Slashdot Mirror
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
just utterly stupifying to me that a gov't would allow such acts.
Yeah, that would be bad. Unfortunately, in this case it's not that the government is just allowing it, they are committing the acts!
GnuPG
Our governments are finally beginning to listen to us!
; )
It is funny. I am relating this to the USA... but I am sure the same can hold true for .au..
We win our freedom.
We come up with a system of government to protect our freedoms.
Time passes.
The government THE PEOPLE put in place to protect these freedoms is slowly but surely taking them away.
Is it 1984 yet??
Can they blame it on terrorism? I don't think so. The question is, if the governments spies on us, why can't we spy on our governments? Afterall, the government is probably more at risk of doing something illegal than me.
I just saw this today at the Guardian
, 73 0091,00.html
Police to spy on all emails
Fury over Europe's secret plan to access computer and phone data
http://www.observer.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903
When you consider that Australia was once used as ONE big prison for European criminals ;)
many scholars argue that without effective guarantees of civil liberties, elections do not constitute democracy, and that a procedural minimum for defining democracy must include not only elections, but reasonably broad guarantees of basic civil rights-e.g., freedom of speech, assembly, and association.
-Democracy 'with Adjectives', by D. Collier and S. Levitsky
The paper I link to (which is academic but pretty accessible - I'm a biologist, not a political scientist) is about military juntas in south america, not Aussies.
I raise this point because I think John Howard (the prime minister of Australia) is Australian for Hitler. A modern Democracy can survive all matter of scuminess, but if this proposal goes through, Australia will need an adjective (such as crpyto or pseudo) to qualify their form of government.
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
Access to voice mail should also mean access to the room containing the recordings... so will this also replace the notion of a "search warrant"?
Sounds ugly when applied solely to the police. But look at the collection of agencies who stand to benefit from this law: Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Immigration Department. So this may be a back-door way of gaining more prosecutions of those most hideous of criminals: tax dodgers!
If it makes you feel any better, Australia's gov't is not alone in this type of thinking. -AD
Of course their view of human rights is upside down...
FRA: STFU GTFO
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?
If your significant other walked in front of a window to close it while they were nude or in their underwear and I video taped it? Your significant other had no expectation of privacy because their window was open and I was able to see in.
Ok I could be wrong but what exactly is the big deal? I mean honestly when is the last time some major criminal or terrorist organization used email to contact everyone. Not like they are using a yahoo group or something to say "ok folks lets go blow something up". This psuedo-invasion of privacy that people are so scare of when they hit the send button is rediculous. In the early and mid 90's netbus was around and it could watch, look and listen to what you typed, and this was availible to the general public. The goverment looking at your email is far from the worst thing that could be done and it may look like some "Big Brother" ripe off and that our government is trying to be evil and watch what we are doing but its not. Maybe I am the only one that is a little happier that the government is taking the time to actually try to curb terrorist communications, not like the email eachother anyway but the idea is kinda nice. I just find it funny how people yell kick and scream over monitored internet use cause they feel the government is "WATCHING" them yet they go each year and tell the local DMV watch make model year and type of car they drive, along with VIN number and everything. I personally find that more of an invasion of privacy.
No, just British criminals.;)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
Doesn't government have better things to do than threaten the citizens and tell them how to live? This is the sorta crap that revolutions are made up of.
+sigh+
Here's what you don't understand - it's not John Q. Hacker on a joyride down the superhighway that we're talking about - it's the GOVERNMENT. It's a huge bureaucracy that has the ability to collect this information, store it, retrieve it, and use it to profile what kind of person you might be- all without your knowledge or consent. You have no idea who else is using it, when, or for what purpose. As such, the repercussions can be much more severe and long-lasting. Basically, we have government agencies using the threat of terrorism as an excuse to turn themselves into the equivalent of the KGB.
Such transmissions are also stored (even if only for microseconds) on routers while in transit. This would possibly make them susceptible to be intercepted without a warrent.
In other words, only pure analog phone messages would require an intercept request. Phone calls that go through digital switches would not.
IANAL, I've just dealt with the courts too damn much.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Why does everything involving security/privacy have to come down to the same tired, inapplicable old refences to 1984?
Explain to me how the reference is inapplicable. As I recall, having *gasp* actually read the book, surveillance of individual citizens by the government and control of the populous through manipulation of all news and history was precisely what Orwell was writing about and feared would come to be in the future. So, now that governments throughout the Western world are rapidly enacting measures that enable far greater surveillance of their own citizens and chilling effects on free speach we're just supposed to shut up about it. We should retire the reference to 1984 because you think it's tired and overused, despite it being entirely on-topic to the discussion at hand? Maybe we should ban Kafka from the discussion, since he too voiced a number of poignant and applicable ideas regarding the nature of justice, beaureaucracy, and power? If Orwell is spinning in his grave, it is because governments throughout the western world are interpreting his novel as a howto guide for building morally bankrupt, totalitarian states rather than as a warning against such things.
