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

Ah, but I know all the tricks

[iminplaya]

Like putting a single eyelash on the door to see if it's been opened. But the better trick is the ol' bucket of water on top.

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...

[Capsaicin]

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.

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

[MrNaz]

Why?

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.

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

[tg123]

As a first step, the cops should target one of their own for secret investigation. Will they do it?

I agree with you, However there are two issues that come to mind

1) the mind set : police in australia will not arrest there own. http://blogs.news.com.au/news/crime/index.php/news/comments/policing_the_police/

2) Investigations into police can bring up more dirt then they can handle . http://www.theage.com.au/national/police-watchdog-sacks-own-investigator-20090304-8oic.html

How would Peter Costello or Nathan Rees react if they were targeted for such an investigation?

The investigators would be told to cease. The powers that be know that the damage would be too great.

Why don't the politicians confiscate the super annuation of corrupt politicians ? What prevents them passing such a law?

[sarcasm warning] What are you suggesting that they get denied there right? every politician knows that if they serve the time they get the rewards.

Also for a lot of politicians its there retirement fund, imagine if they got caught doing something naughty and they had to go into a nursing home with the great unwashed - (the horror)

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?

there bastards

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.

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

[Heather D]

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.

Treating Australia like a country of criminals?

[Tyrannicalposter]

Oh wait, I forgot.

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.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a positive step AFAIK.

Oh really? If you were a New South Welshman, would you rethink that knowing these tidbits?

From the first article:

These powers are more powerful than those available to the federal police when dealing with terrorism suspects," NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy said. "These are exactly the types of laws that led to a huge police corruption problem in NSW in the past. It is going to lead to more police corruption. Why would the NSW Police need more power in dealing with ordinary criminals than the federal police does in dealing with terrorists?

And from the second:

Police have welcomed the new laws but Australian Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman says they are open to abuse.

"Clearly, if the police are able to search a person's home without anyone being present, the police will be in the position to plant evidence," he said.

If you think this is just tinfoil hat paranoia, perhaps you haven't heard of the Wood Royal Commission. There's good reason to be wary of the police of NSW, and I say that despite being someone who might not be alive today were it not for a detective's hard work.

Re:Does not sound so bad

[davester666]

At least they still have to ask for warrants.

In the US, evidently the FISA court couldn't rubber-stamp warrants fast enough, so now you can go a week before even applying for a warrant for a wiretap, and even if the warrant is denied (which historically is remarkably rare), they don't have to actually lift the wiretap until AFTER all appeals have been completed. And they don't have to destroy the tapes if the final appeal denies the wiretap.

But this is still NOT a positive step, IMHO. It's just not as bad as what other countries have done/are doing.

Re:Does not sound so bad

[EdIII]

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.

Re:Does not sound so bad

[giarcgood]

If you think this is just tinfoil hat paranoia, perhaps you haven't heard of the Wood Royal Commission. There's good reason to be wary of the police of NSW, and I say that despite being someone who might not be alive today were it not for a detective's hard work.

I have said this for more years than I care to remember, the NSW Police are the best police force that money can buy.

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?

Never forget the past Australia: state, fed files

[AHuxley]

Australia will so misuse this.
Any computer internet use will be a "computer crime".

Also recall the total force wide corruption. In Australia it *was* not who is corrupt, the only question *was* anyone not corrupt.
If /. readers want to understand what was done in my state:
Political surveillance and the South Australian Police
http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/lcj/wayward/ch7t.html

The NSW STATE government IN Australia

[Swampash]

This is a state law, not a federal one. The headline is misleading in that it contains the words "government of Australia" in that order. It still sucks, but it's not a national law.

Re:I don't see the problem.

[Farmer Tim]

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".

Yawn

[liamoshan]

So the NSW state police have been given the same powers that other state police forces/services and the Federal Police already have? Who cares?

As has already been pointed out, it's under the same type of arrangements as other Australian agencies are subject to: Court ordered warrants. Not just any court, but the Supreme Court of NSW.

When applying for a warrant, the police must provide convincing reasons to the judge, and the contents of these warrants come out in court if a prosecution results. Somehow I don't think "he looks funny" is going to cut it.

I think this is a reasonable use of police powers, with suitable checks and balances in place

Re:Yawn

[tg123]

So the NSW state police have been given the same powers that other state police forces/services and the Federal Police already have? Who cares?

As has already been pointed out, it's under the same type of arrangements as other Australian agencies are subject to: Court ordered warrants. Not just any court, but the Supreme Court of NSW.

