Australian Parliament Approves Email Snooping
brindafella writes "The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, reporting on a legislative change last week, says 'the [Australian] Government will have 12 months to access communications not only between the B-party and the suspect, but also between the B-party and anyone else. If you have unwittingly communicated with a suspect (and thereby become a B-party), the Government may be able to monitor all your conversations with family members, friends, work colleagues, your lawyer and your doctor.' The Australian Parliament's major parties combined to pass an amendment to the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act 1979."
Don't email me!
Before I wanted to go to Australia but I was scared, now i can go there feeling safe. I'm realy glad that they passed this law.
I'm a programmer, I don't have any friends...
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed (SK)
Seriously these politicians have just gone plain loopy and it's all because the labour party has gone into a tailspin.
State labour in NSW (where Sydney is and the biggest state) has been unable to fix Sydney's transport problem and keeps closing roads around new tollways stuffing up public transport...not to mention they haven't been able to improve a constantly deteriorating health care system. Federal labour can't get enough votes to put up any serious opposition and the opposing party has a majority in both houses. The young labour party has recently been in the papers for calling for conscription - a total about face on their previous postion. Recently the labour party also did an about face on their position regarding forcing ISPs to filter pornography (and are now in favour of this with all of its technical problems). What's more they have personality issues within the party (nothing new in politics but this is when a party has to band together to survive).
I'm an Australian who feels I have zero representation. Not one politician here is even trying to make this country better...not even for the votes.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This is typical of the current government's attitude to privacy and telecommunications. The Telecommunications Act already allows for seizure of computers and other equipment when it is 'connected with' offences under the Spam Act, for example. There is also evidence that the government has been confiscating and destroying personal computers without a warrant when they contain 'sensitive' information.
All of this is part of a broader lack of accountability, due process and transparency that is becoming part of the culture of Australian lawmaking. There is a good article on the subject here.
For those from more sensible countries, supposedly democratic Australia currently has the following features:
1. One party entirely in control of both houses of parliament
2. No bill of rights, either legislative or constitutional
3. Legislation allowing for the arrest, detention, and interrogation without charge of persons not suspected of any offence if they may have information that is somehow relevant to a suspected terrorist offence; the onus of proof is reversed so that the person being interrogated must prove that they do NOT have any such information.
4. One of the highest rates of phone tapping in the world
5. Unelected bureacrats empowered to spy on Australians with no parliamentary oversight to speak of
6. Several semi-secret US intelligence bases operating on our soil
7. New crimes of sedition for exercising free speech in a manner that encourages the overthrow of the government
8. Troops in Iraq despite over 80% of the population opposing our involvement before the war
At the moment we also have an extremely disturbing rise in racial and religious intolerance, which in my opinion is in no small part attributable to the federal government's policies and fearmongering on those issues. But of course, this doesn't stop us selling weapons-grade uranium to China because they weeeeally promise to use it for civilian purposes only.
Read Pynchon.
Not sure if anyone has looked at the links to this article, but the text to the amendment to the act cited at the end of the article was approved in 2004, and is not related at all. In fact the amendment to the act was slightly changed with an 18 month period listed instead of 12 months.
The admenment act is basically just, as far as I can tell, making some parts of the act plainer, saying that a router which buffers packets in memory is not actually storing those packets just because it needs to store them for a few milliseconds. It also clarifies that VoIP is not stored communications.
Any citations of the actual amendment?
Darryl
Stooopid you, they wont evaluate if a contact is a friend!
Now that you have posted on slashd [I have to go, it knocks on my door]
Too much Beer, not enough recall elections!
You need to recall these bastards! It really wakes these polititions up when they find out they can get yanked out of office in a few months!
Try it!
I'm an aussie, but for server hosting reasons virtually all of my email is routed through the United States.
In other words, the CIA have been reading all my email for years now - why can't ASIO have a go?
Why is the Australian government even doing this? Has there been any major terrorist attack on Australia? Do they really think there will be one in the future? What's the point, other than crushing freedom?