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.
We may get to see for the first time in an English-speaking country the first example of the domino effect claimed by the US National Rifle Association... where banning the private possession of firearms inevitably leads to control of political speech and association ending in totalitarian democracy.
You can't have legitimate political campaigns where elected government officials are using electronic surveillance not only against known terrorists and criminals, but against political opponents as well. That's why the Watergate scandal ended President Nixon's political career, because his people got caught doing exactly that.
If this disturbing Australian trend goes to completion, how long before media outside AU realize that Australia is no longer a "free country"? Probably after we get significant numbers of people applying for "political asylum" in the US.
The only suggestions I have for Aussies if this doesn't get stopped, and if it's gotten this far, your elected officials probably no longer care what you think are:
1. You may already have seen the very last free election in Australia in your lifetime.
2. If you are serious about freedom, your options are:
think of a way to fight the new regime (isn't it too bad you gave up your guns?)
or
leave.
I recommend departure. If you live among a people willing to vote away their freedoms even when there is no obvious threat, I can't see any good reason to risk death and imprisonment for them. The people who tend to do best during a migration are those who get out first, they have the best chance to find jobs and housing before the hordes of refugees show up behind them.
For those who would neither fight nor depart, don't worry. I'm sure your regime will continue to call itself a democracy and even allow the facade of "free elections" for a while. Of course, your choice will only be among the parties the government allows to continue. And the forms of free enterprise that the government approves of.
I wish you Aussies luck. You'll need it.
No, I'm not offering the US as an example of perfect democracy, though we've had stolen Presidential elections in the past and 0wN3d legislatures and our democracy has survived. As to whether it will continue to do so, I certainly don't know.
Tech Public Policy stuff
That's a rather narrow interpretation of Orwell's work. Communist Russia may have been the inspiration for Orwell's novel, but the themes he developed in the book are far more general. If the book had been that limited in scope, it is unlikely that it would be as popular as it is today.
Also, the fact that many governments of the Eastern world have already adopted mass surveillance and propaganda/censorship as a means of control does not in any way constitute a valid argument for allowing other nations to adopt equally abusive policies.
Just a point of interest:
If you search around the uspto, you'll find Microsoft has a little known patent for a door with a hinge that protects the pins from being removed while the door is closed... Beats the hell out of me what Microsoft would want to become a building supplies company, but hey, its there!
(BTW: Slashdot is very broken lately. I have to hit submit twice before messages are posted!)
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
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."
Seems to me that we need some kind of international political voice to speak for our privacy and freedom: globally, the lock down is going on, and I don't see any effective transnational resistance.
Perhaps Amnesty International would be a good place to start?
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
sorry, that should be Amnesty International
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Although we're constantly told that we're living in a democracy, the reality is that we are not.
.
Most Western "democratic" countries operate a system that involves the election of representatives who are chosen by the people to speak on their behalf in government.
The unfortunate reality is that these representatives are almost always looking out for their own interests ahead of those of the people who elected them. "Power corrupts" as they say.
These representative systems were devised hundreds of years ago when it was simply impractical to run a true democracy and, at the time, they constituted the most democratic solution to the problem of allowing the people to dictate their own future.
Clearly it would have been absolutely impractical to have every citizen voting on every decision related to the running of the country.
But it's now the 21st century and things have changed -- a lot!
Now we have the power to let individuals exercise their own democratic right to have a say in the decisions made by government.
Several years ago I proposed that we now have the technology to implment a truly democratic system that would effectively impose strong checks and balances on the excesses of our elected representitives.
I documented this system (as it applies to the New Zealand political system)
here.
The idea is to acknowledge that an elected representitive is effectively doing little more than exercising the proxy of the voters in their constituency.
Until now, the only real democratic right that citizens had was to elect a different representitive at the end of each term. Now that's a very coarse form of democracy and offers little protection for the public.
My suggestion is that each voter be entitled to withdraw their proxy and exercise it individually if they choose to do so on an issue by issue basis
In the event that a government tries to pass legislation which is not supported by a majority of the voters, those voters can recover their proxy and vote against it.
The technology to allow such a "recoverable proxy" situation can be as simple as a telephone, ATM or Internet connection.
Unlike other proposed improvements to the democratic process which involve cumbersome methods such as regular referenda, this system allows our elected representitives to carry on as normal, exercising the proxies of their constituents-- but simply reserves the publics right to say "no" when that representitive decides to place his or his party's interests ahead of the majority choice of the people he/she has been elected to serve.
