Slashdot Mirror
Australian Journalist Arrested, Released After Detailing Facebook Flaws
CuteSteveJobs writes "Yesterday Australian journalist Ben Grubb was arrested by police at an IT Security Conference after an article Grubb wrote about vulnerabilities in Facebook's privacy controls was published on Fairfax media websites. Grubb was later released, but police have confiscated his iPad. Late last month police tried to force fellow Fairfax journalist Linton Besser into revealing who leaked information about corruption. At the time, Fairfax editor Peter Fray called it an unprecedented attack on the freedom of the press. Australia has no explicit right to free speech and lacks shield laws to protect investigative journalists from having to reveal sources."
We should invade Australia to help bring democracy to the region?
...was that he published a photo that the presenter obtained without permission from the private profile of the wife of another security researcher (that the presenter publicly acknowledges that he doesn't like). The vulnerability disclosure does seem to be very very childish and unethical. The re-publishing of the photo does seem to be unethical too, but not illegal, which i assume is why he hasn't been charged with any offence.
in the USA, Judith Miller was thrown in jail for refusing to reveal a source
James Risen has been subpoenad about the source for his book on the CIA
one of those suspected of being his source, Jeffrey Sterling, is under an Espionage Act prosecution, with possible 10 years jail time, for talking about CIA mistakes in the late 1990s.
Then there is Stephen Kim, another Espionage act case; his crime? telling a reporter North Korea might test a nuke.
Then there is Stephen Drake, espionage act case, for whistleblowing against the NSA ... several of his friends homes were raided by the FBI, guns drawn. one of them is a diabetic with one leg. as
One of the UK ambassadors to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, wrote 2 books about what he saw there; torture, rape, abuse, violence, mass slavery, murder, all committed by our 'ally' in the 'global war on terror'. oh and i forgot to mention the children being anally raped in front of their relatives to force confessions about being in league with al qaeda.
in the US, our ambassadors said nothing. when some kid, Bradley Manning, dumps a bunch of their emails, he gets thrown in solitary, naked, 23 hours a day, being asked every 5 minutes 'are you OK'.
so no, i personally find australia's laws and UK's laws to be ridiculous. but the US is kind of moving in the same direction. The Espionage Act in particular, is becoming a de-facto State Secrets Act by virtue of our past 2 presidents, our court system, our media, and our education system.
its bad all over.
I know poking a stick at foreign jurisdictions is a popular past time on Slashdot (and this is sometimes with good reason) but it would be nice if blanket statements weren't thrown around quite so much about the state of laws in other countries. As usual with most things in life, the situations is generally more complex than can be summed up in a sentence or two.
From the summary:
"Australia has no explicit right to free speech and lacks shield laws to protect investigative journalists from having to reveal sources."
Though this isn't an inaccurate statement at a high level, it's not quite true...
Australia has no ~constitutional~ right to free speech, in that its Constitution does not contain a Bill of Rights like the American one. This is not unusual - most Westminster democracies have no such thing and generally have rights conferred by common law (case law) and/or statutory rights. And at least two jurisdictions DO have "explicit rights" to freedom of expression in Australia - the ACT and Victoria, which both have (statutory) 'Bills of Rights'.
Incidentally there have been proposals to introduce a constitutional Bill of Rights in the past. They have not been successful. There are as many arguments against an entrenched and absolute statement of rights, as there are for one - there are pros and cons in each case.
And as for shield laws - again, the jurisdiction matters. One state, NSW, does indeed have a shield law. The others don't, although I believe WA and a couple of others are working on one at the moment. However, as of March this year, a Federal shield law also passed both houses of the Federal Parliament in March this year and is currently awaiting Royal Assent.
So basically, Australia has some shield laws that may or may not apply depending on the case. In a NSW or Federal court, or a case regarding the NSW or Federal Police or a NSW or Federal law, yes, there are shield laws that apply. Otherwise, no, not at this point in time.
"We've all seen it happen on TV a zillion times. But when a police officer recited to me those well-rehearsed words – 'you have the right to remain silent ' – I felt sick in the stomach."
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/technology-news/grubbs-story-privacy-news-and-the-strong-arm-of-the-law-20110518-1esn9.html
The Policeman who confiscated Grubb's iPad was Detective Superintendent Errol Coultis. "When I questioned under what legislation they had the right to seize my iPad, Coultis told me I was under arrest in relation to receiving unlawfully obtained property." Head of the Queensland police fraud squad, Brian Hay said accessing a photo without permission was the same as stealing a TV.
Amusingly the "Queensland Police Media Service" are into twitter damage control: "Police can legally seize material which may be evidence of a crime. It will be returned as soon as we can do so."
Grubb said "I was told that forensics officers were going to make a complete copy of the information on my iPad, whether it related to this matter or not."
An absolutely disgraceful peformance by the Queensland Police involved.