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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.
The net is ad hoc. Your email is not and never was secure. You were told that when you signed up for your service or hooked up to your peer. Pretending it's an outrage for anyone to be reading it now is shedding crocodile tears.
--Blair
As someone in the building trade who likes to move around (carpenters can ALWAYS get jobs) I can safely assure you that residential doors aren't required by buiding code to swing inward in any place I've ever worked. The reason they swing inward is because doors swing to the side the hinge pins are on. If you can take out the hinge pins you can open the door.
Think you fell prey to false authority syndrome.
Luckilly for us Australia seems to at least be starting to get a useful opposition. Labor Party, Democrats and Greens look like they're going to block the more nasty, invasive versions of the anti-terrorist legislation in the senate. In fact within the governing Liberal Party many members of parliament are pushing against the draconian legislation proposed by the Prime Minister. Democracy wins again. So how did this sort of thing get through in the US? Its being rejected in Australia and was rejected in Canada.
Clickable version of above URL (extra space got inserted):
Fury over Europe's secret plan to access computer and phone data.
1984 is hardly only about the USSR, as people always seem to be so comfortable in believing - Orwell had already written a book dealing exclusively with the USSR and its betrayal of socialist principles in favor of continued exploitation in a new form (Animal Farm). A betrayal that Orwell was acutely aware of (remember that Orwell was a socialist and fought for the POUM [independent Marxists] in the Spanish Civil War), but by no means blinded him to the faults of capitalist society, many held in common with society in the USSR. 1984 is not just the 'fairy story' of Animal Farm elaborated, but a much richer, more universally relevant novel that encapsulates a large number of Orwell's theories of history, authority, his fears about the future of society, and to dismiss the novel lightly as being 'merely about the USSR' is to trivialize it and assign to it a datedness that it doesn't merit, especially in the present context.
I don't know if anyone has pointed out but the somewhat deceptively named liberals aren't really liberal at all. Liberal = conservative.
Looks like its back to the Cold War and its corruption!
In that period Australian secuirty services did not just keep watch on potential spies and traitors. Theyt regularly and willingly abused their powers to keep a conservative government in power. They were happy to destroy the careers of any dissident and to advance the careers of mediocraties they could control.
The police and security services also used their powers to settle personal scores and corruptly obtain personal advantage. It took years to put the broom through ASIO, the Commonwealth Police and the Special Branches.
There's every reason to believe that our allies used criminals and crooked police to carry out operations within Australia (Aussies - do a search on the Nugan Hand Bank).
Frightening though it is, the problem is not just authoritarian governments, but how corrupt officials wil (ab)use their power.
And for you Yanks, remember neither Australia, nor most other nations, have a Bill of Rights.