of the first world is.
Most of the people on slashdot are left of center. That's alright. I consider myself a libertarian "with a heart". It almost seems like Australia is following some kind of wacko american depravity with a passion. Man, I used to love Australia. Fellow criminals, that made it:)
I admit I'm not a big fan of so called European "social-democracies"(aka in America, socialism), but i always thought Australia would be mavericks. What the hell is going on down under. I always thought Australia would always be for the individual, less government.
In the states, even with hundreds of channels, we don't get much Australian nightly news. Can some of our brothers from down under inform me?
Has it occurred to anyone that no gov or org has the capability to assimilate all this information? How many people monitoring, translating, prioritising and passing on would be required to handle all the communications from a country such as Afghanistan? That's before you go for your own subversives. And it will get a lot busier. Filtering is rubbish, since Sept 11 I must have received dozens of emails discussing terroroists bombing targets from friends, whereas terrorists are smart enough to use cover terms such as "visiting the library". It's such a waste of resource. If they spent the same money infiltration we'd stand a better chance. Sig: Hey CIA, I'm considering buying some stationary!
Yer, ok, there were some incidents before I was born. But there's nothing on that level these days, afaik. What was done in the past was done, you can't change it. Show me another colonized country that didn't have horribly racist crimes perpetrated by it's colonists. Do they get called racist today? I think not.
Also by having the attitude you have you are just giving in to the whole racist thing. You are not only ok if you are white anglo! It's a cliche to say so, but I have many friends who are not "anglo white skinned". I do not consider them lesser or better for what they look like! Jeez!
I acknowledge that not everyone in Australia is open-minded. But show me a society where this isn't the case. You can't. You never will be able to.
My point was that beating on Australia is the flavour of the moment and has no place on a website such as Slashdot.
Yes, the West needs to do more, in particular since Western culture and Western politics are so dominant now. Yes, the harm that the West is doing is probably bigger in magnitude than that of any society before it because it has been magnified by technology. But, in terms of corruption and goals, Western society isn't any worse than most other societies have been traditionally. In fact, if anything, the West is more aware of the problems and actively, rationally, and consciously trying to address them, something that cannot be said of most of the societies that preceded Western societies.
Hmmm ... SO what is new ? Every government does this. Though almost all of them deny involving in such activities - even when questioned with hard evidence ...
Those in power will use technology to stay in power.
If you don't communicate electronically, you can remain completely off the radar. Law enforcement seems to have trouble grasping the idea that a Mafia don might be reluctant to talk about that drug shipment on his cell phone.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Liberalism is seldom associated with increased surveilance and invasions of personal liberties: Quite the opposite in fact. Most "soccer moms" who call for greater and greater restraints and government controls are conservatives. A liberal approach to things is live and let live. A conservative approach to things is "live the way we see as the best way to live".
Wow, I'm glad that Slashdot is offering a non-biased "independent" view of the news that is free of the evil influences of the capitalist bourgoiuse imperialist leaning of traditional media.
This is the type of journalism that I would expect from a website like Indymedia. Too bad Slashdot is adopting it.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
If you did things our way, the private citizenry would be spying on the people in government! Just flip the subject and object, and you'll be, um, like US. ;-) No worries, mates.
Hah, I wouldn't be surprised if the US did the same thing. The US is full of crooked and corrupt politicans.
:P
Huh... someone's knocking at the door...
What the hell?! There's a whole fleet of NSA agents on my front lawn!
Oh shit...
"Black holes are where God divided by zero." - Steve Wright
Actually, according to certain information sources which most Slashdotters would shut their eyes and shake their heads at, the technology exists to actually listen in on your thoughts.
It is figured by some that the technology used by 'secret government' (for lack of a less cheesy term), and secret military, (same), is in the order of 135 years ahead of current public technology.
(I know, I know. "Crazy, Lone Gunman stuff." Heard it already. Read on if you want to be entertained, but don't waste my time with flames. I'm pretty much made of asbestos at this point.) In any case, the attitude of the above poster is actually fairly pragmatic.
See, the bad guys have the power and nobody can do a damned thing about it. Things are also going to get a lot worse. Violent. Like, Nazi Germany was a dry run, kind of violent. There are those who 'eat' fear and negative emotion. (Yeah. I know. Weird-ass concept.)
In any case, it's how you react that counts in the long run. Denial is a popular option, and not even a necessarily a bad one. You're going to learn regardless, (even if it is more painful and terrifying), but if that's what you need to do, then so be it. Live and die. It's all a big school house in the end. You'll get other chances.
See, people don't realize just how amazingly interesting times are right now. There is SO much great stuff going on! (Though much of it is behind the veil.) Watch and learn. This is why you're here, and awareness is the key.
--In any case, the more you know, the less vulnerable you are to the nasties. It's a great idea to learn as much as you can about as much as you can; the realms of science present the ultimate spiritual quest, despite how it has been framed and restricted by the powers that be.
And the ultimate trick is this; choose who you are. Are you a self-serving individual, or the opposite. Both ends of the spectrum are valid, but both lead in very different directions. One limitation is that there's only so far you can go with self-service, with a fair amount of misery being ultimately involved. Whereas material indulgences are not the realm of 'service to others'. No sex for those who ascend high enough on the path of enlightenment! Bummer. (Though I gather from my reasearch that there are aspects of higher awareness which makes sex look like a joke. But what do I know?).
One of the coolest things I've managed to pick up is that Fear, Jealousy, Anger. . , all these negative emotions are actually a choice. Something you can actually turn off. (It's a bit of an effort; we've been 'designed' to have easy access to these feelings.) But once you get the hang of it, it's really cool! I've not been caught at the whim of painful emotions for a couple of years now. Conserves energy big time, too. Doesn't matter where I go these days, I'm usually the most on-the-ball alert person in any room. The amount of energy people waste indulging in stupid emotional responses is just nuts! One of the coolest things you can share with somebody is to explain how jealosy and envy and self-pity are actually dip-shit sub-routines which are not, as we have been led to believe all our lives, automatic and required. We only run them because we've been told we're supposed to in certain situtations. (By crap like, "Friends," and the general mind programming broadcast in the form of pop-music. "Oooh. I'm so lonely!") Mind programming on this level is a very simple affair. --Although the strobing CRT's do act as a hypnotic opener to a degree, making it easier for these messages to implant themselves. There are dozens of other 'softeners' but I won't go into that rat's nest.).