Of course politicians don't want a bean of this proposal -- because it would significantly curb their ability to rort the system and remove their ability to place self-interest ahead of the public's right to be democratically represented.
A change like this would likely require a massive outcry by public -- and our politicians would have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
What do you think?
Just because a criminal may attack you with a gun (or knife, baseball bat, etc, etc) does *NOT* give you the right of self defense.
Unbelievable. There's nothing else to say.
[ home ]
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.
yeah, stuff like this has been happening alot recently.
firstly the "anti-terrorism" laws that allow anyone to be arrested and kept for 6 days without a warrant.
The current party in power (liberals) at the moment has also been trying to extend its period in office through added legislation.
And then there's that Tampa thing, with the government refusing to let in any refugees into our country, but instead putting all the asylum seekers into a prison. where alot of them still are.
And how the government ordered our intelligence organisation(asio) to spy on citizens about the crisis, and then asio ratted them out.
Now the australian government wants all these powers that allow for it to break into the privacy of all australians and ban any party or group that might oppose them.
Sounds alot like nazi germany to me.
oh yeah, and in the new budget theres all that extra spending on the defence force...
...actually, I don't believe that, but I see where it comes from.
Australians have always been been politically apathetic, and apathetic in general. They're not civic minded people to begin with, plus anyone with ambition is quickly pulled down. Australians whine about everything, but no one wants to get involved. "Not me, not my job, mate." So they turn to government to solve all their problems, everything from keeping wages up and food prices down, to people driving too fast, to keeping the kids off drugs. Well, with that comes a price... and they're really paying it now.
They're paying *for* it too. Something like 1 in 6 Australians is directly on a government payroll. Unemployment is high, and gaming the system of government handouts is a national sport. Half the country is working to support the whole other half. This is not good.
It's understandable. Sarcasm is difficult to express on the internet. Even when you lay it on really thick, it can still be easily misunderstood.
I'm no gun lover, but attitudes like yours are why I left Australia. Everything is always someone else's job.
What happened to all the good australians such as hollywoods mel gibson, or crocodile dundee?
They all left. Make note of that.
I'm not xenophobic! I'm just sick of all these bloody wogs!
My mistake. I guess that's just an urban legend.
Well for email thats easy, use a forign web baised email.
Voice mail dont use your telcos "Message bank facility", use an answering machine, or if you like those anoying menues set one up with a modem and a computer.
For sms it's a little harder, if you realy dont want someome looking in on that sort of thing, buy an integrated phone / pda type thingy with GPRS and load up an instant messaging type client that has an SMS portal (ie ICQ) that way you can still recieve sms messages, and you can still send sms messages to phones but your incoming message never get "stored" on an australian server(if your IM is conecting to a forign server). They still pass through aussie servers and telco equipment but they arent stored.
P.S. I'm an aussie and i realy doubt this bill will actualy pass. I was listning to a story about this on the radio and not only are the other partys rejecting most of the bill but i wouldn't be suprised if some liberal party members cross the floor and vote it down
... and if it does, it will fail in a court challenge.
Actually, in a case a few years ago in New York City, the courts ruled that police do not have an obligation to protect you against an obvious threat.
The matter arose when a woman had a stalker she knew of, and after a couple of non-fatal attacks, was begging the police for protection. They didn't provide it, and the lady was eventually killed. Her relatives sued NYPD claiming they should have protected her against such an obvious danger.
The courts said no.
It is your obligation to protect yourself. It is the obligation of the police to clean up after crimes have been commited.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I have enough trouble sorting through all the crap in my 4 different inboxes ... multiply that by the number of ppl using email in Aus and they have absolutely NO CHANCE of effectively implementing anything that could be deemed the least bit useful.
They cant even clamp down on tax evasion, so how do they ever hope to do anything useful with this strategy?
I am more concerned with wasted tax dollars than anything else.
This does not surprise me given the Australia Gov. track reacord.
1st. They take all firearms from all citizens.
2nd. They take away all warrent protections that keep police from abusing there power.
3rd. (future) I wounder how long it will take to do away with thoughts pesky free elections.
Democracy just gets in the way when the government know whats best for you...
Huh? Name one phone exchange in Australia that isn't digital. I used to live "in the middle of nowhere" in a town with less than 20 people... we had a fibre optic miniexchange; before that, a DCRS microwave radio tower.. .which come to think of it was analogue? Ok, so maybe about 1000 remaining isolated farms around the country with a microwave-link would be analogue.
- Paul
Yep, we have the same problem here in the U.S.
