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Australian Spy Agency Offered To Share Data About Ordinary Citizens

Posted by timothy on from the they're-only-ordinary-citizens dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Australian spy agencies offered to share personal information about law-abiding Australian citizens with overseas governments. This includes legal, religious and medical information, which was shared about this Canadian women. Departments in the Australian Public service has also been caught spying on citizens. Even low-ranking public servants can look up information such as phone calls and email metadata without needing a warrant. The target is not notified."

19 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. This is an outrage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Government officials behaving like Internet businessmen!

    1. Re:This is an outrage by HairyNevus · · Score: 2

      Rarely is a first-posting AC this on the money. It's like an Internet unicorn (the good kind, not the kind that watches kid's TV shows from the basement).

      --
      You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
  2. Privacy != Paranoia by SirGarlon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All the way back in 1995, when I first started using the World Wide Web, some users were advocating for strong privacy protections. We were ignored, then laughed at, then insulted with the "tinfoil hat" labrel.

    Are you ready to reconsider our point, that society is better off if governments are corporations do NOT have free reign to collect, store, and mine as much data about us as they want?

    --
    [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    1. Re:Privacy != Paranoia by fluffythedestroyer · · Score: 4, Funny

      crap... they'll know I went on porn sites...my life is ruined :)

    2. Re:Privacy != Paranoia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Not really no, you had the problem upside down. You need to get data about the governments and corporations.

      See, in your world what happens is that snooping is illegal, and it still happens but you've said it's illegal and when occasionally the cracks show and you realise you were spied on you rant and rave but ultimately you can't do anything about it. Like now.

      Whereas if you demand transparency then yes, everybody knows you like furry porn or whatever, but you now know if the government are trying to hide anything from you because to hide something it would need to avoid the transparency that everybody would know they were entitled to.

    3. Re:Privacy != Paranoia by sumdumass · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They will know more than that. They can determine if you have an affair, a medical condition that could potentially harm your ability in other areas like how AIDS patients were originslly treated as outcasts with leprosy or something.

      Of course stuff like that may not matter to people who think the government should be in charge of their medical and all those aspects of life. But when your neighbor gets killed in a drug deal gone bad, disapeArs, and the government decides because you purchased lime for you garden, kives for your kitchen, large garbage bags, a shovel, new mattress and area rug for your bedroom, all within thE last 2 months- one of which your neighbor was missing, and decides you killed her because you also looked at a page about scott peterson, you will think differently about those dangers.

      There have been people convicted for crimes primarily on circumstantial evidence. Traditionally, something connected them to the crime outside of that but what happens when there are no leads and they search your metadata and decide you are the most likely match for the criminal behind it? I know, you have nothing to hide.

    4. Re:Privacy != Paranoia by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, it's worse than that. What will undoubtedly affect most people is not the power imbalance between the individual and the government as a whole, but the tremendous power imbalance between an individual and the lowest tier public worker that has access to that information. When your local policeman will be browsing your daughter's naked photos (that she took in the shower with her cell phone) while contemplating which would be better to coerce her into sex, her confession about cheating in French class, smoking a joint once a year ago, or going on a date with two different people without them knowing it; and when you find out, and the same person will threaten you with being arrested for anything he could make up he saw in the surveillance, put you on a watch list, destroy your life.... that's when you will realize how far the power separation has gone.

      Take it from someone who was brought up in the Soviet Union - even the lowliest civil servant had power, and exercised it. There was no action without bribery, and there was not even a concept of freedom... not because of power coming from the top down, but because the system was so skewed at a traffic cop could pull you over, rob you, rape your wife, then kill you both, and if anyone witnessed it, they'd keep their mouth shut.

      Power corrupts.

      If you give someone absolute access to your information (even forgetting the concept that the latter will likely mean absolute access to making stuff up), you given them absolute power over you.

    5. Re:Privacy != Paranoia by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If you want to see a colorful illustration of the above, find and watch a movie called "Lives of Others". It's a German film about Stasi surveillance in the late GDR period and its abuse by people in the system for blackmail etc.

  3. Alright, that's it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    In retaliation, from this point forward I'm going to make jokes about Australia being a country full of dim-witted criminals.

    Q: What did the government do the public servant who broken into private computers and stole private data?
    A: Awarded him with Australia's highest prize for thievery, the Stealybaloo Award.

    1. Re:Alright, that's it by gmuslera · · Score: 2

      make jokes about Australia being a country governed by dim-witted criminals

      FTFY

      Oh, wait, thats no joke.

  4. Mad as hell and I aint gonna take it anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I've never been much of a fan of democracy (well democracy as we call it in Australia). As such we need someone to play watchdog to the corrupt government officials who bleed our wallets and souls dry. I would have thought that this was the Governor General's responsibility; if not then who or what can we do to expose the government when they don't act in our interests or good faith?

    1. Re:Mad as hell and I aint gonna take it anymore by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 2

      I've never been much of a fan of democracy (well democracy as we call it in Australia). As such we need someone to play watchdog to the corrupt government officials who bleed our wallets and souls dry. I would have thought that this was the Governor General's responsibility; if not then who or what can we do to expose the government when they don't act in our interests or good faith?

      Your government DOES have a watchdog -- it's called the American Government. Unfortunately, the interests its watching out for probably don't line up with your own.

      As for the GG, the GG is a representative of the Queen in her role as Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith. Unfortunately, she's even more of a figurehead in this role than she is in her role as Queen of the United Kingdom. So if things get REALLY bad, the GG can halt parliament and force the people to elect a new one -- but other than that, there's not much that can be done from that angle.

  5. Suck it cold fjord! by Desler · · Score: 2

    That these came from leaked Snowden documents can't be true. cold fjord told us that Snowden's leaks were only to harm the US government and would never include things about other governments. *rolls eyes*

  6. Re:The womans case was her fault. by TheP4st · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The book were published in 2009, the agent that prevented her entry specifically referred to a hospitalization that took place in 2012. How did they know about events that should be shielded under patient privacy laws and took place years after publishing of mentioned book? Unless you can point to a source describing her 2012 hospitalization that were publicly available at the time of her entry denial, then I'd say that her story have a very interesting place in this matter.

    --
    "I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
  7. Where is this leading? by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The interesting thing to me is how little(except for places like /., etc;) extrapolation is done regarding our erosion of privacy and rights.
    No one seems to think we are on a slippery slope here.

    Yes, I know it's BEYOND trite and redundant to quote or reference Orwells' 1984, but hey, a guy having to stand in the corner of his apartment to stay out of view of telescreens and microphones is essentially where we are headed.

    We are almost there now.

    --
    We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
    1. Re:Where is this leading? by TheMeuge · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No one seems to think we are on a slippery slope here.

      Not anymore. I think we're long past it. We're like Wile E Coyote... we've run off the cliff, just haven't fully realized it yet.

  8. Australian / Canadian ? by alexo · · Score: 2

    This includes legal, religious and medical information, which was shared about this Canadian women.

    How does the Australian spy agency share medical data on a Canadian woman?

  9. Obligatory Blade Runner quote by sandbagger · · Score: 2

    'If you're not cop, you're little people.'

    --
    ---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
  10. Credit where credit is due by gumpish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why doesn't the summary mention Snowden?