Gads. It's very late and I need major sleep. (The little clock in the corner says. .
Pardon me, and goodnight!
-Fantastic Lad
Let's just say America's FBI discovers some piddly adultry. My guess is that the person in charge of the field office would say, "C'mon you guys. Cut the crap with all that, and find something on the..." on the interstate hot car parts racket, terrorists, bank robbers, etc. My impression is that "snoopy" law enforcement here is comprised of smart, motivated, hard working and patriotic people. I have little reason to think that Australia is so distinct from us that a similar ethic wouldn't be there.
Democracy? I am glad to see we (the USofA) isn't the only country that doesn't trust its citizens. Does Australia have the 'executive privilege' rule too so the government can do what it wants regardless of the masses? (Maybe your leader, like GW here, can silence this mess by making it 'national security').
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Immigration is a really really contentious issue, but there is no way in hell that you're going to stop people looking for a better life.
Hell, if you guys don't want 'em, send em to us in the US. Our unemployment problems are bound to be fixed sooner or later, and we'll be looking to import good workers again - and anybody willing to take the kinds of risks these people are taking is bound to be a good worker.
Why are internal Australian politics being discussed here?
For an Australian this is normal. A typical media beat up story. We're a small country, really major stuff doesn't happen here, so we like to discuss with each other how stupid the bloody government is (major pasttime) - and it gives the uni students something to protest about to get them out of the classrooms.
But in the whole scheme of things, this is absolutely irrelevant. What is considered bad in Australia, by world standards, is chicken feed. However, if people from other countries read these things, they put it in terms of their own country, and it seems like a big deal.
Really guys, this is not news.
Doesn't anyone remember the statement made by someone at the NSA following the 9/11 attacks. This was probably a day or two later and someone from the NSA said that they were pouring over thousands and thousands of cell phone calls recorded in the Pennsylvania area looking for recordings of calls made from the plane that crashed there.
I thought "HUH?!?!?!? Did they just admit that they randomly record cell phone calls of private citizens without a warrant?" Sure as heck sounded like it to me. I remember there being a little bit of noise about the statement at the time it was made. I remember just how vile it sounded to me and surprised that the statement didn't get much attention. I suppose in those days following, the vast majority of Americans were more than willing to give up any amount of privacy if it meant the bad guys would get caught (and I'm not sure it's terribly different now... 5 months later).
I've been looking for an article or something referencing that statement from the NSA, but I can't put my finger on one. Can anyone help?
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
It's quite acceptable for DoD to spy on these communications. That's not the problem. The real issue is that the intelligence was then passed on to the government. As the article says "DSD is not supposed to pick up and pass Australian calls to the government, except under extreme circumstances, such as serious criminal offences, a threat to life and safety of Australians or an Australian acting as a foreign power." I doubt any of these things were happening here. As such, someone almost certainly acted illegally. I'm Australian, and I don't want the network that invades our privacy in the interests of national security used by the government to gain an unfair advantage in the democratic process. That's what was probably happening in this case. Take this to an extreme and you have something very reminiscent of 1984.
In English class, I learned that Australia is also called 'Oceania'.
Anyone read 1984, comrade?
The word you are looking for is "corporation."
Trying to use big words you don't understand doesn't make you look smart. It would be better to speak simply.
Here is a link to interesting privacy and crypto quotes:
Privacy and Crypto Quotes-"The early bird catches the worm, but the late bird sleeps the most"
A recent inventory of the Australian Government's supply of spy cameras showed that 90% were pointed at the nude beaches and the other 10% were pointed in members of parliament hotel rooms as in Enemy of the State....
twoslice
(a story in and of itself...)
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...
But seriously, is anyone really surprised by this? After all, Australia *was* originally a penal colony...
I can't believe such blatent misinformation got modded up. This phony perception of liberalism being equivalent to socialism is a common misconception among Americans, but I thought that at least some people around here knew better.
Liberalism has a meaning. It is a political philosophy that puts individual liberty and freedom as the natural and desired state of human beings, and dictates that burden of proof must always fall on any person or law that infringes on individual liberty in any way (that is, speed limits are ok even though the limit freedom, as long as we can show that they do great good to make up for it.)
Liberalism should be contrasted to a conservative political philosophy, which means that the burden of proof always falls on people and laws that change the current situation. That is if there is currently a law that infringes on peoples freedom, the liberal will say, "Show me why we need this law, or I will get rid of it," while the conservative says, "Show me why we would be better off without this law, or it stays."
It makes my skin crawl every time I hear an American attacking liberals as wanting less freedom and more laws. If somebody wants that then they are BY DEFENITION not liberal, regardless of what they, the media, their opponents, or anybody else says. Nor does liberalism have anything to do with socialism, which is a political system (not really a philosophy) that tries to even out social injustices. There are people who combine the two under the argument that people without money are having their basic freedoms infringed by the economic system, but that is neither universally held nor in any way inherent to being a liberal.
If you think that, all things equal, people should be as free to do whatever they want as is possible, then you are liberal. It doesn't matter if you find that hard to swallow because you are American and don't like the people who call themselves liberals around you, or whether you despise Al Gore, or whatever. Get over it, and learn the meaning of term before you attack it.
hate the break it to you buddy... all this kind of crap (slavery, dictators, amd kings, secondary cititzenship)in the world has been happening for thousands of years. long before america, or england for that matter.
Alright, this liberal/conservative issue just bewildered the hell out me.