There isn't anything really going on, its just that our current conservative government (note that I did NOT vote for them in the last election) wants to ensure it wins the next election. They won the last election by demonising "boat people" and no doubt this tactic would work again. Shame Howard shame.
You said it brother.
I don't know if anyone has pointed out but the somewhat deceptively named liberals aren't really liberal at all. Liberal = conservative.
What a bunch of wankers you all are. From a tiny window (a slashdot article) you can judge that the sky is falling in Australia, abandon ship, evacuate...
Well I live here (in Queensland) and what can I say. This will never get through. The politicians argue the absolute bloody crap out of everything, even themselves, and even the sensible bills that really should pass without even a second glance are debated for weeks/months/years not over their content but for political brownie points.. can you imagine how unspeakably pathetic the parilement session will be like when this baby gets to being debated?
The political system in Australia sucks because of the friggin massive beuracracy involved. It is so damn slow, and the two major political parties are extraordinarily anti-constructive - they argue about EVERYTHING simply because they think it's their f*cking job, "I'm the opposision therefore I must oppose _EVERYTHING_" kind of attitude.
Hmmf. I knew people were ignorant of other people, but jeez... what do you take us for?
Are any of you aware that we have a federal government that has no representation in ANY of the states? That's right. "Everyone" voted the liberal party to run the Federal government, and for the state elections the labor party won each of the states. Kinda funny huh? You can imagine how little gets done.
Simon Creamy: So.. sorry about that bitch fight the other day in parliament.. can we get a federal grant to build a new hospital/invest in Universities?
Peter cost-a-lot: Johnny says no, screw education, go to a private Uni/school, we've gotta "protect our borders" or something...
Hehe come to think of it that was kinda lame. Anyway I'm off to the real world.
- Paul
> Besides the whole point of 1984 was about the horror of the communist regime in russia, not some capitalists passing the dmca or some anti- terror agency reading an e-mail. Most of the people on slashdot don't evn have a clue what 1984 was really about.
In case you didn't know, the nation of Oceana in 1984 was Great Britain. That book was decidedly not simply about the USSR.
Something I have been thinking about for quite some time is the fact that Australia is one of the few countries on Earth that has never seen a huge war or conflict on our soil. (WW2 Darwin doesn't count). Yes, I am an Australian.
I wonder where you Americans are going to come when you finally screw up/blow up your environment. Lets see, which country has a butt-load of space, but not may people. Wow! Australia does!
As for the Australian government trying to get more spying powers... Well, the Australian government is just a front for the US. John Howard is a wanker (As are most politicians).
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?
As scary as that possibility is fortunately it looks like is unlikely to happen, at least to the full extent of the initial bill. The anti-terrorism bill issued by Attorney-General Daryl Williams that was going to give him the ability to ban political groups/parties deemed terrorist in their actions so far has been rejected by senators. Thus forcing Williams to back down on the anti-terrorism bill.
I am not sure how this affects the proposed changes to the Telecomunications Interception Act, because I am not sure if this one big anti-terrorism bill or a series of seperate bills. Eitherway it reflects the fact that most senators in Australia are sane and wont stand for these crazy new laws, at least in their current form.
Now if only the government would come to their senses about the mistreatment of refugees, though that's whole other issue,
aus.music.scrapbook
If the government becomes 'tyrannical' (whatever that is) then you just accept it.
If my government ever becomes tyrannical (and it's getting pretty damn close), make sure you stay out of my way or you'll get seriously hurt.
Don't tell me the stupid saying of "if guns are outlawed then only outlaws will have guns" because it's really stupid.
How will the law abiding citizens have guns if they're illegal? Won't they be outlaws instead? It may be a stupid saying, but it's true. If guns are outlawed then I will become an outlaw.
Just because a criminal may attack you with a gun (or knife, baseball bat, etc, etc) does *NOT* give you the right of self defense.
State forbid that I should try to protect myself. After all, my body doesn't belong to me, so it's not mine to protect. It belongs to the Almighty State, and if they don't see fit to protect it, who am I to argue?
That's what the police are there for.
Yeah right. The police are useful as a deterent against crime, but they do nothing to prevent a crime in progress.
Just deal with it and talk to the police if you ever are attacked.
Hah! If I live that is. I don't know if you've checked recently, but there's a lot of nutcases out there. Sometimes they don't let their victims live long enough to talk to the police.
The second amendment is there to protect the government's right to bear arms.
Go read the constitution again. The entire document, particularly the bill of rights, is a limitation on the government. The right to bear arms is an attribute of the people. Your statement is a ridiculous as saying the first ammendment is there to protect the government's right to spread propaganda.
Private ownership of firearms is not politically correct in today's society.
Frankly, I don't give a shit about political correctness. It's irrelevant to me. The term itself is a mantra and recognition phrase for the Worshippers of the State.
