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.'"

Comments

And when passed...

[AliasMarlowe]

Releasing the final bill as-passed by the legislature will probably not be "in the public interest" either.

Re:And when passed...

[L4t3r4lu5]

You're still not reducing it down as far as it can go.

"This bill is not in the public interest, so we're not allowing the public to see it."

And when passed,one more step to Police State

[FriendlyLurker]

Labor & Liberal yet again **voting together** to preserve and extend a _privatised_ police state in Australia, extend surveillance of Australian citizens without any oversight.

for example:

Flawed cybercrime Bill dodges national security inquiry
20 Aug 2012 | Scott Ludlam
Broadband, Communications & the Digital Economy

The Australian Government is pursuing a draconian cybercrime law scheduled for debate in the Senate tonight despite warnings from its own MPs and before an inquiry into national security legislation has taken evidence or reported, the Greens said today.

The Greens communications spokesperson, Senator for Western Australia Scott Ludlam, said Labor's cybercrime legislation would open the door to Australians' private data being shared with agencies overseas.

"This proposed law goes well beyond the already controversial European convention on which it is based, and no explanation has been provided as to why. The European Treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian Bill does. It also leaves the door open for Australia to assist in prosecutions which could lead to the death penalty overseas. These flaws must be addressed before the Bill proceeds."

Senator Ludlam said the Government had addressed only one of a range of problems identified by a unanimous Parliamentary committee on the legislation.

"The Government ignored a series of recommendations from MPs on all sides of Parliament, and fixed one embarrassing drafting flaw that would have prevented accession to the European Convention and invalidated the whole point of the Bill.

"The Attorney General's Department did the bare minimum they thought necessary to acknowledge the existence of the critical and unanimous committee report. The Government was urged by its own MPs to fix this legislation but chose to leave it as is. The national security legislation review - which will be looking at a highly controversial data retention proposal - has barely begun, yet the Government has now brought a key piece of enabling legislation forward.

"We have recommended a number of improvements to the bill including fixing these flaws and clarifying the Ombudsman's powers to inspect and audit compliance with the preservation regime."

They dream themselves your master.

[MnemonicMan]

"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."

Re:They dream themselves your master.

[Sabriel]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sid_Meier's_Alpha_Centauri

early days... nip it in the bud?

[feepcreature]

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:

• the material is still in draft form
• the material has not gone through the necessary whole-of-government review and approval processes; and
• to release such material at this stage would, in [the bureaucrat's] view, prejudice the current negotiations and decision making processes which are in train

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?

This is why we need Wikileaks

[FoolishOwl]

There can be no democracy if institutions act in secret.

Super-Nanny State

[neurosine]

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.

Re:People First

[J.J. Dane]

When they get elected?

Re:Aussies, now you know why...

[dkleinsc]

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.

Re:Aussies, now you know why...

[d3ac0n]

Ok, but none of these are western democracies

And SOMEONE does not know their Western history! (Not surprising given the utter lack of proper history teaching in the West for the last 30 years. Thanks for that, Baby Boomers!)

By 1776 the Magna Carta had been in force in England for over 100 years. England was then, as now, a monarchic Democracy, and certainly a Western state (Actually, they were THE Western State at that point in history.) This is, of course, what led to the American revolution. The colonists felt that they were being made serfs again by lack of representation in Parliament. After years of protests and complaints and a series of political, social and police assaults by the crown on the colonies (designed to suppress dissent) the colonies banded together and revolted. The large scale presence of arms in the colonies attributed in part to the success of the revolution.

Nazi Germany was a Western Democracy prior to Nazi takeover. Hitler's election to Chancellor was by popular vote. It wasn't until after his election to Chancellor and subsequent seizing of power through political subterfuge (like having the army swear allegiance to HIM rather than to Germany or the German Constitution) that the people began to get a sense that there was a problem.

Unfortunately for them, one of the first laws that Hitler passed even BEFORE seizing full Dictatorial power was to outlaw private gun ownership. He knew that an armed populace was a dangerous and uncontrollable populace, even when doped up on the Nazi propaganda that was inescapable in Germany at the time.

So yes, Having an armed and engaged populace is antithetical to anyone that would seek to rule them by force. This includes Australia.

Re:EU's Clean IT is the same

[MightyMartian]

Has Australia have no brave MPs who could stand up, invoke Parliamentary privilege, and make people aware of the more noxious aspects of the legislation?

I mean, how, in the post-Glorious Revolution age of Parliamentary democracy can a government submit a secret law to a Parliament in any of the Commonwealth Realms and have it passed? Something like this would have been seen even in Queen Anne's time as a violation of Parliament's authority and dignity.