I'll have to admit that I'm a US citizen, and here liberals, as defenition, tend towards a socialized state. Conservatives tend to dislike government interference and regulation (although they are more than happy to implement all the interference and regulation to forward their cause).
What I digest from your and other posters comments, is that Australian liberals are quite conservative.
However, I just realized that this perfectally parallels the Australian "Down Under" way of mind. In Australia, South is North, and instead of being on the bottom of the world, they are on the top. The toilet water flushes the opposite way. They have the Platypus, the mammal that has a bill! They call Fosters "Beer". I could probably go on forever!
As I see it, everything else is backwards down there, so the government may as well be also.
(just kidding to all the Aussies in the crowd, hope you can take a little prodding in the ribs)
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I'm not comparing Western society in a negative light to other societies old or new. I'm comparing it to what its potential could be. The truth is that we squander resources on expensive luxuries (and weaponry), selfishly denying the needs of the rest of the world in favour of those of our own nations.
I'm basically favouring the internationalist view - we need to think global, in the modern day and age, not only because of our common humanity (how come the life or death of a citizen of the West matters so massively more to his fellow citizens than that of his brother in the third world?) but also because of enlightened self-interest. Fundamentally, what goes around comes around, and with modern technology, it happens a great deal faster. If we want to be safe from terror, the whole world must be protected with us, and from us. The same goes equally for war, hunger, and pestilence. The rest of the world accepts the West's domination not because it benefits them, because it clearly does not benefit them to be exploited as they are, but because our military muscle leaves them no choice.
I'm asking that we should give the world bread, not bullets. Even from a right-wing viewpoint, the argument is obvious - stability yields productivity, which yields profit. You don't like immigrants? Then challenge the poverty which pushes them to leave their homes and risk their lives to share your luxury. You want to bring foreign criminals, such as Osama bin Laden to justice? Then set up an international justice system to whom all are answerable (something to which the US administration is stridently opposed). You want to be safe from epidemics? Set up an infrastructure to deal with them at source, wherever it may be.
Through acting with integrity, give and gain peace. It's a lot to ask, of a lot of people, and I can't foresee it happening in the immediate political climate (or any political climate we've ever had, come to that), but it's also got a lot to offer.
"What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist." Salman Rushdie
When government has this kind of capability it will be used whenever and where ever they deem "necessary".
Everyone sees themselves as standing for goodness and light and their opponents as representing the forces of evil. They cannot resist using it.
It probably has been used to sway elections in the United States and Europe. It has probably been used to stop reform movements.
The real problem is that when reform groups believe this kind of capability will be used against them, it is easy for them to justify resorting to terrorism as the only course left to them.
My main problem with the word "unAustralian" is that it's not English. Don't they have spell checkers in Australia?
I understand that the popularity of eToys, eBay, iPlanet, etc. may have this sort of thing common in trademarks, but in regular English, we like to use a dash between the "un" and whatever noun we're un-ing. For example, "un-American." Except of course if the term you're negating is generic, then you just smoosh [1] it all together like "uncircumcised."
I know I'm just an American and have little to no control over the Queen's English, but it might be nice for journalists of all nations to agree to some basics. Since the spelling of color, labor and aluminum will never be agreed upon, they might as well try to focus on general grammar, hey?
-Russ
[1] Smoosh isn't a real word.
[2] It's a joke... smile.
Me
compare:
personally, I think that [whatever] is like masturbation. Everyone does it, no one admits it, and in the end it gets you nowhere.
and
imagine a beowulf of [whatever]
ahh the joys of form responses..
baa baaa baaaa baa baaaa
National security be damned, this is echelon for political gain. Is it happening anywhere else?
The normal use of "intelligence services" et al in peacetime is to further the aims of the politicians in power, and hide things from citizens. It should really be obvious that Australia faces no serious external threats. Its spying agencies could be disbanded without any adverse effect on Australians. Pretty much the same is true of the US. The NSA absorbs a staggering amount of resources, and since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has served little purpose.
If your country was full of convicts you'd listen in too.
"The crows seemed to be calling his name, thought Caw."
"this ain't no ordinary civilian phone conversation they listened in on."
Oh yes it was! The fact that the Australians boarded the ship didn't make either side of the phone calls less civilian! the only millitary presence on that ship was australian commandos who, according to norwegian media, were rather shocked at the conditions among the refugees*, and to what they had to do.
As to "ordinary". Well, yes, I suppose such conversations could leak embarrasing facts about the situation and the conditions on board, and that the government was therefore justified in wiretapping in order to prepare for the PR blow this would be... or?
*that's what the australians called them. But to the captain they were mainly people saved from a sinking ship.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
You make an international phone call, and the military will know. Trust me.
It's nice to know we live in a world with computers, the Internet, cars, planes, shuttles, etc., but I could do without the fear.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.. We all know this, and have known this for thousands of years. Now we get suprised that a government abuses it's power? Hell EVERY government official abuses their power every day. It's a given. They just dont get caught. The best example is the "shining light of truth and democracy" our beloved United States of America.. Our presidents have usually been womanizers and did worse than what Clinton did, Nixon did what every other prisedent did but just got caught.
Hell, I wouldn't be suprised to find that Bin-Laden was paid to do his dasterdly deed just so Bush could bomb the crap out of the middle east like "dear ol' dad". (Note to the gun jumpers here... this is a hypothetical statement.. please look it up before screaming, ranting and running around with your arms in the air.)
Your Govt, is watching you, your employer is watching you, and your nosey neighbor is watching you. and only YOU have control of that, you can decide to cut the flow of information to them at a price.
Most people find the price is too high or too inconvienent, or just couldnt care less.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
"Liberal" means quite different things depending on country and date:
19th Century: Best expressed by J.S. Mills. Sort of what Americans now call "moderate libertarian":
- Capitalist, free-market economics.
- Mills probably never heard of labor unions, and certainly wouldn't have approved of them.
- Distrust of government balanced against recognition that some government is necessary. Mills: "That government is best which governs least."