This isn't the wild west!!
The wild west as portrayed in Hollywood movies and cheap fiction never existed. The real "wild" west of the late 19th century was quite tame compared to the modern day big city. I would much rather live unarmed and defenseless in Dodge City circa 1888 than armed in Washington D.C. circa 2002.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
If it wasn't apathy that led to the election of Bush then what the hell was it?
It was apathy that led to Bush running against Gore to begin with. Both candidates were the most inoffensive blokes either party could find.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
It's kinda nice to see that some politicians can actually be convinced to act wrt privacy and civil liberties if they're prodded hard enough.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Man, what a relief! Its comforting to know that we'll always have someone looking out for us. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Can they tuck me into bed and read me a story too?
But you did vote for them (if you filled out the paper work corrctly).
Aussies have to go vote or they get fined. They have this list of canidates and they have to put numbers down for each of them. If there are ten canidates, they have to rank them all one to ten where 1 is your preferred and ten is least preferred -- or is it the other way around. If you don't put all the numbers in, your vote isn't counted. The result is that you vote for everyone at some level and with canidates like the skinhead party and too may others deserving a 0, you have to give someone you don't like a positive vote.
I tend to watch the US$/AU$ exchange rate and I find it funny to see how the US traders treat news with the Liberal party. In gneraly when they do things the US Republican party way, they AU$ should rise aginst the US$. However if they party is mentioned the rate goes the other way. When the Rebublican party (the people that want to tell the queen to take a hike) get news, that sometimes would raise the AU$. Anytime the labor party does something the AU$ drops.
I wonder how high the AU$ would go if one of the major parties (Labor or Liberals) would change ther name to the Republican party.
Another Slashdot bandwagon jumper that doesn't read between the lines.
The "Government Officials" that are being referred to are the same law enforcement that have always had access to interception warrants and so on, and in certain cases involving Australians acting as agents of a foreign power etc, the Defence Signals Directorate (the Australian equivalent and partner of the National Security Agency).
The key ingredient missing from Australian politics is a meaningful level of debate. Otherwise, the political system in itself tends to work quite well, all things considered.
More and more, people seem to be focusing on those issues beloved so much by the media, such as law and order, border protection and the nebulous political hotcake known as "The Bush" (which basically boils down to the higher cost of living in rural areas). As much as I hate to say it, no one has much time for trivial issues such as civil liberties when there are so many other things to be outraged over.
It doesn't help things that, these days, political parties like to present themselves as being totally committed to a given point of view. The effect of this is generally to silence the lower ranks, and of course to neutralise any dissent within the Government to official policies. A similar effect usually happens within the ranks of the Opposition, but currently it *is* split on several key issues, though it's disheartening to see the Government leap on this and shouting out words to the effect that the Opposition is in disarray.
Perhaps we also need some way to mitigate the power of the media corporations. Cynics (or realists?) would argue that these are the entities that really control Australia, and that the Parliament is more or less just a formality. Unfortunately, with the Govnerment pushing to abolish the cross-media-ownership laws (which prevent someone owning both a newspaper and a TV station in the same city, *I think*) the largest media corporations could yet become even more powerful.
Talk-back radio hosts are also quite powerful in Australia, and much to my continuing displeasure, they're mostly conservative. People like John Laws and Alan Jones, despite the "cash-for-comment" scandal recently in which both were found to have been receiving money in exchange for favourable comments towards particular organisations, still seem to be doing the thinking for a disconcertingly large proportion of the population.
I don't think any of this is going to change any time soon. I only hope there are at least *some* sane people at the top. Hopefully they can keep things on track until we work out a way to engage the public interest in issues which affect the democracy we seem to take for granted.
Nonviolent protest and civil disobediance should be the means for struggling against bad law, disenfranchisement, and poor government. Even Malcolm X recognized this and renounced his doctrine of by any means necessary.
Of course the powers-that-be shut him up pretty permanently by employing violence.
The point is, email is and always has been the equivalent of doing your business in a loud shout on a public streetcorner.
The "GOVERNMENT" has always had legal access to it.
You either knew that, and were clueful, or did not, and were not. From your paranoid reaction, I'm guessing the latter.
And if you want to blame anyone for the need to increase the intelligence community's nearness to your stash, blame Al Quaeda, or better yet, join the Army and go kill them.
Whining on internet message boards from the comfort of your bedroom about losing rights you mistakenly believed you had is effecting no positive result.
