Slashdot Mirror
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."
The Commonwealth Government which is run by the Liberal party is passing this law, not the New South Wales state Government which is run by the Labor party.
Move to Queensland if you don't like Sydney... oh hang on, no don't...
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
Grandparent's extremely valid point was that the federal ALP does absolutely nothing by way of providing effective and principled opposition and as such the Liberals can do what they want with no accountability whatsoever. Reverse the parties and you have the problem at the state level.
Read Pynchon.
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 recall now that Winston Smith's apartment in 1984 was built in such a way that part of his room was outside the glimpse of the telescreen. This allowed him to write his diary, although as anyone who has read the book knows, this small blow for freedom didn't mean much in the end.
But on the Internet, what spaces do we have that are truly private? What is our best bet for having a small amount of privacy to live as normal human beings? PGP? Or, as the previous Slashdot story tells, Freenet? On a system where all communication between two individual goes over a wire that Big Brother can watch with ease, finding a private nook is hard indeed.
Maybe if those of us on the left had someone we felt comfortable voting for other than the Greens, who can be a bit loony... but as it is Beazley seems to be trying to outflank Howard on the right wing. Ten years and one month so far of covert and overt racism, blatant breaches of ministerial responsibility, and a complete lack of any decent opposition. Still, at least Australians feel can now safe wrapping themselves in the flag and bashing people of "Middle Eastern appearance", hey?
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.
They will demure from spying on anyone of consequence who might object and derail their plans. Their lists will be continually culled of the famous and the politically connected.
Play Command HQ online
From an American in Australia: I don't see what the big deal is. The US has wire tapping, is in Iraq, has one party in control of the federal government, etc. For that matter, Britain is in Iraq too and is controlled by one party.
Where would you rather live? France, where routine protests stifle legislative progress? Or how about Germany, where making a politically unpopular statement (such as denying the Holocaust) is illegal?
The English-speaking countries are doing quite well for themselves.
In the good ol' U S of A:
:(
1. One party entirely in control of both houses of parliament
Check!
2. No bill of rights, either legislative or constitutional
Ok, you got us there
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.
Pfft, legislation is for dweebs. Just ask Dubya
4. One of the highest rates of phone tapping in the world
Hmm, don't know enough to comment, sorry
5. Unelected bureacrats empowered to spy on Australians with no parliamentary oversight to speak of
Elected officials empowering agencies to spy on Americans with no oversight to speak of, check!
6. Several semi-secret US intelligence bases operating on our soil
Check!
7. New crimes of sedition for exercising free speech in a manner that encourages the overthrow of the government
Check! But really, see #3
8. Troops in Iraq despite over 80% of the population opposing our involvement before the war
Dunno about 80%, but sure does feel way over 50...
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.
Check!
Sadly, this looks like the state of affairs all around the world
the terrorists have won, they have fundamentally changed our societies
It has amazed me for a long time that major politicians fail to see this, or at least act as if they do so.
5 years go, all "free western country" politicians were telling you that freedom was the highest goal in life, that communism was lack of freedom and so it was bad, that totalitarian governments were evil, etc.
They were also claiming they would never negotiate with - or give in to terrorists because that would mean the end of this sacred freedom.
And now, they are taking away all freedom at will to "combat" a problem that is mostly caused by their own behaviour. Freedom suddenly is worth nothing, now "security" is the buzzword. All other priorities and values have to give way to this.
Wouldn't it be better to look at the reasons for terrorism and do something about that, than to always try to "fight a war" against it?
Terrorism is a byproduct of fighting wars against defenseless minority groups, and so fighting a war against terrorism is completely counter-productive.
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.
How about your nickname on slashdot, Mr. AC?
I'm not sure where they're going to find all the people they need to READ all this email.. noone who knows how to do so can possibly pass the required security checks ;)
.au, to the best of my knowledge) and it didn't work then.. i'm not too sure that they've gotten any smarter in the interim.
Seriously, though.. i'm simply not too worried about it.. the sheer volume of processing that actually putting this into practice requires will easily outstrip it's usefulness. Besides, they attempted to do it before (when it was only a grey area.. it was never illegal as such in
http://www.xkcd.com/354/
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!
ARGGHHHH! Stop it, stop it, STOP IT RIGHT THERE!!
They do not hate our freedom. They don't want us to change our countries. They don't want you to lose unrestricted travel. While they might think your lifestyle is immoral, as long as you are on the other side of the world, they'll happilly let you reserve your place in the Islamic equivalent of hell.
What they do hate is the policies of our governments. They hate how we have interfered in their own governments for our own ends. They hate how we overthrow their democraticly elected governments with crackpot dictators, and then give those dictatorships/monarchies the arms and financial means to survive. They hate how we used them in Afganistan to fight the soviets, then turned on them when it suited us. Al Qaida used to be our friend; the name itself was given to them by the CIA and they adopted it themselves.
Every time someone says "the terrorists have already won", the only winner is liars such as Bush and Blair who claim it is a war on freedom. Until people start calling them out publically on these patriotic-manipulation lies, things like Austrailia's email snooping habits will be the tip of the iceberg.
It would, if curbing terrorism really was the goal, but it isn't. The actual goals are (in no particular order):
Terrorism is useful because it keeps the population scared. Politicians can't publicly support or endorse it, of course, but they can act in a manner that they full well know will increase terrorism. Terrorists are useless idiots at best, and paid shills doing black ops at worst.
Don't believe me? Think that people like Bush would never allow thousands of innocent people to die for his political goals? Then keep in mind that more than 2000 US soldiers (as well as, probably, a bunch of soldiers from other nations like Poland, Japan, Australia etc.) died in Iraq. Keep in mind that more than 30000 civilians died in Iraq. And keep in mind that more than 100000 people died in Afghanistan.
If politicians really cared about solving the problem, they'd take a look at how christian missionaries operate, for example. Not that I'm advocating missionary work, but you can't deny that they're successful - don't tell people that they're all a bunch of subhuman heathens, but rather set a good example; treat others as you want them to treat you, and they will do so, too. If any high-up really cared about putting an end to terrorism, they'd do this, too - and while the problem wouldn't go away immediately, it'd pretty much be history in 50 or 100 years (at least as long as people continue to respect each other).
The fact that that's not what's happening is, at the very least, evidence that what I said above is correct. Politicians aren't stupid; but if there's no possibilities outside of "stupid" and "not interested in solving the problem", then that leaves just one option.
To recap: terrorism is a useful tool. For (certain) politicians, it's like the goose that lays golden eggs - eggs of power and money. Why would they want to kill that goose?
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
"but this just seems like an overly broad license to spy."
Not that I wouldn't put it past little johnnie and friends to go "overboard".
But any closed loops may be of interest, don't forget the ip addresses and other data the wrappers are carrying.
Some said you can't read it all - agreed. But some good data mining software and a Mk1 eyeball, may find patterns - time of day, closed loops, etc that supposedly may be the justification - if any of the people do become persons of interest.
More likely it all goes into the big archive to be dredged out when thay decide to create a smear file if you rub them the wrong way.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
Most racists are too gutless to actually back up their threats. Instead, they would just rather the police lock them away, or have them live as an underclass. It's not really the hardcore, overt racists who are the real problem - they are obvious enough to ignore. It's the people who don't think they are racist "...but" who are the cancer on society.
... and then they built the supercollider.