- Representative democracy with quite limited governmental powers. (In the US, this depends largely on the Supreme Court, the legislature and executive both being notably lacking in self-restraint and respect for the Constitution... British liberalism substituted the hereditary House of Lords for the Court, and tradition for a written Constitution, and so far it seems to have worked out no worse than over here...)
- Heavy emphasis on individual rights, except where they conflict with the free market.
- Some public works projects are acceptable (like roads), but gov't should stay out of anything that can be done by competitive commercial concerns, or by private charities.
Late 20th & 21st century American "liberals": Moderate socialists. Sometimes not so moderate. Example: Ralph Nader
- Regulated capitalist economy with many socialist trimmings.
- Pro union
- Distrust of big business. Also tends to regulate small business to death...
- Schizoid attitude towards government -- when it comes to arresting criminals or the national defense, gov't is bad, but when it comes to welfare, business regulations, zoning, public schools, or social agencies checking up on how you raise your children, gov't magically becomes good.
-Representative democracy with some limits on governmental powers.
- Heavy emphasis on individual rights, except where they conflict with the "liberals" favorite gov't regulations.
- Almost everything should be a public work. If the regulated and heavily taxed economy can't employ everyone, the gov't should hire them. If necessary, to dig holes and fill them up again...
- Does not believe that honest citizens can or should defend themselves.
(Don't let my ridicule of 21st century liberals fool you -- conservatives are even more schizoid. But that would get too long and too far off topic...)
British or Australian late 20th - 21st century liberals: What we call "conservatives" in America
So, if you didn't like someone, just plant an encrypted email and throw away the key. Give an annonymous tip (drugs, child porn, tax evasion, etc...) and wait until they are locked up without bail. Problem solved!
I'm sure happy this type of thing doesn't happed in america. ;)
Well, unless you're a refugee, you can be sure your government is working for you. Besides, it's unlikely that there's any good cricket players aboard.
Moving right along...
this post is an echelon magnet!!!
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
Both conservative and liberal styles of government promote surveillance. The conservatives promote it in the cause of their moral righteousness such as scanning the web for kiddy porn or animal sex pics, while liberals promote surveillance to protect public health, such as scanning the web for kiddy porn or animal sex. Either way you're screwed. Unless you don't like kiddy porn or animal sex, in which case you sigh and thank your masters for being so thoughtful. ;)
homodoggy
The "Cold War" was an effort by the Plutocratic West to destroy a political movement that it was threatened by.
News flash: the Soviet Union oppressed and slaughtered millions of its own people, and openly espoused a worldwide process of revolution -- really a form of imperialism -- to bring the whole world under their control.
The Cold War was a response to this. The West did make mistakes, go overboard, and make some nasty allies at times, but they never did anything to compare to the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, and their successors.
If you can't see any differences between the Soviet Union and the free Western democracies, you need to read more history.
I also believe War is perpetrated on The People by a powerful elite (in every nation-state). We should do away with Nation-States and do away with all National Armies That will really brand me a lunatic, Im not, just an idealist because I refuse to believe we aren?t capable of solving the world's problems.
Why will doing away w/ nation states and having a world gov't. solve anything? You would prefer one global elite ruling us all, to a bunch of different elites in different parts of the world?
This story at The Age shows that the Defence Signals Directorate listens to just about every bit of communications in Australia.
The story is interesting, and quite believable, but let's be clear here... it doesn't show anything.
Bang on! There's an old socialist saying about war: "a gun is a stick with a worker at each end". And the US"S"R no more served the worker than the US did, of course.
Freedom: "I won't!"
It was probably to fight terrorism. You know. The terror created by offering the electorate a choice of political parties. All that indecision!
- undoware.ca
Don't you think this is a bit sensational to be true?
Political opponent makes wild accusation -> News papers embelish already sensational statement -> TheRegister, uh sorry, Slashdot picks it up.
Guess What, I also intercept every signal transmitted on the earth. Yes, they all pass through my head.
I thought the U.S. government has already patented using the Internet to spy on Australians.
Didn't this exact same thing happen in Australia back in the late 60's or early 70's. The United States National Security Agency ( signals intel. ) & CIA were helping the in power Australian government spy on its local opposition for political reasons. When they got busted it generated a bit of bad feelings between Australian people and US.
Some people just never learn!
These could hardly be considered "conservative" policies, but "Conservative" is a very tricky label so maybe this is the source of the confusion. Read on if you are interested in why I say this.
A Primer on Conservatism for the Uninitiated:
If there are any traditional "conservatives" (i.e. paleo-conservatives) still living in industrialized countries who believe in Divine Right Monarchy, Theocracy, or Aristocratic rule, I'd like to know what they are eating and who their doctor is. [Maybe the Queen of England or the odd Romanoff, but otherwise these guys are extinct.] They can still be found, even dominate, "traditional" (i.e. primitive, non-industrialized) societies, which are particularly prevalent in fundamentalist "Islamic republics" and kingdoms. That is because these political systems are based upon the assumption that the average individual is not fit for self-government.
As noted by others, modern "conservatives" [neo-conservatives] are not the same animal. These conservatives seek to retain the status quo of modern civilization, which means that today's conservatives ironically would have been considered "liberals" when these terms were invented. This is because modern conservatives seek to preserve the individual-centric reforms of the Enlightenment, many of which are currently under attack by modern leftist movements.
Generally speaking, traditionally "liberal" reforms concern themselves with the balance of power between the individual and the state. In practice, the reforms promote the protection of individual rights as the principle aim of good government, and a government of limited lawful powers to ensure that the state does not become oppressive to these rights.
True conservatives, (i.e., conservatives whose personal beliefs are logically consistent with their professed ideology, aka: "philosophically consistent") believe in rights as inherent and involiate individual property, which is far more than a mere privilege. (Privileges are granted at the behest of another and can be limited or recinded at any time by the grantor.)
But modern conservatives split into two camps based on competing theories as to what constitutes a legitimate right, resulting in two different subsets of "rights". These two groups are often called "Libertarians" and "social conservatives".