--Blair
This legislation does nothing whatsoever to differentiate between "analog" and "digital". It's all to do with whether the communication between Person A and Person B is immediate and real-time (as is any normal phone call), or whether the communication is stored in any way, such as email is (the email waits on a server for someone to pick it up), such as voicemail is (the message sits on a server waiting for the recipient to pick it up), SMS (the message will sit on a server waiting until the intended recipient's mobile phone comes online). These "stored communications" are what the legislation is all about.
Slashdot syndrome strikes again.
When will you people ever read the legislation that these posts refer to. Every time you come up with wild discussions regarding what it does and doesn't cover, the less sense you begin to make.
Hell, at least real journalists usually try to check their facts before writing about it. At Slashdot, facts are few and far between.
Didn't they recently disarm their population? Looks like Big Brother was written about Oz. Be afraid, be very afraid.
cluge
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
This has less to do with national security than ensuring the destruction of Unionism in the interests of Liberal/Coalition security whilst appealing to Xenophobic sentiments that they've created in Australia lately.9 82798008.html
The Labour Paty is the Most popular political party in Australia only defeated in the last two elections due to a coalition between the Liberal Party and the National (farmers) Party.
There's been a concerted effort by the current Coalition Government to destroy or at least singnificantly disenfranchise the union movement in Australia which is the main power-base behind the Labour Party. The most blatant evidence of this was the "waterfront dispute" between the totally unionised Patrick Stevedores waterfront and the Farmers Federation/Coalition Goverment which was designed to remove the unions from the wharves with sercurity guards and dogs and replace them with military-trained workers sympathetic to the Farmers Fed. despite evidence at the time that the Unions had been making significant progress toward reforms on the waterfront. Latest evidence of similar tactics today: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/06/09/1022
Last year, just before the federal election, we had the federal government use the DSD, defence signals directorate, spy on communications between the Maritime Union of Aust. and the Tampa which was involved in rescuing assylum seekers from water close to northern Australia in an attempt to gather information to demonise the Unions and therefore the Labour party during an election campain which is entirly illegal, at least for the time being.
The relevance of this is fairly clear, if the federal government was to be endowed with these new powers entire unions such as the MUA during the waterfront dipute, which became quite violent, could be classed as terrorist organisations and effectively investigated, arrested and interrogated incommunicado without legal representation and all the Union possesions impounded effectively grinding them to a halt. The actions of the Coalition in respect to the DSD issue last year and the waterfront dispute point to this conclusion.
Why? as the coalition pointed out recently, they are massively underfunded compared tot he Union-Funded Labour Party and require massive corporate donations in order to survive and compete.
You meant the NKVD ("Peoples Commissariat for Internal Affairs" ie. the Russian internal secret police), not the KGB (more like our CIA).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
The point is, email is and always has been the equivalent of doing your business in a loud shout on a public streetcorner.The "GOVERNMENT" has always had legal access to it.
You still don't get it. The government can seize your property, arrest you, garnish your wages, lock you up in prison, audit your tax returns (where it's guilty until proven innocent), put you under surveillance, etc., etc., provided a legal reason exists to do so. If the government has no legal justification for access to your e-mail, it has no right to be looking at it. The last time I checked, the 4th Amendment was still part of the U.S. Constitution.
And if you want to blame anyone for the need to increase the intelligence community's nearness to your stash, blame Al Quaeda, or better yet, join the Army and go kill them.
Al Q43da is only part of the problem. The other part is comprised of a combination of U.S. for31gn p0licy, and what could turn out to be a very real level of incompetence on the part of the government agencies charged with keeping track of t3rr0r1st activities. Heheh..my stash? LOL. I can proudly say that I do not use drugs, drink, or smoke.
Whining on internet message boards from the comfort of your bedroom about losing rights you mistakenly believed you had is effecting no positive result.
I see a very real difference between whining and correcting an unfortunate misconception- or at minimum, offering an alternate perspective.
Funny...I've never seen this British comedy, so I guess it qualifies as an eerie coincidence. The irony in their use of the name James Hacker is quite good, whether it was intentional or not. :)
Wow, what an intelligent come back Ozjimbob. I should just insult anybody that does not agree with me like you do.
Sorry, I was not clear on what types of warrents. Physical search and arrest will not change under this bill.
But,
"the power to intercept email, voice mail and SMS messages without a warrant."
So if you live in Australia, and unless you like any government agency to hear your voice mail any time they like, you see my point...
btw, what about the potential for abuse from unscrupulous government employees?
Has any body disscussed the potential for abuse from unscrupulous government employees? I would imagin it (abuse) would happen...
No, we would all go freeze are asses off in Canada
If you can't be bothered checking your facts then don't bother posting.
The purpose of the preference system is not to indicate a positive preference for the voter's least favourite party, but to provide a mechanism for redistribution of votes in the case where a particular candidate does not have a clear majority.
