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?"

Comments

Uh, shouldn't it be "where isn't it happening"?

[Nice2Cats]

As an American who grew up in Germany during the Cold War, I've stopped even thinking about who is reading my snailmail or email, who is bugging my phone, going thru my trash, or who, every time I flush, starts filtering my - well, you get the point.

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.

Re:Uh, shouldn't it be "where isn't it happening"?

[Lewisham]

My suggestion: Live with it and use crypto where you can.

Unless you live in the UK where our then Home Secretary managed to push through a bill (which sounds astonishingly like the one in Enemy of the State) that allows the government and the police to do all the snooping they like. It's not like it wasn't happening anyway, but this made it legal.

The real kicker though, is that anyone who encrypts their data has to decrypt it if the police say so. If you don't, then you get locked up. The problem is, the law makes no distinction about refusing to decrypt, and not being able to decrypt. If you lose your keys, then you can get banged up. The government were planning a national database of encryption keys where you had to submit your own. I don't know where that is ATM.

Moral of the story: If you live in the UK, don't bother encrypting either. They'll just get their grubby hands on it if they want to.

A trend because of immigration and 9/11

[Paleolithic]

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

It's a kind of governmental sickness.

[Futurepower(tm)]

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.

Re:I'm an Australian, and I don't mind...

[DarkZero]

Have you ever considered that these two, and the rest of the government, might (a) know more about the situation than you...

I have to admit, I stop reading an article whenever I see a quote like this, and I see it all too often. Should government figures be invulnerable to criticism simply because they're part of the government, and because, at least under your reasoning, they must have not only better information, but better judgement than the rest of us? A quote like that smacks of thoughtless nationalistic bias.

Congratulations, you fit the profile for almost every negative Australian stereotype out there. Get violently drunk off your ass and you'll be the perfect poster boy for everything the world thinks is wrong with your country.

I'm an Australian, and I *do* mind...

[cthugha]

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?

This story at The Age shows that the Defence Signals Directorate listens to just about every bit of communications in Australia.

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.

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.

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.

Watergate

[markj02]

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".

NSA admitted as much after 9/11

[sdo1]

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

Re:NSA admitted as much after 9/11

[AgTiger]

The thing is though, if it weren't for the United Statees' EPCA (Electronic Privacy Communications Act), there would be no expectation of privacy when talking on a cellular phone anyway. Of course, we all know how effective trying to control a technological ability with a law is.

There is _plenty_ of RF Scanning gear that was sold commercially before the EPCA came into effect that is still in private and corporate hands that can listen to the cellular portions of the 800MHz band.

Different countries tackled this problem different ways. So far, I have yet to hear of a truly effective solution.

Canada tackled the problem this way: If it's in the air, and you can pick it up and listen to it, no problem. BUT... you may not disclose the information to other individuals or organizations for personal gain.

Honestly, both laws are ineffective in controlling listening and use of cellular radio traffic in unethical ways.

The real solution would have been to respond to citizens *and* the cellular industry with this: "If you want privacy, encrypt the traffic, otherwise you should assume you are being monitored by the very people you don't want listening to your conversation."

Why wasn't this done? Because at the time, Louis J. Freeh, then director of the FBI during the Clinton administration had a serious burr up his backside about people being able to encrypt data. The whole "clipper chip" fiasco was being pushed as a solution, and neither the industry nor the customers swallowed that.

Like anything... it ended up a mess, and we're left with that legacy today. So... don't be too surprised when the NSA makes the comment that they were pouring through logs of thousands of cellular calls in the area. They're a government agency, and are probably exempt from the provisions of the EPCA that forbid citizens from monitoring cellular traffic.

Re:Liberalism?

[ScanFree]

Zeus, you accept the (current) conservative view of "liberal", but then accept the conservatives' view of themselves. The conservatives in the US (and here I am primarily speaking of Republicans) believe in socialism, socialism for big business. They will moan about a million spent on some social welfare program and then turn around and give 5 million to a big corporation to subsidize it's operations. There is no such thing as a "free market". The transnats have so much influence that even governments bow to their wishes. Look to Rollerball for a vision of that future. I am more concerned with Big Brother from a transnat sense than I am from any government. After all, a government has to maintain SOME credibility with its citizens to stay in business. The corps (rhymes with corpse) do not, they've got the money to tell EVERYBODY to stuff it.