Contrary to leftist propaganda, all philosophically consistent conservatives would agree that every person is entitled to equal treatment under the law, and most would accept individual "property rights" as the practical cornerstone of any system which seeks to protect individual rights, [as opposed to mere privileges] because property rights are a useful analogy for defining what "belongs" to the individual and is therefore worthy of the law's protection. Therefore it follows that most conservatives support the distribution of wealth via mechanisms of merit such as the free market, as opposed to by birth (aristocracy) or social class (socialism), and would also support your basic civil liberties which promote human dignity, such as freedom of speech, religion, assembly, etc. Libertarian conservatives would interpret these basic freedoms as absolutes, providing their practice does not result in the destruction of another's property (think practice of religion so long as your god doesn't require you to burn down your neighbor's house.)
This limitation is philosophically consistent because a libertarian defines all rights as "negative", in that they are designed to protect you from the actions of others. Therefore any supposed "right" which would allow you to violate the rights of another cannot really be considered a right. This is why conservatives in general and libertarians in particular are so opposed to so-called "positive rights", (such as the claimed right to a job, or housing, or medical care), because these programs require that a legal duty be imposed upon other citizens to pay for these services if an individual is unable or unwilling to pay for them himself, which in turn would require an involuntary redistribution of wealth via taxation for an "illegitimate" government purpose, (aka: a violation of a citizen's right to the "fruits of his labor".)
Therefore libertarians are correct to point out that all positive rights are philosophically *inconsistent* because they require that a supposedly involiate right be "balanced" against another suposedly involiate right. As an aside, the UN's Universal Declaration of the Human Rights is chock full of positive rights. Libertarians also extend the penumbra of rights to so-called "victimless crimes" such as private drug use and prostitution, providing that it does not impact the rights of another. Contrary to reputation, Libertarians support taxation for traditional government duties which they deem to be consistent with their view of individual property rights, such as adjudicating disputes via the courts, protecting property via the police, and providing for the military defense of the nation.
Social conservatives, on the other hand, define rights via a concept of "natural law", which far older than the Enlightenment. (What follows is only intended to be an approachable definition of natural law.) Natural law is usually based on the premise that there is a Divinity which desires justice, so it can be said that he wants humanity to do what is "good" and that humanity can do good if it discovers what this natural law is.
Philosophically consistent social conservatives accept most of the liberal reforms of the enlightenment as "good" because they affirm the dignity of the individual, whom post enlightenment religions are concerned with.
Under this view, it is legitimate for the state to encourage morality which is consistant with natural law. Therefore rights are only there to protect the "good" and no right which violates natural law can be legitimate. Therefore restrictions on speech, private behavior (drug use, abortion etc.) might be permissable.
Natural law can appear arbitrary because it seems so dependant on particular religious interpretations, but in actuality most religions agree on basic concepts of justice such as prohibitions against murder, adultery, stealing, etc. Furthermore, natural law has one rhetorical advantage that is difficult to dismiss: By declaring all humans as worthy of respect and dignity, it preempts and removes from the table any discussion of whether human beings deserve to be treated with dignity. This is a powerful safeguard when one considers that secular regimes of the 20th century which claimed the right to subvert the individual to the needs of the state resulted in the deaths of approximately 100 million individuals. (including an estimated 60 million who starved when Chairman Mao came up with the incredibly brilliant idea to press food producing peasants into industrial factory work during the "Great Leap Forward").
In opposition to conservatives, modern "leftist" movements span a spectrum of belief in the need for state intervention in the affairs of the individual, a belief that grew out of an (anti) intellectual counter-revolution to the Enlightenment, (i.e., the "Romantic" Age), which among other things sought to validate and elevate emotion as more important than reason, [with reason being the original justification for a system of individual rights based on merit, as opposed to birth or circumstances].
Some may disagree as to the actual demarcations, but this spectrum could fairly be characterized as ranging from totalitarian intervention (communism), to regular and systematic intervention (socialism), to occasional intervention "when needed" (modern liberals, who are probably better identified as "progressives".) In the end, the consistently unifying premise of these belief systems is a fundamental lack of faith in the individual to do what is right, and the resultant need for "the right people" come into power and set things "right" so that the poor hapless masses don't get screwed. The fact that every serious attempt to do so has ended in box cars and concentration camps is lost on its adherents, because good intentions are all that one needs to qualify as the "right" kind of leader.
And that is why I am a conservative and Australia certainly is not.
What's wrong with Indymedia? Don't like what they write? Read Time or anything else.
If you want to e-mail me, use my PGP Key.
Ok, in reading this thread, there seems to be a lot of confusion about the term 'liberal' and what it means. Let me see if I can explain what's going on... someone correct me if I'm wrong.
First of all, the poster declared himself to be a 'libertarian', a libertarian, in the US is someone who believes in little government interference and that type of thing, it's a term only really used in the US, as far as I know. And he called what the Australian government's actions "liberal", now I'm guessing he means "liberal" in the US sense, rather then say, the British sense. Now, to make things extra-confusing "Liberal" in the US and "Liberal" outside the US mean opposite things. In the US the Democratic party is called "Liberal" and the republican party is called "Conservative". In the rest of the world, the republican party would be called "Liberal". Liberals out side favor liberty and the like. In the US, liberals are liberal with government money: P.
The term 'libertarian' thus came about here, because people who favored liberty but didn't think the republican party was any good needed something to call themselves. They couldn't use "liberal" because it was already in use by people who they even more strongly disagreed with, thus "libertarian" was minted.
To make things extra confusing partisans, people who identify strongly with a particular labeled viewpoint (like liberal, conservative, fascist, communist, whatever) tend to label things they don't like as being in the opposite camp. This libertarian here called the AU's listening "liberal" in the US sense (I think), because he didn't like it.
Personally I don't think listening to almost everyone in the AU has any particular political slant other then "Sleazy", and of course "Very, very disturbing", (although you might be able to say its "reactionary").