The voter can distribute his or her own preferences in any order they choose, or they can put a 1 in the box next to the party name to accept the preferences that the party has negotiated "on your behalf" if you trust them (!).
In practice, it is rare for preferences to be counted at all, particularly beyond the 2nd preference, and if this does happen, many ballot papers are simply not counted at all.
You know nowadays, just about any legislation could get passed that would not only be completely ineffective, but will threaten your freedom and/or invade your privacy, if it can be justified as part of 'fighting Terrorism'.
But then of course, some of my opinions have been proven to be wrong, and I just hope that this above opinion will never become fact.
Actually he was writing about totalitarianism, not necessarily communism. It's not the same thing at all.
Hahaha, that was a joke right? Seriously though I really think you're getting a little bit carried away there. Everyone doesn't need to own semi automatic firearms to have a democracy as you seem to imply.
Death and imprisonment?? Death by whom? What, is the army gonna come through the cities in their tanks and blast us all into submission or something? The army is having enough trouble culling the Kangaroos that have taken over the Puckapunyal army base to worry about anything like that
Mate, (saying mate because thats the stereotypical thing one would expect from an Aussie) have you ever been here? You should come, perhaps it might clear some of those misconceptions up a bit because you are so far off the mark its almost disturbing.
People with a clue start encrypting all messages... People without a clue get arrested, and meet people with a clue when they get out of prison and start encrypting all messages...
Government whines for key access.. People with a clue move key generation offshore, and let the geni out of the bottle...
Something about history repeating itself comes to mind...Oh wait...
She won't, though. She's kept her paws off ever since Whitlam was sacked.
a bit like US big budget films - the matrix, attack of the clones, scooby doo, etc etc
Pretty much right, except that the bill of rights is a limitation of federal goverenment. The right to bear arms relates to a well ordered state militia. Thus, "the right to bear arms" gives your state the right to have a national guard. If you want to claim a constitutional right to bear arms, you must join your state national guard. Other rights to bear arms are found in state laws (hence the range of differences from the Texas concealed carry, to the California almost nonexistent). Federal laws limiting the type of weapons (no fully automatic, no flamethrowers, etc...) don't conflict with the constitution as long as the National Guard is thus limited. :-)
I'm guessing that you are not living in Australia. As someone who does live in Australia and was born here I can tell you that you are somewhat mistaken.
.gov.au money I don't know where you get that figure but we are supposed to be a socialist democracy.
Yes we are an apathetic lot, particularly politically however I would argue that we are no less civic minded than the US. In fact, I'd argue that our political apathy is not all bad, it serves in part to protect us from populist laws and helps ensure that the masses don't ride roughshod over the (more vocal) minorities.
As for 1 in 6 Australians being on
I'm starting to ramble but basically my point is this, you're not (I assume) an Australian yet you are drawing broad negative conclusions about all (17 million) of us.
For reference, most Australians who have never been to the US assume that all Americans are loud, fat, self important, obnoxious fools. I know that assumption to be incorrect now, don't make the same mistake I once did.
Not that they look very appealing, but apparently they are quite hallucinogenic...
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
From Dictionary.com (with my emphasis):
Usage Note: The traditional rule holds that fewer should be used for things that can be counted (fewer than four players), while less should be used with mass terms for things of measurable extent (less paper; less than a gallon of paint).
Yeah, right.
Sydney has had more than its fair share of non-sober prostitutes, serial killers, hate crimes (e.g. by the police). There was a massacre in tasmania also. I've not been to the schools there but I would guess that also applies. Also note that australia generally supports the US whenever there is a UN resolution against pollution of some kind that needs to be scuppered (Australia has an influential mining industry).
So while australia is a fantastic place to live, don't think that whatever happens in the US doesn't happen there; it does, just slightly less often.
I even saw a homeless person there once.
Hey, I'm not an aussie, I just got this info from the Pommies that work (illegally) for the electrial people. I just report what I've been lead to understand is th truth. Too bad its not the truth. Just because I get lots of nasty letters about not voting, I'm still not allowed (or obligated) to put the numbers down.
In two parallel worlds, this guy's idiocy would cause him to quickly evolve out of society.
Passive resistance worked for Ghandi, who, being English educated, knew the inherent justice in their system. The same would not have worked for Nazi Germany.
Such a passive system would, in the absence of English-type restraints, actually breed or call into existance an overlord class, after decades of general local thuggery.
Anyway, not only do you have the right to defend yourself, you are under no moral obligation to take the "nicest" path to do so, especially should some of the "nicer" paths be less likely to succeed.
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
The right to bear arms relates to a well ordered state militia.
Well, no. "Rights" belong to individuals. "Powers" belong to governments. So a "right to bear arms" cannot reside in the state governments.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
As long as people are watching TV I'd be afraid of the Tyranny of the Majority.
