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."

Comments

The Cops should target one of their own or...

[freedom_india]

As a first step, the cops should target one of their own for secret investigation. Will they do it?
How would Peter Costello or Nathan Rees react if they were targeted for such an investigation?
Why don't the politicians confiscate the super annuation of corrupt politicians?
What prevents them passing such a law?
And last of all, why are politicians around the world so intent on destroying the last shred of privacy of the Common man under the guise of terrorism?
First USA (thanks Bush), UK, Australia, Germany and lastly even Canada.
Why?

Re:The Cops should target one of their own or...

[freedom_india]

don't just sit around and moan on slashdot. Become active, educate, make this an issue.

No. Did NOT just sit ariund and moan.
In the country am presently, in, the Indian Government already has repealed the US-equivalent of PATRIOT Act and has no intention of bringing it back.
Secondly, the parliment has passed a law that outlaws arrests by cops without due warning.
Meaning, they can't just barge into my house, drag me away screaming with a no-knock warrant. They gotta serve me with a written paper detailing charged against me, wait for 15 days and if meanwhile the court doesn't stop, they can arrest me.
Yes, the usual local neocons (lawyers) protested this saying it will help criminals escape.
But the local protests supporting the law were a LOT HUGE overwhelming the neocons.
As a result all political parties have started supporting it, since they risk losing their seats otherwise.
Third, the Supreme Court has strongly supported the law and says it balances the rights and has said that even though the law will let a few criminals escape, it will allow many innocents avoid being arrested in first place.
Talk about grassroots democracy!

Re:The Cops should target one of their own or...

[freedom_india]

UK and India share the commonwealth policies: Child abuse, terrorism, murder extraditions.
USA and India share the UN rules: --ditto--.
Beyond that nothing much.
Add to that the Election Commission is as fiercely independent as possible and competition pretty hot amongst politicians.

Net Neutrality is already a law since 2001 here (not many indians know this), and local providers who attempted to subvert it were quickly shut down by Telecom Ministry. However the maximum bandwidth is about 2Mbps anywhere for individual connections. 8Mbps is available for business connections.
The remaining ISPs are wiser now.
But the ISPs rally don't care what you do with it. Once you pay them about $112 per month for unlimited, they leave you alone.

The Central Banker whips errant banks into shape quickly (15 days maximum time to respond). I have used the facility to complain about 4 banks regarding personal loans, credit cards and fraud. All the time, when the local branch of Indian Fed "enquired" to the errant bank, they responded positively and either waived the excess charges or refunded deducted money or in one case sent me the original note of someone else's mortgage!
Yeah, the Fed here is hard task master. Its officers are recruited from inside and from colleges. And the Governer is answerable to the Government every six months. It has a huge independence, and considers every bank to be a criminal unless the bank proves otherwise.
Which means if you complain to the Fed about a particular bank's practices, you get default judgement many a time unless the bank manages to convince the Fed otherwise with proof acceptable to you(which means you get judgement).

Courts have become increasingly aggressive in dealing with cops violating rules and impose mandatory imprisonments and fines on them. (of course some elected officials shouted against this practice and threatened laws, but backed down when the court threatened them with contempt of court).

The local FOIA is like a bible to these guys. File a request and you can be guaranteed of information within 7 days. hell some even invite you to their office, share coffee with you, and send you with information.
A couple of officials thought they were above FOIA, and the courts swiftly imprisoned them. Shook the esablishment so much that now they bend backwards to be open even without an FOIA.
I was able to change the property tax evaluations, electricity information and charges just by talking to the commissioner about FOIA.

Does not sound so bad

[EdIII]

I usually get upset when I hear about new powers being granted to the U.S, U.K, and Australia. However, all of those involve searches that violate the 4th amendment (U.S) and our privacy and do not have the checks and balances provided for by the judicial courts.

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.

They seem to be asking for warrants, and at a high level. That does not seem so bad, and in fact is all that I am really asking for. Checks and balances.

This is a positive step AFAIK.

Re:Does not sound so bad

[Mista2]

There also needs to bee immediate disclosure if the search comes up empty. That way teh searches will only be done if they actually have something concrete rather than just going on fishing expidetitons.
Oh , I'm sorry Mr Human Rights activist, we didnt find any child porn on your computer this time, but I'm sure well get SOMETHING next time after the keylogger we installed reports back to us.

It does worry me when even for the best reasons the police are given permission to act in secret. I mean, there has NEVER been a crooked cop in NSW has there?

Re:Treating Australia like a country of criminals?

[Goldenjera]

Some people actually paid to come to this country. Australia is full of land, something the U.K. did not have very much of.

Politically - Australia is full of people who do not understand the internet (for example - that internet filtering thing) and will not vote for a government which understands the internet, and respects our civil liberties.