Slashdot Mirror
Australian Police Given Covert Search and Hacking Powers
An anonymous reader writes "The NSW government of Australia has quietly introduced new police powers for covert home searches and covert hacking of computers. The suspect may not be notified of the covert activity for up to three years. These new powers are similar to those given to the UK police earlier this year. The new warrants can only be issued in the Supreme Court for suspected serious offences punishable by at least seven years jail — which includes computer crime offences."
Why?
Because the voting public let them get away with it. As long as the majoriry of voters are more concerned with voting in favour of tax cuts and a harsher criminal justice system than with safeguarding civil liberties it will be so.
If you feel strongly enough about this kind of thing, don't just sit around and moan on slashdot. Become active, educate, make this an issue.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
besides what do you expect them to do, walk up to your front door with a mega phone and annouce "PREPARE TO BE COVERTLY SEARCHED!!!!"?
That's what the NSW police call "subtlety".
Blank until
Does possession of child porn carry a seven year sentence in Australia? If you have a computer, and an internet connection, you just might be downloading kiddie porn, so.... I guess they've covered pretty much anyone they want.
Because western society has degenerated to a democratic show where the public are convinced they are free because they get to choose between two essentially identical political rulers with the exact same hidden agendas.
And we have the arrogance to think we have the right to go around "liberating" other nations. Oh, the irony.
I hate printers.
"...suspected serious offences punishable by at least seven years jail â€" which includes computer crime offences."
So, they want to catch computer criminals by using the same tricks that they use?
Do the government seriously think that hackers are going to have an insecure network?
The closest they'll get to catching hackers is catching a whole bunch of script kiddies, who could be caught without needing to hack their computers.
And when court-sanctioned hacking becomes common, organized crime groups will employ hackers to secure their networks to counter the threat.
It's only going to be a short-term fix. After that, hackers will become the new guards for organizations ranging from illegal to corporations where they don't want the police snooping around without due cause.
Funny how this legislation could generate legitimate income for criminals.
And I'll leave the other members to bring up the ethical and legal issues around it.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
So, ANY investigations are wrong?
They are at least involving the judges. There has to be a warrant issued BEFORE the police can start to abuse anything.
Dear god, count your blessings. At least they did not grant the powers directly to the police themselves to be used indiscriminately. At least here the police have to show they had reasonable suspicions you were guilty of a crime that could be punished by seven years in jail.
because:
War is peace
Ignorance is knowledge
Freedom is slavery
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
It would be a mistake to assume that the police (even NSW police) are unable to find somebody to do this. They can always go to a university and get advice from Comp Sci professors, etc. This happens a lot in technical cases.
Having to be root won't stop them if they can get at the hardware, any more than it would stop me.
For an attempt at security buy a palmtop or netbook. Install netbsd and use the cryptographic disk driver on all volumes. If you have material on there which can put you away hide it with Steganography. Make sure there is plenty of innocent stuff on the CGD volumes.
Use secure channels for transmission of sensitive material but remember that increasing your cell beyond three people pretty much ensures that you will be working side to side with a spy.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It's all very well to say that it is because the voting public let them get away with it, but the voting public are not given a vote on the legislation. All they can do is vote for a representative - who then usually proceeds to represent the interests of business rather than the voter.
Voting only gets you what you want if there is a candidate who will carry out your wishes.
A society permitted to own guns are called citizens.
A society not permitted to defend against their government are subjects.
I think you know where I'm going with this...
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Western society is decadent. We care about image to the exclusion of all else. This means, among other things, that you can get away with almost anything provided you have enough influence.