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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?"
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
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.
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.
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 has had a massive backlash against what many there consider excessive immigration."
That's fascinating considering Australia's size and relative lack of population.
You'd think they'd welcome immigration.
But the advantage is that they have to come and ask you to decrypt. This way you KNOW that someone "intercepted" your data and read it. It's like an envelope: it's not like nobody can open it, but you get to see if it has been opened or not.
Personally, I have nothing to hide, and if police wants me to open up my data I've nothing against it, provided it works both ways, i.e. I want to know WHY they are reading my data and who will access it. This way, if it's "confidential" stuff (like my CC number) I know who to sue if anything goes wrong.
If an immigrant has no respect for our immigration laws, why would they respect any other laws?
This comment is peculiar considering Australia's history as a penal colony. Indeed, one of Australia's national heroes was an outlaw.
You'd think that Australia is a test case to prove that the wretched of the earth can form a free and prosperous society when they are no longer persecuted for being poor.
For example, this story is about an incident that is probanly common place everywhere else in the world, is inconsequential to most Australians, and the comment by the story submitter is highly imbalanced and inflammatory.
Other stories have included Australia's broadband offerings. Yes we have sucky providers just like everywhere else in the world, but we have good ones too.
Our censorship laws are a joke, more for the fact that they have no impact on daily lives and it is as if they were not there at all. Australia hasn't lost its civil liberties because the laws were just a lot of hot air at the time for politicians scoring points. Unlike the DMCA in America, our bad laws are toothless tigers that never rear their ugly heads.
On the other hand, Australia has good consumer protection laws. The ones that see DVD region modding not only legal, but encouraged (many DVD players are sold region free, or with instructions to do so)
Unfortunately, to the confusion of all concerned, the political party currently in power here is called the Liberal Party, thus the previous poster's comment. The Liberal Party should actually be called the "Rich Conservative Bastards" party, which would cover most of their points of view.
The current leader of our lucky country is a man named John Howard (you seppos might have seen him on your tvs recently, trying to act like Australia was actually important to the rest of the world - most of us aren't under such illusions). Little Johnnie is of the opinion that Australia would be entirely better off if we were to wind the morals and values of the society as a whole back to 1950 - eg, he opposed single women orlesbian couples getting IVF. Not a proper family he said, ignoring the thousands upon thousands of broken homes that fuck the kids up far worse...
Anyway, it's not like anyone here really cares about Australian politics. Most of us aussies don't, why should you? (=
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Here be Dragons
"Liberalism (at least here in the USA) calls for the creation of a socialist state "for the good of the citizen". "
Huh?
You are thinking of the Christian Coalition/Moral Majority conservative Republicans there, bucko my boy.
"I tend to run on the conservative side, because I think that government should not be allowed to invade privacy on a whim. "
Oh you mean you are liberal, like myself.
You've really got your terms confused.
"But I think the definitions are fairly unbiased and true. (I'm sure many will disagree with that, too)"
Well at least you admit to your biased misrepresentation of the facts.
"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.
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