Anyway, let me know of any mistakes I've made. Personally I think we should choose new names in the US for these terms to make intercontinental communication easier.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
As a dual citizen, I'm dismayed by both Aus & NZ using echelon for political gain.
How Aus screwed up a simple tax NZ has had for 15 years is beyond me, maybe they really are stupid.
The GCSB in NZ is likely to use their expanded powers to return the Labor government, though I don't see why Big Sister Clark needs more political tampering.
Big Sister already has 48% support and a lame duck National opponent.
Sure, he's a multicultural sheep shagger who wants to be a populist. But 28% is nothing near enough for a majority stake in government.
I can only hope that Big Sister will actually take seriously the goal of economic growth she set in her speech yesterday.
Perhaps we should argue for the economic cost of spying on the citizens and businesses affected?
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
I think it is worth recognizing the unfortunate hand that these refugees have been dealt. Planning on starting over in .au and ending up on Nauru!?
Nauru is one of the strangest places on the planet. difficult to believe it's history wasn't written by Kurt Vonnegut. Seems that after 60 years of mining Naru has nearly depleted it only cash cow - phosphate. In the process they have converted a large portion of their once lush island into a field of jagged rocks.
Their other schemes to provide a national income are as equally short-sighted. Attempting to start an regional airline, aiding money laundering institutions, and other poor investments have left this coutry with little other option than to get paid for accepting refugees.
sad - almost comical...like monty python humor.
but for 20 million i would consider taking 400 refugees...actually that is only US$25K each. maybe not.
Liberal minded and government trusting australians were happy to learn, the government is taking good care of them. A few responded with outrage and demanded more regulation of the government -- by the government.
(Not exactly trolling or flaimbaiting here. A few times before, an Aussi or two would rise to teach the americans about the beauty of the government regulation -- on this very forum.)
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
A follow-up story on the site, with Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott saying he thinks the spying was "justified."
/ FFXF44TKKXC.html
"We will do what is reasonably necessary to protect Australia's national interests. Let's not forget there were Australian troops on the Tampa and those troops were protecting Australia's interests."
And yet, legally, they are only allowed to spy in cases of grave severity. This, I'm pretty sure, doesn't qualify.
Read his whole response:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2002/02/12
-- Nerds on toast in the new millenium
Hands up all those (like me) who have no idea of the implication of calling people soccer moms. In the UK where I live, soccer is more associated with single men than mothers, and rugby is much more popular than soccer in Australia.Is it a US specific reference? Note the meaning of the ww in www.
Marcus
Liberalism is seldom associated with increased surveilance and invasions of personal liberties: Quite the opposite in fact. Most "soccer moms" who call for greater and greater restraints and government controls are conservatives.
In Australia the main conservative party are called `The Liberals'. Hence the confusion.
That idea for the film came from 1984, read the first diary bit in page 10, it was set in the mediterranian sea.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
The problem isn't that DSD was listening in on Australian citizens conversations. They are allowed to do that, just the same as the CIA, and FBI and any number (and there seems to be lots of others) US government agencies do.
The DSD's job is to monitor communications and if they intercept an Australian Citizen and that communication doesn't compromise national security then they should disreguard and delete it.
HOWEVER - In this instance they passed the details of the conversation in the form a transcript to the Howard government to assist them in making a political decision that has no bearing on national security.
The conversation was between the MUA (Maritime Union of Australia) and the ship and at a guess I daresay it was inquiring about the welfare of its members (or members of an affiliated organisation)on board the ship.
Howard has tried to destroy the MUA in the past and has even considered using the Australian Military.
Many Australians (and I'm one) view Howard as being the worst kind of politician, not as sever as a neo-Nazi but from the same self serving short sighted mold. Much like the Average US citizen might view Nixon. i.e. - Politics before morality.
It couldn't have been because he lived there could it?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm British and live in Britain myself.. but due to the number of Americans I have to work with and know, you can't help but learn the culture.
I might not be 100% right, but the term 'soccer mom' refers to a mother whose kids play soccer, and who lives out their lives through their kids successes on the pitch. They generally drive SUVs (4x4's for us Brits) and are constantly driving their kids to soccer practice, school, Gap, and piano lessons. They are generally liberal in the US sense.. that is, they'll vote for anyone who will pass laws that will protect their children and damn any freedom lost in the process.
And, unlike in the UK, soccer in the US is as common with girls as boys, so the term 'soccer mom' can encompass mothers with children of either gender.
They're starting to become popular in the UK too, but we don't have a name for them yet. I'm sure you've seen plenty of tiny affluent mothers dropping their perfect kids off at schools in their gigantic 4 by 4s. That's them.
mogorific carpentry experiments
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
Australia is the asshole of the "english-speaking" world.
I think the problem is that Hobbex doesn't know much about Australian politics. Because of an historical anomoly, the right wing conservative party in Australia (equivalent to the Republicans in the USA) are known as the Liberals (see their website liberals.org.au. It's confusing for those in Oz, and the difference between Liberal and liberal is that the former are known as "big L liberals" while the latter are known as "small l liberals". Given in the posting, Liberals is written in caps, it is a fair bet that the writer was referring to the Liberal political party, ie the conservative party. In case you are wondering, the Labor Party in Australia is not actually a party of workers anymore, and the National Party, came out strongly against an Australian republic a couple of years ago. So there you go, Australia is a place of contradictions, but the original posting was in fact, correct.
Trotsky was a fan of "world communism", but we all know what happened to him. Stalin wasn't intrested in expanding Communism beyond a few countries to provide a 'buffer zone' against the "evil capitalst opressors" who they thought would nuke them the first chance we got.
Anyway, the Cuban Missle Crisis was pretty hypocritical on our part, considering that we had missles in Turky that could hit the USSR in the same time it would take to fire from Cuba. It wasn't about protecting americans, it was about protecting America's "First strike ablity".
