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
GnuPG
Our governments are finally beginning to listen to us!
; )
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
It is funny ....
ironic perhaps, certainly not funny though
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.
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?
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.
Just to flesh out the "and then a miracle occurs" steps in the process, I'd replace them with...
Unfortunately, that change makes the process seem less mysterious. The people being shocked is still kind of funny, I guess.
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.
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.
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."
The government is taking away the freedoms because a majority of the people who vote (who are the only ones who matter to the government...if don't vote (and no one is stopping you from voting for whatever reason) you have no say, and no right to complain IMNSHO) have voted these people into office. Opinion polls show strong support for the kinds of things that are happening nowadays wrt spying, reduced privacy, etc. If you don't like it, get off your ass and get out there and try to convince other people. If you can't, well it's a democracy, most votes wins. Don't like it? Go somewhere else. The gods know I've considered it on more than one occasion.
At least for the moment you do.
The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
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.
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.
My mistake. I guess that's just an urban legend.
Actually, I stated that as the NRA position, I merely think it highly probable.
Your pride in having a document defining your rights that lacks a guarantee of free speech and press is misplaced, that's in Part 1...
As an American, I suggest you learn about your system of government before bringing your ignorant whines into a public policy debate.
Your precious Charter can be shitcanned or modified into uselessness any time enough members of Parliament want it to be, after which it needs a "Mother, may I" from the Brits.
Do you really think that Canada would have difficulty getting a UK Parliament to sign off on replacing the current version with a new and more restrictive version friendlier to repressive governments, particularly given RIP and the growth of an Orwellian "surveillance society" as the UK government has approved?
It seems easier than getting 34 independent US state legislatures to sign off on gutting the US Bill of Rights.
Have you read the US Constitution? Or for that matter, your own Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Since you probably haven't, yours is at http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/
If you had, you might have read the following:
"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."
Sounds good... until you take a hard look at it. Who defines "reasonable"?
Tech Public Policy stuff
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
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.
Firstly I don't think your comment is a troll, yes it is an opinion I don't agree with but it is a valid opinion none the less.
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.
The possession of firearms is not entirely illegal in Australia. Self-loading guns are readily available but there are restrictions on high capacity self-loading rimfire rifles, self-loading centrefire rifles and shotguns and pump-action shotguns. These were the types of guns mainly used in Australian gun massacres. For more information on this consult this link.
How you can say that banning of certain types of weapons leads to control of political speech I am not sure. Sure guns are needed in the instance of a revolution against the government when it fails the people, but that is a last resort after democracy has failed.
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...
In that case you'll be glad to hear that so far these new anti-terrorism bills proposed the Attorney-General Daryl Williams have been rejected by senators forcing Williams to back down on the anti-terrorism bill. Whilst I am not sure if this is a different bill to that in this topic is an anti-terrorism bill and reflects the fact that most senators in Australia are sane and what stand for these crazy new laws.
aus.music.scrapbook
I don't know if anyone has pointed out but the somewhat deceptively named liberals aren't really liberal at all. Liberal = conservative.
The banned guns are the ones which are most likely to be useful for citizens who need to get rid of an oppressive government after democracy has indeed failed.
As to the success or failure of your democracy, that remains to be seen. Government is a continuous experiment. What is true of any government in terms of stability and benevolence may not be true tomorrow. Democracy only lasts as long as public vigilance does. The law under discussion is a massive step in the wrong direction.
A government that genuinely intends to be oppressive isn't exactly likely to undo the ban described above to give the citizens a fair chance to allow them to get rid of that regime.
As for my being labeled troll... just because someone has moderator points doesn't mean that he can't be an antigun fanatic, or even an imbecile. Or a Microsoft employee.I suspect the person who moderated my post is all of the above.
Having moderator points just says that a person has posted a few things that people agreed with, and being a slashdot user doesn't exactly mean that one has a valid opinion on public policy issues.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Sure guns are needed in the instance of a revolution against the government when it fails the people, but that is a last resort after democracy has failed.
Oh, so sorry. We took away your guns while you were still living in a democracy. Now that we're a totalitarian regime, do you think we're so stupid as to give them back to you?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
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?
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
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.
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. :)
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. :-)
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.
As long as people are watching TV I'd be afraid of the Tyranny of the Majority.
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.
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."
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.
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
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.