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
I'm increasingly feeling like Australia is caught in a rapid downward spiral. Every week it seems like they've chipped away another little bit of our privacy and liberty. To call the country a ship without a rudder is an understatement - the rudder came off years ago, we're now taking on water, the captain's roaring drunk and half the crew have lost their minds. The standard of living in Australia is generally pretty high for now, but I just can't see it continuing. The problem is, where else is there to go?
"the Government may be able to monitor all your conversations with family members, friends, work colleagues, your lawyer and your doctor."
..and my SPAM too.
good luck with tracing the person selling me viarga for years
fifteen jugglers, five believers
Everyone will be able to be investigated, everyone in the world, as everyone emailed will become a "B-Party"
Hey -- down in Adelaide we were free settlers, I'll have you know!
Just start a chain letter to everyone you know and make sure to CC all the politicians so they will also be subject to monitoring. Let them know they have now become a B-party. If every politician becomes a B-party to every citizen they may reconsider their actions.
If most "suspects" have a normal email account they will receive SPAM.
Becuase SPAM cannout be discounted as a covert message the SPAMer will need to be monitored
So now the Spammer is the "B-party"
So now the government is monitoring millions of SPAM messages from the Spammer
Considering most people receive SPAM inclduing "suspects" any government monitoring will soon get stuck in this SPAM loop
Who ever thought of this... GOOD LUCK
the sig
If you had half a brain and weren't so incredibly ignorant, you'd know that 99.999% of Australians have no convict background, and that virtually all families came here as free settlers.
But of course there is. No-one is drunk and out of control - they know exactly what they're doing. And that is far, far more disturbing. When you actually look at all this legislation it's very apparent that it is quite tailored to meet its objectives, which generally are not quite the objectives stated to the media and the people.
I know exactly what you mean about feeling like we're in a downward spiral here though...
Read Pynchon.
... you have nothing to worry about!
I really dont know why people cry about "losing their privacy".
it annoys me to think that someone's pride is more important than justice.
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The excuse for all of this is "the rise in global terrorism", well if that were really the reason then the terrorists have won, they have fundamentally changed our societies.
The reasons are deeper than that, terrorism is an excuse that is brought out as a bogey man to try to provide justification for further infringements of civil liberites. The Tony Blair, in the UK, is now pushing an act that will allow any government minister to change almost any bit of legislation without having to bother to pursuade parliament to agree.
We will suffer for sleep walking to a state where unelected civil servants have the power to snoop on us without any real oversight. This will be abused by these civil servants for their own personal ends.
You thought that Russia 20 years ago was bad - we will have it far worse.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather be a deported political activist (the majority of Australian transportees were Irish republicans and people displaced by the potato blight famine) than a religious freak anyday.
Don't believe the nonsense, unless you hear it from me directly.
I mean if one receives a spam and the spammer would be charged ALL future emails of the one who received the spam are qualified as to be monitored?
Well, you can tell Australia used to be a penal colony...
they call you Russian.
Don't believe the nonsense, unless you hear it from me directly.
Thats not email snooping mate, throw some more legislation on the barbie
Hrmm, that means 0.001% of Australians do have a convict background. 0.001% of 20 million makes 200, doesn't it? What a coincidence that I'm one of them.
...well, actually, that just about covers it, really...
With the six degrees of separation thing, and careful choices of 'suspects', they can probably get a 90% surveillance rate by declaring only a couple of thousand primary targets.
In other words, as far as I can see, the Australian Parliament has just decreed that the government can read all the email it likes, whenever it likes.
If I were in charge, and unscrupulous, the first person I'd declare a suspect would be the chief of the opposition party.
Ruddock: these restrictions on human rights have prevented a terrorist attack in this country Voter: But Mr Ruddock you could argue this rock is keeping all the terrorists away Ruddock: I would like to purchase that rock. No wait it contains sensitive information on how to stop terrorists, I can have it for free
Given that 'Straya, the Deputy Sheriff shares so many cultural, social and political similarities with the U.S., it's simply not a surprise to those of us in the region that they're implementing similar domestic policies.
The most surprising aspect is the sheer admiration that the 'Strayan people hold for the U.S. and their collective willingness to become a subservient client state to U.S. interests.