When applying for a warrant, the police must provide convincing reasons to the judge, and the contents of these warrants come out in court if a prosecution results. Somehow I don't think "he looks funny" is going to cut it.

I think this is a reasonable use of police powers, with suitable checks and balances in place

Have you ever heard of THE YELDHAM SCANDAL? http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/dissent/documents/health/yeldham.html

basicly Mr yeldham was a pet supreme court judge that the police used when they wanted to do nasty things.

really juicy reading a quote " Mr. Yeldham, a retired supreme court judge in New South Wales committed suicide when he was subpoenaed to appear before a Royal Commission inquiring into police corruption and the protection of paedophiles."

just about everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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.

Re:just about everyone

[daveime]

No you have it all backwards ...

1 - Implement the power to search without warrant anyone suspected of a 7 year jailable offence.
2 - Get that law passed
3 - Make EVERY crime punishable by a 7 year jail sentence
4 - Privatise the prison system, float them on the stock market, and buy lots of shares.
5 - ????
6 - Profit !

What do they mean by "hacking"

[pwizard2]

I wonder what kind of "hacking" this will entail, and if they took computers with decent security into account. Owning a typical default-user-is-root-and-runs-MSIE Windows box is not very difficult, but I would like them to see them try that on a well secured Linux or BSD box with a competent administrator. Without root access, the police aren't going to get very far.

So, they want to catch computer criminals?

[Sparx139]

"...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.

Re:So, they want to catch computer criminals?

[timmarhy]

your over estimating what a police hack involves. installing some spyware on your laptop while you are out of the house is the extent of their abilities. run linux or even just run a screen saver password will defeat them. hell i'd bet $50 a decent virus scanner will pick their activities via hueristics.

So Australia will be the first

[iminplaya]

to have Kangaroo Courts for real?

Re:Somebody should make programs to tell you

[Mathinker]

OTOH, if you booby trap your home in anticipation of or in response to ssuspected warrantless or sneak-and-peek operations, then, again, THEY ASKED FOR IT if they get hurt. You don't have to be a criminal to want to punish sneak-and-peek activity. After all, ANYONE in your abode who is not invited is a trespasser, even a paramedic if they insist on remaining present after realizing there is no emergency, no body, no blood, no validity in being present at the address because the address is WRONG due to admittedly a faulty dispatch order...

I don't know how Australian law approaches this, but in the US, you'd be guilty of reckless endangerment, and anyone, even a criminal who breaks into your house, who is injured by your traps can sue you for damages in civil court. He would, of course, have to show intention on your part (i.e., if you make the trap look unintentional enough, you might be OK, as long as no one who knows you testifies that you kept the situation dangerous for long periods of time).

A quick search leads me to "the law in England and Wales, .... There 'Offences Against The Person Act 1861 s 31' makes it an offense to set up a mechanical contrivance calculated to destroy human life or cause grievous bodily harm."

I think a better "trap" would be to have your computers automatically erase all the encryption keys in memory and shut down, the minute any intrusion is detected. Unfortunately, this won't help you against the police planting hardware keyloggers and other unpleasant stuff.

Do you have what it takes?

[localoptimum]

Police Entrance Exam

Question 1 Please demonstrate the correct police procedure for gathering evidence from the rogue website "www.nastyTerrorPaedophiles.org".

Your answer

freedom4all:~$ nmap -A -T4 www.nastyTerrorPaedophiles.org
Interesting ports on www.nastyTerrorPaedophiles.org:
Not shown: 1688 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE VERSION
22/tcp open ssh (protocol 2.0)
.
.
.
freedom4all:~$ ssh root@www.nastyTerrorPaedophiles.org
root@www.nastyTerrorPaedophiles.org's password:[britneyspears]
Permission denied, please try again.
root@www's password: [poshspice]
Permission denied, please try again.
root@www's password: [thepiratebay]
Last login: Mon Mar 2 22:58:01 2009 from disarray.nastyTerrorPaedophiles.org
root@www:~$ ls -l
total 13
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2009-02-27 09:01 My_Terror_Plans
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4096 2009-02-27 09:05 My_Child_Porn_Movies
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 2009-02-27 09:09 My_BitTorrent_Files
.
.

Re:News response...

[daveime]

What's that Skippy ?

The drugs are hidden in the old mine ?
The police are hiding in the back of the farm ?
And little Jimmy has been taken out once and for all ?

Skippy, Skippy, Skippy the crack Kangeroo ...
Skippy, Skippy, there's a laser on his head for me and you ...
(Sorry, doesn't scan very well)

Re:What do they mean by "hacking"

[MichaelSmith]

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.

Noteable Differences

[flyneye]

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...