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Australia Plans More Spying on Citizens
sg_oneill writes "The Australian Electronic Frontiers foundation report that the Australian Government is looking at introducing changes to the Telecomunications Interception Act giving Government Agencies (NOT just police!) the power to intercept email, voice mail and SMS messages without a warrant. Considering the concurrent proposals to introduce legislation to allow banning of organisations suspected of terrorist links, am I the only one suspecting Australia is about to have a whole lot less political parties?" I think our most recent Australia spying story was about the Australian government spying to win elections.
Our governments are finally beginning to listen to us!
; )
When you consider that Australia was once used as ONE big prison for European criminals ;)
"Your email is not and never was secure." - saying that on /. is like telling Eskimos how to fish!
Video Game cheats, hints a
It's good to see that Australia is serious about combatting terrorism. The recent terrorist attacks on Australia in which many, many people were killed present a clear need for anti-terrorism legislation in Australia. In the face of such overwhelming horror on their own home soil, can we really blame Australia for jumping to the conclusion that security is more important right now than liberty? Personally, I think the international community should try to be understanding of the situation that Australia has been put in and try to give them some leeway in their knee-jerk reactions to the horrible atrocities that have befallen them.
But on a serious, more blunt note: Should these people wait for terrorists, and by that I mean ANY TERRORISTS AT ALL, to give a rat's ass about them before enacting broad "anti-terrorism" legislation? Are the Australian people really going to swallow this crap?
It's not just email that's insecure. Regular mail passes through the hands of many, many people, and all it takes is a human finger to "circumvent its security measures". Phone lines are the same way. Even the most basic technical knowledge of how phone lines work will show you that phone lines are horribly insecure and that virtually anyone can tap into them. Cell phones are pretty much the same way, too.
But does any of it matter? Front doors to houses in the US, which are required by law to swing inward, are ridiculously easy to kick/bash in. Does that mean that it should be legal for someone to kick down my door and do whatever the Hell they want in my home? Of course it doesn't. It's also ridiculously easy to kill people (a strong hit to the head alone will do the trick sometimes), so should that be legal, too?
Lots of very bad things are easy to do. That's part of the reason why they're illegal (or, in this case, they're supposed to be). They harm others and almost anyone can do them.
Irwin picks the prime minister up by the neck...
"Wow! Look at this beauty! What we have here is a rare Australian Brown-Nosed Prime Minister. Very valuable too, large corporations will pay big bucks for a fella like this one here."
The prime minister starts gagging and choking...
"You're all right, Mate. You're all right. You have to be careful when dealing with these buggers. I don't want to let go of the neck because then he could call his elite guard and then I'd be in a world of trouble. They'd come running and attack me with their projectile defense mechanisms. They wouldn't understand that I'm not trying to hurt the prime minister, I'm only trying to educate the public."
The PM is grasping for his computer, but Irwin holds him out of reach...
"Let's walk over to his computer and take a look at how he survives. Notice the program he uses to search his prey's email and telephone conversations. Very sneaky, but it's that survival instinct that allows him to maintain his dominance in the political jungle. That's why we call him the prime minister. Yeah? OK, I'm gonna let him down slowly, and hopefully he'll be too busy gasping for air to call for help and I can make my retreat."
yes, its the sort of thing revolutions are made of, but unfortunately most australians just accept that the government is going to keep screwing them over ( with the exception of the upper class, who good ol' johnny keeps on looking after. those private schools really need all the government funding they can get. ) so i think a revolution is sadly out of the question. i think the closest we can hope for in terms of a revolution is for illegal terrorist satanic ethnic child killing immigrants to swamp canberra and push out the pollies.
i wish...