Slashdot Mirror
Australian Government Censors Draft Snooping Laws
coolstoryhansel writes "Stating that release of the draft legislation is not in the public interest [PDF] because it would prejudice decision making processes already in train, the Attorney General's Department has denied the release of the draft laws that would see wide-scale dragnet surveillance implemented along with an expansion of law enforcement powers for the purposes of 'national security'. Serkowski, speaking for the Pirate Party who lodged the FOI request labelled the Department response as 'disgraceful and troubling' saying the decision is 'completely trashing any semblance or notion of transparency or participative democratic process of policy development.'"
Releasing the final bill as-passed by the legislature will probably not be "in the public interest" either.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
It sounds troubling, but it's hardly even a Government proposal for legislation, never mind a Bill being laid before parliament. And the decision to withhold the draft may still be appealed.
This seems to be an early draft (a bit like the ACTA negotiations, perhaps) since the grounds for withholding are:
So the Department concerned is probably committed to something like the draft, and they are trying to work out what is feasible, but the rest of the government has not yet had a chance to comment.
The appropriate response at this stage is probably (1) appeal, (2) contact representatives in government and opposition who may oppose any provisions that threaten civil liberties, and (3) use the media (and slashdot) to raise awareness that something is coming in the future.
But it is not normal to release early drafts (that have not yet been thought through properly) to the public - at that stage you could not possibly have a workable policy, and people may get very worked up about errors that the government themselves will address. Surely the time for public scrutiny is when concrete proposals are made?
Though crowdsourcing of bills might be interesting... it worked for the constitution in Iceland, didn't it?
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
There can be no democracy if institutions act in secret.
Or some civic minded government worker could leak the documents to Wikileaks. That's what it's there for.
I remember thinking when Bush was elected that I had to get out of the states before my freedoms were systematically ripped away. I didn't realize when I came to Australia just how much farther the process had already gotten here. They've effectively stifled protest and dissention and now the people are more or less owned by the government. When people started giving up their rights in the interest of protecting everyone, the personal choices taken away from them have increased manifold. I'd like to take my bicycle to the store without wearing a helmet. That's $100.00 fine. Ownership is control. Even when you own something here, the government controls it. All that being said, I would much rather deal with an Australian policeman than a US policeman. It's unlikely you'll be unfairly charged, or treated badly. I guess the nanny approach is nicer than the militant approach. The results though are insidious, however they are implemented.
When they get elected?
Err, what are you saying would be different about the situation supposing that every person in Australia did have a gun?
The traditional place has always been cryptome.org. Please note that that's the place where early Wikileaks leaks were leaked giving some of us an insight into the possibility that Wikilieaks would turn out to be less than fully competent. The question you should ask yourself is a) how do I get it there safely (the same applies to Wikileaks drop of points) and anonymously b) how do I make sure there isn't a water mark or some other code which makes the information traceable to me or someone close to me.
As far as "blow up in your face" goes, if you are relying on Wikileaks to secure yourself then you are demented. You need to make sure that any leak you do is absolutely untraceable, especially by the site that you leak through. God knows how you do that. Unsecured WiFi? Freenet + Tor? Some distant internet cafe whilst travelling in disguise by bus (to avoid license plate recognition). Whatever; keep it simple; involve the minimum number of people (that should mean one - yourself). Now that's what "inquiring minds" really want to know. The google searches around this are remarkably and interestingly useless. If you are planning to leak material then I wouldn't bother trying them :-) Remember "the issue is whether you are paranoid enough".
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
The last time the Citizenry were armed, and the country's leader (albeit in the following example, not an elected one) tried to abrogate the rights of the Citizen granted by God and reinforced in Law from the Code of Alfred onward... he was decapitated. Google Charles I and the Second English Civil War (1648-9).
Now, we're seeing - in every so-called "democracy" - the rights of the Citizen whittled away in the name of national security, which Government then arms the private security force known universally as the Police, and turns them out with little to no training and absolutely no psychological screening (I've trained police firearms officers, I should know that a lot of them are such complete idiots they should be left alone in a room with a pistol and one bullet, they'd last all of thirty seconds before removing themselves from the gene pool). Worst yet, a lot of these police officers can't even speak the first language of the country they're expected to police! To me, the enabling of a foreign armed force on domestic soil is TREASON.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
In other words, it makes him feel more manly. It does nothing to guarantee democracy, and actually does much to retard it (in both senses of the word). Having a heavily armed population just gives the government a better excuse to surveil you. None of these 2nd Amendment wackos has ever done anything to advance democracy and human rights.
Protests without guns that successfully toppled oppressive regimes include, but are not limited to:
* Phillipines, 1986
* A whole bunch of countries after the collapse of the USSR: Poland, 1988-9 Hungary, 1988-9 East Germany, 1989 Czechoslovakia, 1989 Bulgaria, 1989
* Serbia, 2000
* Georgia, 2003
* Ukraine, 2004
* Lebanon, 2005
* The "Arab Spring": Tunisia, 2011 Egypt, 2011
The point: You can resist a bad government with nothing but your bodies, your voices, and some semblence of organization, and have a decent chance of success. It's not a 100% chance of success, but neither is violent resistance.
I am officially gone from
something something terrorists