They truly are the Americans of the South Pacific and not just in terms of public policy. The 'Strayan people are almost indistinguisable from their American counterparts in terms of attitude and behaviour.
Considering this new bill, surely even if you're not a Greens supporter, you can at least agree that having a few more Greens politicians in parliament wouldn't be a bad idea, right?
I don't really see what you mean by "loony", though. Everything they do seems to be in the interests of the people. Yes, maybe their policies wouldn't be "the best thing for the economy", but have you ever considered that always doing what is "best for the economy" involves completely forgetting about social, ethical and moral considerations?
Forget the economy. There are more important things in life than money.
This does not surprise me, as an Australian I can say that I've definitely noticed a slide into a very right wing agenda here. The current government is right wing and has an absolute majority in our parliament, meaning they can pretty much pass any law or any bill they want without the chance it might be vetoed by opposition parties.
I've been out of Australia for quite some time, I've found there to be quite a contrast to the Australia I left more than a year ago. I arrived back here just a couple of days before the Cronulla Race Riots. Since then our leaders have been spouting racist generalisations. There has been a large police crack down, the muslim community have made many claims that they are being unfairly targeted, I can personally verify this as on two occasions I've personally witnessed police unfairly targeting muslim men. I've also noticed since the riots (where our flag was used as a symbol of racial hatred), many police cars have had Australian flags mounted to their cars. I can't help thinking this is a sign of solidarity with the rascist mob.
I really don't even know how these riots could have occurred without police complicity. We have Racial Villification Laws here in Australia, that if they were applied that day could have been used to arrest most of the mob that day before any violence even began.
And with all this, in the background we have our detention camps in which whole families including children have been kept in detention. There have been cases where children have basically grown up in detention.
Unless there's a big turn around here I think the future for Australia could be something straight out of Huxely's Brave New World or 1984.
smash (aussie)
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Control of your population. That's in democracies even more important than in dictatorships where you got easier means to make sure everyone stays in line.
Given the choice, I'd prefer the danger of a bomb on my head to the golden cage. Unfortunately, we don't get the choice.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Who'd want to wade through a ton of junk mail when snooping in someone's private communication?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So if the suspect sent a single mail to a huge mailing list, every subscriber of it would be a target now?
Great idea...
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" - Carl Sagan
I think the solution to racism is to legalise and regulate it.
There should be a department that operates a bit like match.com and matches together two people who want to kill each other. Then you put them in a room together and let one of the idiots kill the other idiot. This way it is off the streets and racists can eliminate each other in a way that does not affect reasonable people.
"Why is the Australian government even doing this?"
It is in our constitution that what the USA does our government must try to go "one better". It used to be about having cattle stations bigger than a Texan ranch (maybe even bigger than Texas?). Nowadys its all about who can find the most terrorists.
"Has there been any major terrorist attack on Australia?"
No, Aussies have been targeted in three major Indonesian attacks over the last few years. We have had some "minor" attacks in the past from neo-nazi groups, organised crime and a few solo mental cases. Oh, we also had the Alan Jones riots in Sydney last year. ( His single-handed incitement of the riots was very poorly covered in the media. Politicians continue to give this guy clout by lining up to be on his breakfast show ).
"Do they really think there will be one in the future?"
Of course, the western governments are building an massive industry around it. We are also locking up some new scapegoats, the most recent is known as Jihad Jack who was locked up for 5yrs just a few days ago.
"What's the point, other than crushing freedom?"
Defining, monitoring and dismantling "social networks", preferably before they can form a political movement. Besides our PM has always dreamed of dragging us back to the 1950's.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Okay, so we've been living in a fascist dictatorship for a decade or maybe longer. It has nothing to do with the right-wing Liberal/National coalition or the centre Australian Labor Party. It has everything to do with corporations and a few "elites" running our fucking country under our noses knowing that we won't do a damn thing about it.
/.ers, I'm talking about the average Joe), too busy getting apathetic about the politics and "democracy" that hardly anyone understands, and so on...
Yesterday we signed a deal with the Chinese to sell them uranium, against the wishes of the Australian population. The arseholes in parliament (sic) just do whatever they want, whenever they want. They pass new IR "reform" (read: Orwell/Newspeak) legislation to fuck us over even more so that we'll be working even longer hours for less pay with none of the working rights we've fought for over 200-odd years. Impressive achievement for our little arse end of the earth, eh?