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Oceania was all of the Americas, England and I'm not sure Australia was mentioned... Although I would guess it would belong to Oceania, as the planet was supposed to be divided up by culture, not strictly geographics. (thus Air Strip One, (UK) was part of the American/English world, even though it was a lot closer to Europe then the Americas)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The original story was in The Daily Telegraph, GOVERNMENT SPIED ON US yesterday.
It's interesting that they are now denying the spying, because a Government minister was quoted yesterday defending the spying in this AAP story run on the Sydney Morning Herald website. They seem to have edited the story now, but the original quoted Federal Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott saying the most interesting thing about the Telegraph report was the fact that the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) was making phone calls to the Norwegian ship!
It's completely outrageous that the Government is trying to deflect blame by questioning the MUA's motives. That completely side steps the issue. I couldn't care less what the MUA and the captain discussed, the point is that they have a right to do so. This was a political issue not a matter of
national security.
It's an ethical minefield, regardless of whether the Government's actions are in the letter of the law. I object to a taxpayer-funded spying organisation that was set up to protect Australia's national security being hijacked for political ends. A Norwegian ship captain is entitled to talk to people in Australia without being spied on unless he is suspected of terrorism or something similar. In this case, the only purpose of the eavesdropping was to formulate a political response in an election campaign.
Today there are plenty of good columns and editorials condemning the Government.
Editorial: Canberra must answer spy allegations
and Scott Burchill: Indefensible breach of privacy
Of course, we all know that governments spy on us (think Echelon) but it's more than a little grubby if the data is used for political ends.
Heck, I think he's right. Damn bludgers and slackers.
Proof that Australian's are as racist as pre-war Germany:
http://www.geocities.com/mypaljohn
Stay tuned for video of the thugs at "Australian 'Protective' Services" arresting media, and the Governments new anti-leak laws which would jail journalists who reported leaks of government corruption.
Once again Slashdot demonises the Australian Government without actually reading the article.
"The Age shows that the Defence Signals Directorate listens to just about every bit of communications in Australia"
The situation that this "spying" occured in was when an international cargo ship rescued some people attempting to cross illegally into Australian territory. The ship was in international waters. Good work for saving the refugees lives.
The "refugees" then threatened the security of the ship, threatening violence and acts of piracy unless the Ships captain did what they wanted.
The Australian military got involved, boarding the ship, bringing medical supplies and order.
The Australian government as part of intelligence gathering for the safty of the mission listened to phone calls to and from the ship. The ship was in international waters, and part of a military operation. I don't see why it was wrong for the military to attempt to have as much information as possible.
Don't pretend this was something it is not. It was not about winning an election, but about the saftey of everyone involved.
Nor is it the Australian Government spying on its citizens.
You don't see people from the USA complaining about the violation of privacy when the US government monitors radio transmissions in Alfganistan.
Please Note: I don't agree with the way the refugee crisis is being handled. Nor do I agree with people smugglers. Neither the goverment nor the refugees are without blame, it is useless and wrong to demonise either of them.
And this is the whole problem. John Howards has been a terrible prime minister; under him a score of huge companies have collapsed, and his new tax a small business nightmare. But when he spouted his racist propaganda, redneck racist scum like this so-called Zealous Apathy lapped it up. Well, Zealous Apathy, I only hope you find yourself in a refugee boat one day. I hope you drown at sea, you friggin' asshole. Zig Heil, freakin' hilter youth.
This is not the only confusion. The confusion is also prevalent in US politics because people think liberalism is the mirror opposite of conservatism, when in fact it is not. High government spending and welfare programs are not "conservative", but this does not mean they are "liberal". Liberalism is about small government, freedom and the rights of individuals.
Please stop being a racist fuck and saying u are oz. Natasha rocks and she was on the news last night talking about refugees. and some of the lebanese are christians
-- Karma Karma Karma Karma, Karma Chameleon - Boy George
Didn't the Aus gov mention this whole spy ring before? About a year or so ago there was a article on /. about the Aus gov revealing it's spy satalight network as just a single part of a global spy network, and was smacked by the US for doing it...
Somthing like that anyway.
Pisses me off no end too. What does it mean? In general you find it refering to any kind on
offensive or dubious behaviour. As if non-Australians had no problems which such things.
Does this mean that people who say "unaustralian" beleive aussies to be inherently superior to other peoples? Of course not, that would be racist, worse, it would be unaustralian.
Yep. Another story that mentions secrets that can never be substantiated, so anyone can make allegations without the fear of ever being held accountable. All of us are so interesting that resources would be targetted at us. If Australia did intercept calls while SASR were onboard, good on them. Do you think that the SAS are just paid to go and have fun? Just because things happen that you don't know about, do they become more justifiable? Wake up idiots. The world is a bigger place than your backyard.
>Aussie Rules is a wussie game for those can't play Rugby.
When was the last world cup NZ won? Union isn't even close to being our national football code, and we can still find the time to thouroughly whip NZ butt....aaahh, John Eales' kick after the siren - what a moment.
> Fosters is weak aussie piss.
Which is why we export it to countries who are dumb enough to buy it - noone in Australia drinks Fosters.
>...cheaper houses...
on account that noone wants to live there
>...cheaper internet....
...your pants are one fire....
>Why waste time in australia when new zealand is clearly better to live in?
I notice that you haven't mentioned the incredibly high suicide rate of your chosen country.
You might consider seeing a psychiatrist about your inferiority complex.
Instead of flaming someone's "trust" of the government, how about reconsidering your own blind trust in everything the media tells you?
Okay, besides the fact that my views are 'right wing' and this whole thing is a left wing pinko beatup to get the government being perpetuated by the socialist ABC, Labor (other major .au political party -- CONTROLLED BY UNIONS), Democrats and Greens, it's time to state the facts regarding this whole sham:
* Overcrowded boat heading towards Australian territory (Christmas Island)
* Boat starts to sink, closer to Indonesian port of departure than Christmas Island.
* Tampa rescues people from boat.
* International Law dictates they be taken to nearest port - which was Indonesian.
