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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
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.
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.
GOVERNMENT ABUSES POWERS - Film at 11!
But getting caught at it looks like carelessness...
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
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
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 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.
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
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).
It's bad when the political party in power uses the intelligence services of the public illegally in order to strengthen their power base. Did you not see the "not supposed to spy on conversations involving australians " and the "calls between the captain and the maritime union of australia "?
Disclaimer: I am an Aussie and I know what I am talking about.
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.
To compare the TAMPA issue with Cuban missile crises, or any other crises is totally incomprehensible. Where is the national security risk when it comes to some refugees coming into the country? They weren't the first and they certainly weren't the last. The issue with the DSD supplying information in this case to the government (disregarding the disgusting term used by Crean of UnAustralian) is that it was a misuse of government policy.
Notice that none would have compained if ASIO was involved, because it is within their mandate to monitor internal security risks. The DSD is solely mandated to monitor International communications where there is a threat to Australian scurity.
Has the government done the right thing? No. I believe the whole TAMPA thing is a sham. Remember the allegations they raised that refugees were throwing their kids into the water? Allegations that were denied by the Navy! Besides, if the TAMPA was dangerous, why is it allowed to come back to Australian ports?
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
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:
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".
Australian Embassy
No 13, 23rd Street,
Khalid Islambuli Ave,
Tehran 15138
Iran
tel +98 (21) 872 4456
tel +98 (21) 872 0484
Australia does not have diplomatic posts in Iraq or Afghanistan but does in neighbouring countries. It is normal for small countries not to have an embassy in every country in the globe.
The fact remains that the illegal immigrants travel half way around the world to Indonesia - through many countries where they could seek asylum if they were that desperate, shred their personal documents so they can not be identified, and sail to Australia. If they were geniunely not economic refugees, they wouldn't take such a calculated move to get into Australia illegally. They could go to neighbouring Pakistan for example, where Australia does has an consulate and a high commission, and appeal to enter legally there.
Of course, you don't even need to apply to an Australian embassy. You only need apply to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) for placement. They facilitate the legal placement of refugees to Australia.
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.
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
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)
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
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?
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.
The "Cold War" was an effort by the Plutocratic West to destroy a political movement that it was threatened by. Without sifting through the McCarthy inspired Ignorance and Misinformation that is rampant in most of the West, I will spare you the explanation of What is Communism / What is Socialism and get on to the point.
WWIII, or the 'threat' of WWIII was more an effort of propaganda to justify and fuel Anti-Communist sentiment. Remember: Rich / Powerful people abhor the concept of Communism/Socialism -- it is the WORST thing they can image. The Cold-War was the manufactured 'defence' to this Communist "Threat". Communists (or Socialists) arent 'coming' - they had no more reason to attack - as in military strike - the USofA. The Cold-War was an effort to justify black-ops and squelch legitimate Political Movements... let alone domestic and foreign assassination, sabotage and general undermining of the Enemy.
Missiles going to Cuba was not a pre-cursor to attack, it was more-of-the-same military posturing that was taking place all over the world. America ran the risk of precipitating a war by playing 'Tough-Guy'. They got lucky they didnt start a war over it. Missiles in Cuba were of equal threat to the US as Missiles elsewhere were to the USSR. Why is military posturing / threat by the US somehow 'acceptable or justified*'???? Believing so shows bias and a pre-disposition mis-represent the situation.
*I am a pacifist; I think both USSR and USA were committing heinous acts. 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.
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.
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
"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.
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.
Anytime you hear some specific "fact" like 135 years ahead your baloney detector should go off. It sounds good, but what does it mean? Did a couple of Smart Guys looked at all this "top secret" technology and had a conversation like this?:
Smart Guy #1: Wow - look at this technology! It's really advanced.
Smart Guy #2: Yeah, It's like 150 years ahead of current technology!
#1: Yup... Hang on - look at this scoogily-boog; it doesn't have a mobius flange. I'd say this is more like 125 years ahead.
#2: Good point. It does have an inverted reverser, though. I'd say that makes it about 135 years ahead.
#1: OK then. Lunch?
"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!
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
Oh yes... I've always thought that what really brought Nixon down wasn't that he was finally _proven_ to be as slimy as half the country had always figured he was, but that getting caught made him look incompetent. Incompetent as a manager if he was telling the truth and he didn't know what those ex-CIA guys on his staff were doing with bags full of $100 bills out of the campaign funds, plus wiretapping and burglar tools. _Mentally_ incompetent, or unbelievably out of touch with the public, if he was actually worried enough about the competition from Democratic Party in 1972 to send the them out to bug the headquarters. (I think the Democratic platform that year could best be summarized as "We think the Socialists are too conservative." That McGovern got over 20% is a remarkable tribute to the combined effects of political inertia and Nixon-phobia.)
And finally, trying to cover it up really put the icing on the cake. After the Democratic Convention and the Eagleton affair, Nixon could have molested children on live network TV and still beat McGovern. He certainly could have come out and taken responsibility for one little burglary and still won by a land-slide. And if he had done that, no one in Congress would have dared to mess with him.
I thought the U.S. government has already patented using the Internet to spy on Australians.
It reminds me more of the story of the guide in the museam, who asked about the age of a dinosaur says that it's 74 million, 2 years and 3 months old. When asked how they know that exactly, the guide says 'well it was 74 million years old when I started, and I've been doing this for 2 years and 3 months now'
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Ever hear of a little incident called Watergate?
OK, so it is possible that Nixon did not order the spying, but he still assisted in its coverup. He was only caugth because he tape recorded the conversations with his aides on the subject. So you are right-- it is probably happening in the US.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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
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?
For those who don't know, "Xenu" is a character from L. Ron Hubbard's cult of Scientology.
Hubbard is associated with some very dangerous affairs and forces, all of it cloaked in mis-representations and (imo) rather ridiculous fictions. Hubbard's secret writings have the confused ring common to many insane or negatively influenced communications from beyond. Essentially, if 'Higher Beings' can't even communicate clearly, then they're probably not terribly special.
The other thing to notice:
Hubbard's people have a long track record of manipulations and circumventions of free will on many different levels. This sort of behavior and its intensity are powerful clues as to the true nature of a given force.
-Fantastic Lad