And it will continue. We'll let them fuck us over and run our "democracy" like an old boys' club, because we will just bend over and continue to take it, because we're too busy arguing about the footy or Commonwealth Games (give them bread and circuses to distract them), too busy working those long hours for nothing (remember fellow
When will a few brave citizens start a real political party that represents the people of the country and our interests instead of the interests of corporations or the wealthy elite? Hmm? When will we march on Canberra and vote these fuckers OUT? When? When? When will we get our country back? Dunno about you, but I've had enough of this shit. I don't know how much more unbearable it has to get for people to actually do something.
We haven't brought them into line. We haven't prevented criminal wastage of billions of public money on the useless 2000 Olympic Games, 2006 Commonwealth Games and who knows what else. We haven't done much about the new IR laws. We did nothing about the GST mess. We let Packer make a billion dollars in profit and pay less than $70 in income tax. We allow the media moguls to put the screws on public information and make little deals with each other not to report each others' mistresses or whatever, and don't complain loudly enough when the Newspeakers in the Lib/Nat coalition accuse the ABC of left-wing bias! Holy Sweet Jesus, that must be the same "liberal bias" in the extreme right wing media of the USA! We haven't done anything about the spying on non-mainstream politics of ASIO and the Special Branch. We don't know anything about ASIS's $100 million annual budget and what the "Continuity of Government" thingo is all about. We allow secret US bases without parliamentary oversight. And I could rant on and on and on...
WHEN IS ENOUGH ENOUGH?
I love this politically fucked up country!!
When I was young I thought Australia was cool.
Later I saw the U.N. trick them out of their guns.
Now,their privacy disappears.
Here are two rights citizens of the several states enjoy.
If these disappeared for us,we would consider ourselves slaves.
Would we still rebel? Would we bend over,grease down and take it
like an Australian?
tsk........
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Maybe the US should sue Australia for using its image?
In Soviet Australia, Government monitors YOU.
...oh, wait.
Private Eye - a political magazine - has revealed that Jim Hacker had been under secret surveillance while being in opposition. Furthermore, it has discovered that Jim's department is responsible for all bugging equipment, and this makes him the government's chief bugger.
So in Australia, they create a new department - The inspectorate of buggers.
I guess we should have kept watching TV...
Now, since the attention whores (politicans) figured that Internet is more interesting than they are and that people don't watch them on TV anymore, they're trying to get our attention back by fucking with _our_ Internet.
I'm waiting for them to just sever all the Internet connections into and out of the country. I mean, it sounds like the country is run by a bunch of techno-scared religious people...ones that think if a 12 year old kid sees a naked boob they'll be scared for life or that everyone in the country is a potential criminal that emails they're master plan about.
I don't know, but I think if I were up-to-no-good, I'd encrypt all my emails. Oh wait, got an idea: Hey Australia, maybe you should now ban encrypted emails! Also ban "vague" emails, because it's harder to understand exactly what it's about if you don't spell it out to the poor official that has to sift through it all. If you have a plot or a crime in the works, make sure you explain everything in detail using correct terms so we can pick that up easier. No more "We need to talk about the thing last night with our friend".
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
I think Australia deserves its own Slashdot ICON. Maybe add them to Gates Borg. Privacy is futile.
-- I Dont Deserve A Sig I Have Bad Karma
So, anytime you need to check on someone you investigate a spammer, then have open season.
In Soviet Russian you don't monitor your E-mail it monitors you.... Oh wait in Austrialia and the United States you don't monitor your E-mail it spams you... No not right In Austrilia and the United States you... Screw it, never mind.
If you have unwittingly communicated with a suspect (and thereby become a B-party), the Government may be able to monitor all your conversations
Technically, they can force some "suspect" just to communicate with you to be able to monitor you. From then, they declare you suspect...
There you are, staring at me again.
just don't forget that somebody had to vote for them so that their badness can have an impact on the law. Simple solution: use your votes to vote for a less bad government or at least to make it more difficult for them to make laws out of their badness.