* Indonesia says get fucked, captain proceeds anyway.
* Rescued people THREATEN captain, PIRATE ship and it heads towards Christmas Island.
* Australian government tells them to get out, Tampa proceeds to get closer.
* SAS soldiers storm ship to regain control(everyone cheers when they hear about it)
All this happens to be at a time when an election is looming, hence why oppostion parties are screaming the government did it to help it win the election. Let's not forget the fact that the MAJORITY of Australians voted FOR the government, seems to me like a huge DUMMY SPIT by the pinko's.
Let's not also forget that in the year or two leading up to the whole affair, illegal immigrants (NOT asylum seekers as the pinko's in the media repeatedly label them) arriving by boat were on a dramatic increase. They all come from middle-eastern countries via Indonesia and travel through other assorted countries along the way.
IF THEY CLAIM THEY ARE FLEEING FROM PERSECUTION AND WHAT-NOT, THEN WHY DON'T THEY SETTLE FOR ANOTHER COUNTRY ALONG THE WAY????
Ever since the goverment stood up to the pinko's and cracked down (the evil 'populist' thing to do) the problem of illegal immigrants arriving via boats has vanished!
So fuck me if I'm a racist bastard, I'm entitled to my view just as much as you are to yours. But how does this view make me racist? The term 'racist' is way overused these days.
And pointing it out is worth being censored too, apparently. Hate everyone with an opinion mods/staffers, or just one that you don't share?
'nuf said.
I'm an Australian, and it upsets me to hear people from other nations badmouthing my country. :(
What we had in this case was a boat load of illegal immigrants. The key word here is illegal. What is wrong with spying on communications regarding illegal activity?
Wouldn't you be annoyed if someone broke into your house, and started sleeping on your spare bed? Wouldn't you want something done about it? I know I would, and listening in on their communications is a step in the right direction, for solving the situation.
sorry - I was just a little bit over..
(in Australia never works).
like being a little bit pregnant
Anyway I wish they did the same for the dockyard stikes - treason here we come.
Why does it cost more to buy aussie beer in australia than in new zealand?
How could they screw up a GST tax new zealand had for 12 years?
How could Australia lose the cricket to new zealand?
Has Australia got a movie that has 13 academy award nominations?
Why does australia have to lock up people new zealand would welcome with open arms?
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
There the ones wanting legislation to intefer in peoples personal lives, a la the drug war & morality laws, & keep wanting the military expanded
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Real Audio
Wednesday, 13 February 2002
Michael McKinley explains what the DSD is and why it would be monitoring the Tampa communications anyway...
DSD stands for Defence Signals Directorate and is a top secret intelligence agency. They monitor communications in the name of Australia's security.
Michael McKinley is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Strategy at the Australian National University.
One good thing is that it has made more people aware of the monitoring systems that are in place - and to those of you in the USA that are laughing at what is happening in this little country, I ask you where you think we obtained the sophisticated monitoring sytems? Why do you think that these systems are not used where you live?
no it doesn't. I can say pretty much anything I want...
You're forgetting so called "Hate speech", which is really the criminalization of the expression of unpopular political views, as well as a host of other "forbidden" topics. Racism may be ugly and ignorant, but the state shouldn't be able to decide that a personally held belief is "incorrect", and therefore worthy of sanction if it is ever expressed. But if it only stopped there. Unfortunately, it doesn't.
Re: monitoring of it's citizen's internet activity
It does? Care to provide some reasoning behind that...
Sure. I don't know how you could deny this. The article's very title is: Australia Spying On Its Own ...National security be damned, this is echelon for political gain."
From the body of the post: "the Defence Signals Directorate listens to just about every bit of communications in Australia...In this case the govt spied because they were trying to win an election,
I am by no means suggesting that other countries, including the U.S., do not do it, but that was not my point to begin with.
Re: Gun confiscation.
My anonymous friend answered this, but I would add that the confiscation of any property merely because you own it obviously *is* both a seizure of property and a restriction on freedom. If a guy wants to build a howitzer in his back yard, isn't it his business so long as he doesn't use it to endanger or destroy other people's property, or otherwise deprive his neighbors of their right to peace and quiet?
Regrettably, the United States has been seduced by this "progressive reform", [albeit to a lesser degree], despite compelling statistical evidence that states which allow citizens to carry handguns have seen their crimes against persons drop in direct proportion to a surge in crimes against property. Apparently criminals are willing to consider career changes, because this strongly suggests that a criminal would rather break into an empty house or car than confront a potentially armed citizen. OTOH, "Home invasions" in Australia have skyrocketed since weapons suitable for personal defense have been confiscated. Here is a link with some interesting statistics, and here is another with graphs.
Re: restrictions upon encryption
Unfortunately, Australia, the United States, and 32 other countries are signatories of the Wassenaar Agreement. The agreement to subject commercial cryptosystems of moderate strength to inspection is not a big restriction, [and I certainly don't mind bans on exports to the "T7" (the so-called "Terrorist 7")], but it is stupid to pass a law which is impossible to enforce, unless that is not your motive, which in fact is the case. The licensing system is enough to stop and harrass a lot of commercial ventures, which in effect explains why most people do not use, or even know how to use encryption for email, while they will buy and use an envelope when using the post. [Trust me, I have worked on both the Berstein and Junger Federal lawsuits which challenged the U.S. export restrictions on crypto.]
This is what conservatism is.
As an American, I "have" to work with proud people from other cultures myself, but most Americans recognize this as a good thing, which it is, IMO.
Thank you, BTW, for recognizing that the assimulative (and tradition corrosive) mixture of American traditions and "pop culture" actually does represent American political thought, and is therefore rightfully called a culture. That's better than most people will grant us.
Wow, pimping your own posts. That's pretty lame.
Farooq
Yassir El-Sirri
Liberia
Take a look, especially the Liberia one. If you need any more proof, go to Google and search for "plots to rig elections". You'll get a whole lot more reading material. :)
It happens.. all the time. No power goes without its abuses.