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Draconian Australian Research Law Hits Scientists
An anonymous reader writes: The Australian government is pushing ahead with a draconian law placing "dual use" science (e.g. encryption, biotechnology) under the control of the Department of Defence. The Australian ACLU, Civil Liberties Australia, warns the law punishes scientists with $400,000 fines, 10 years in jail and forfeiture of their work, just for sending an "inappropriate" e-mail.
Scientists — including the academics union — warn the laws are unworkable despite attempted improvements, and will drive researchers offshore (paywalled: mirror here).
Scientists — including the academics union — warn the laws are unworkable despite attempted improvements, and will drive researchers offshore (paywalled: mirror here).
If they criminalize research and communication regarding IT security, they will soon be without it. That is basically suicide in today's Internet.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Whisteblowers have been sent to Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass Penitentiaries under the odious Espionage Act at a higher rate under Obama than all previous presidents combined.
But Petraeus, who casually flashed Specially Compartmented Information - a much higher classification than any of the Top Secret information released by Manning to Wikilieaks - just to impress his mistress, will only face probation.
Or the cable operator who was sentenced to years in jail for carrying a Hezbollah tv channel, because it's on a State Department list of terror groups, while at the same time prominent politicians from both parties openly accepted large amounts of money from MEK to lobby on the group's behalf. A group also....on the State Departments list of terror groups.
So we could see the same thing in Australia. Defense contractors will be free to skirt the law and sell to any shifty customer. People who annoy the state, though, will feel the full force of the law.