1) Declare spam to be a matter of national security. (hell, everything else is nowadays)
2) Every spammer is now a suspect.
3) Everyone who receives a spam email can now be safely and legally spied on for the next 12 months, or until their next spam. Do the maths
Don't they have an original thought in their head? What next, more statements about Iran?
:-) it's about time that was pointed out! I'm sick of the "racist" comments from the Americans that suggest that Australians are the genetically defective descendants of criminals.
I'm a (very) proud descendant of James O'Malley Walshe, who as a free settler helped to create the Australia we have today. I don't feel as if I have less freedom when I'm home in Australia and I feel a lot safer than I did in L.A.!!
Yeah yeah, at least we dont crack a shit when we show tits on TV, the holly grail of
stupid MOFO relegion MOFOs. We show tits, pussy, dicks, say FUCK everything on FTA tv. And no one cares.
Every corner in every street magazine store/711 you can find porn and buy it. Whats your problem?
At least if they snoop emails, they will catch the dodgy politicians and evil corporates.
Real crims wont use email, they will either talk in person at a nude steam bath , or bar.
Besides, how easy is it to setup your own encrpyted SLL email/crypted stored mail boxes on HD, so only the readers can read it.
https://your.damn.pc.localhost.ml.net/email/
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
At least aussie copes wont beat you up or be asses most of the time.
They usually are nicer, ie if they find 2g of pot, they go, oh well, no bother, too much paper work, we'll just
throw it away. No need to record it. USA cops will give you 2years extra.
But none of this is new, they could get email info on you from HDs in 1991 easily. But today its a bit more difficult if you store it in Gmail or some chineese SSL webmail service.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
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So what? I don't care what happens in former Soviet Russia.
it would appear the only personal immunization from this "hand over the email and no one gets hurt" epidemic is to stop using any mail server whose operator you don't explicitly know (and i mean just short of knowing in the biblical sense.) the logical end point, then, is that everyone in the world will need to deliver their encrypted messages through "village" mail servers, run by and for trusted friends/family.
of course, the american government (and possibly others) would simply pursue the admins of these systems making examples of any who did not roll-over in the same fashion as your typical profit-driven corporation. i personally would go to jail before handing over the files from my village's server, and i would guess other admins should feel the same way if they elect to operate such a system.
emailing is being turned into trafficking, just words instead of drugs, thus the rule has become: don't engage with strangers unless you want to eventually meet a cop. hell, your friend might be a narc...
what's next? i would guess EVERYTHING.
Does the government have to *prove* that you *actually* sent the suspect an email? Or is it simply enough that the suspect has an email bearing your email address? After reading TFA, I really doubt this bill was well thought out enough to address those sorts of issues. Without that sort of protection, it seems it would be possible for an unethical law enforcement official to obtain a warrant for someone they'd like to be monitoring but have no legal grounds for doing so by emaililng some random existing suspect a spoofed email from their target. I would say that it amazes me that people would try to use a completely unreliable method of communication, like email, as the legal basis for a massive invasion of privacy...unfortunately, governments' proclivity for trying to spy on people and treat them prima facie as criminals has long since ceased to amaze me....
Operations, how may I direct your call?
Cheers,
Kilgore Trout, C.E.O.
P.S.: B$ck Fush !
Everyone is a criminal anyway, right?
Yet another excuse to invade our privacy. Id say thankfully i dont live there, but it will be like that here soon anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Start an investigation against a big spammer, and you tap into the email of anybody in australia.
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Although the parent was modded down, he/she should have been modded up as insightful.
Like or not, admit it or not, we are the leaders of the "free world".
What our government says and does tends to carry weight with other governments throughout the world. We have influence over many decisions made in those governments - whether it is out on the open, through back channels or by covert activity (even below the government level). For instance, say that little country A isn't doing something we want them to do and has a certain problem with party X. Our intelligence service has the ability to make their problem with party X so bad that country A has to come to the U.S. for help. In exchange for that help, country A will finally have to give us what we wanted in the first place. This is how many operations have been run.