Although I can empathize with those Gore supporters who feel angry and ripped off (and also realize that had it been the other way, Bush supporters would feel the same way, along with a feeling that recounts were rigged) we sould realize that Gore is arguably stupider (worse grades at a worse school, and how horrible it is to wonder which candidate is stupider) and even more power hungry than Bush. Don't think his positions (e.g. environmentalism) come from some deep and wise understanding. People whisper in his ear and away he goes.
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
> * The liberals sold of a large portion of
> Australias monopoly telco
Is it still a (legal) monopoly? If so, don't expect any improvements any time soon. The US labored under 50 years of mandated monopoly, then decided it was illegal.
Given that I can make interstate long distance calls much cheaper (via a handy cell phone yet!) than in-state long distance calls shows there are some anachronistic laws protecting monopolies in-place still...
"Has [being a kidnapped teenage girl, raped repeatedly for months] changed you?" - Katie Couric to Elizabeth Smart
Yah, no one would pass oppressive laws if there were guns everywhere, right? Funny how obnoxious laws get passed here even though we have scads of gun worshipers. Aren't you guys supposed to rise up and save us? Isn't that the gun nut dream scenario? You guys won't even fight a parking ticket. Come on, the FBI is monitoring our email, grab your shoot'n irons boys! Yeeehaw!
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You can get hinges where the pins aren't removable when the doors are closed, allowing the door to fit to swing outward. My parents had this done so that my mother could get her in while in her wheelchair, as it was cheaper to do that than have major rebuilding.
I wonder how much better off Australia would now be if Japan had managed to takeover Australia in the war.
Imagine being the primary exporter in the Asia-Pacific region.. hmm.
// The fastest Alt-Tab in the West
There are specific prohibitions on misusing those other means of gathering intelligence.
Your email, as mentioned before, is publicly broadcast, just as the noise you make at a ballgame. It's not even as secure as a postcard, which remains in the custody of the USPS from posting to delivery.
Your email goes through several servers that may be secured but only by private entities with no governmental authority, over whom there are no constitutional or legislated restrictions as to the security of your email. If one of those servers happens to be an innocuous node owned and run by the FBI in the basement of UUNET, then all your email are belong to them, and the 4th Amendment don't enter into it, because, as I keep saying, there's no presumption of privacy in email.
--Blair
"Unless something's been passed that I don't know about."
Militia:
Sure?
It's not about non-whites. It's about *illegal* immigrants.
British backpackers overstay their visas: about 60,000 in the country at the latest count. Why aren't they in the camps next to the Afghanis and Iraqis? They're here *illegally*, after all.
deus does not exist but if he does
Are you aware that, for the purposes of government statistics, you are *not* considered unemployed if you work for one or more hours per week. Yep, that's *one*. Would *you* consider that to be real employment? I sure don't.
And save your whining about how unemployed people are screwing the workers of their hard-earned dosh. I've been unemployed, and have known a lot of others, and it's a pretty shitty life for most. The dole is a piss-poor income, it's demoralising, there are no jobs but the government still forces everyone to pretend they've applied for 10 jobs a fortnight or they'll cut the benefits, and on top of that there's a whole lot of self-righteous bastards like yourself calling names.
Please, think before you write. *Think*. Don't just emote.
The article is about the Australian government, but there was a generalization made in the previos post suggesting that it was well within a government agency's right to collect information on citizens based on their actions in public, or in places where there is allegedly no expectation of privacy. The 'no expectation of privacy' mantra has been trumpeted repeatedly as a matter of principle, geographic location notwithstanding. Because U.S. citizens face the same potential for abuse (with the passing of the P4tr10t 4ct), and being a U.S. citizen myself, the 4th Amendment quite naturally comes into play.
Ok, but I'm drawing a distinction between information that his public, and the following: - who is collecting it - what information is collected - why it's being collected
It is my opinion that the mere presence of public information, or the fact that it might pass through a public conduit (several servers, in your example), doesn't convey an automatic right to access. Funny thing is, the internet has often been described as the information superhighway. Yet, on a real highway (which is also a public conduit), it is entirely illegal for a government agent to conduct a search without cause.
As far as I know, it's to prevent any very long string of text with no spaces from being inserted into a message, to make page-widening crapflooders have to think harder... it'd be too easy if you just had to insert <pre>lotsOfCrapCharsWithNoSpaces</pre> to make the entire known world have to scroll horizontally to read every comment.
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
And I'm sure those ugly little buggers actually like to be licked
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
For those interested, the case is Riss vs. City of New York:
http://www.heartland.org/perspectives/911.htm
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.