Since we are leaders of the "free world", we bear a certain responsibility. Remember, "with great power comes great responsibility". We have now spread the idea that curtailing the freedom of citizens in the name of (false) security is ok. That a president can openly break the law without consequence and ignore the constitution.
This is not just scary, it is abhorrent. In addition, we will find that, in the long term it is detrimental to our power (both real and perceived), and our (real) security.
Way to go politicians (from both sides). There is very little left of this country left for you to sell out. What you don't understand or see yet, is the backlash. As your friendly CEO's, you only see in the short term. Without interruption the long term outlook is bleak.
As for me, I have _some_ faith in the citizens. They've been following along with the eyes closed to most of it, but have recently been stirring. Once their eyes are fully open, there will be hell to pay.
This is because you do not live in a democracy, Australia is now a fascist state, along with the US. We MUST submit to our government, and do what they say. Hell, they're worse than the Borg! Hell, in Australia we don't even have the ability to have th freedom of speech in our constitution, breaking several United Nations charters. We have a federal government that deliberately amended the marriag act to forbid same sex marriages (discrimination anyone?). We have laws where pagans can be religiously villified by other religions, but we can't villify them (ie. Christian, Jewish, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, etc). Discrimination anyone? We have a federal government that wants to abolish unemployment/welfare support, allows employees to work for absolutely peanuts for employers, who can dismiss you at a whim, for any reason, at any time. We have a government that knowingly lies to its constituents (Iraq and WMDs anyone?). We have a government that reserves the right to lock you up, for up to 7 days, without telling you why, restricting access to your lawyer (all conversations monitored), etc. We have a federal government that's allowed the AFP (Australian Federal Police) to monitor and do what they like, this also applies to our national spies, ASIO. We have a government that has cut back immigration, because John Howard is a racist pig. We have a government that wants a US style medical system, where if you don't have money, you die. So much for a caring society. We have one of the highest tax rates in the world (in fact I think it is the highest), the 2nd worst banking system in the world (behind Canada I believe). We have a federal government that won't say sorry to our Aborigines, and the 'stolen generation', and they emphatically deny it ever happened. Much like saying the holocaust didn't happen (btw, now illegal in Australia, so much for freedom of speech).
Why do I live in Australia? Cos I was born here, and can't afford to go to a decent country. I could easily get German citizenship if I wanted, but I'm not too sure that it's better over there. This rot is spreading throughout the world. And it's very worrying. I hope the big bang comes soon, and I hope it destroys all mankind. We don't deserve to survive as a species.
Dave
Slashdot can go and get fucked.
pfft, its just an exadurated guesstimate. :) Besides, most convicts sent to Australia just stole a loaf of bread to feed their starving family or the like, not murder someone or steal jewelery.
Good luck finding a doctor who will let you call them by phone, let alone one you can contact via email. Australian doctors are extremely backwards in this regard, all in the name of "privacy."
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
I can't help but feel that having these kinds of laws makes us more of a target. It kind of follows from my feelings on detention of immigrants suspected to be terrorists. If I was held in the Aussie camps and treated as porrly as they have been I'd be more likely to want to seek revenge for my ill treatment, hence blow something up. I believe our tactics are more likely to breed extremists in this country. But, I'm not stoopid, I know that something needs to be done, I just hate John Howard and Kim Beasley. Wow!! I just discented :S
I guess they'll let me out of jail in about 30 years, I hope Slashdot's still around.
So why terrorists from the Middle East?
One additional part of the answer is Wahibism and other extreme forms of Islam. It's not just fundamentalisam, but the imams teach that "jihad" is a religious duty - lile pilgramage. They also teach that infidels are unworthy of life - and have redefined places like Europe from "places of truce" to "places of war". Islam in general does not have a tradition of individual dissent (not just protestantism, but the notion that a worshiper can disagree with a priest over the meaning of something in the holy writings), so Islamists are poorly equipped to disagree with the above imam's teachings. IMHO, it'd be a bit different with individual voices speaking out. And Wahibism (once considered to be an odd, deviant sect confined to Suadi Arabia) has been spread worldwide - the Saudis have spent millions on mosques all over the world, and the imams there are teaching, yup - Wahibism. I'm sure there are other parts of the answer...