Slashdot Mirror
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).
I think kangaroos, and draconian laws. They conservatives are the way they are because of fear. Is this because everything in Australia can kill you?
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.
Per a spokesweasel(in TFA): "Some academic research uses proliferation-sensitive controlled goods and technologies. While the sensitive items are used for legitimate civilian research by Australian researchers, they can also be used for the proliferation of military, nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. "
Notice anything odd? The word 'military' shows up along the usual trio of "nuclear, chemical, biological". Last I checked, the boundaries of 'military weapons' were very, very, broad, running the gamut from fancy-nuclear-power aerospace widgetry to relatively crude hand-fabricated small arms more or less loosely based on designs dating back to the first half of the 20th century, if not older.
Is there some stricter definition of 'military weapons' that makes this slightly less ridiculous, or are they in fact export-controlling basically any tech you could conceivably integrate into a weapon in some fashion, including weapons already extremely widely available, adequately functional with downright crude technology, and otherwise utterly absurd to pretend are still within the reach of counter-proliferation efforts?
if there were some foundational document that codified your right to both military weapons and speech of all sorts, and prohibited the government from passing laws restricting either.
Australian geeks and scientists: The weather is also nice in Silicon Valley, and they pay better. Do you really need another reason to leave?
Actually, yes.
Beer/Alcohol research has always multipurpose; from basic food preservation (under similar conditions water goes bad faster than beer) to potential health benefits (red wine (in moderation) can be good for you).
Meanwhile, the Kiwis are doing everything they can to build a prosperous biotechnology industry. The government has been heavily promoting a "knowledge-based economy" for nearly a decade. If you're working in Australia, trained in biotech, and would like to work with less tax, fear, and general oppression then why not leave the matrix and give NZ a go.
Because it seems to criminalize a wide swath of legitimate civilian research. From TFA
high-performance, neural, optical and fault-tolerant, computers,
electronics,
wavelength research (remember, wi-fi was ‘invented’ in Australia),
heat-shielding,
telecommunications,
information security research,
robotics,
human, animal and plant pathogens, both bacterial and viral,
fibre optics,
cryptography.
satellite technology.
sensor technology.
signal and image processing.
composite materials, andthe list could go on and on.
This effectively criminalizes half of all science related activity at colleges. It's not just the best and brightest it's literally asking the A ark to sail in some kind of reverse HHGTG parody.
What this law actually does is drive any serious research out of Australia to other countries. Like say, China. Well done.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Next they'll outlaw talking about, researching, or planning for climate change, evolution, genetic research, and such. The poor sods had better move to America as quickly as possible.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
As an Australian who grew up loving my country... I am fucking glad I left more than 5 years ago.
Australia is slowly turning to shit. :/
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
The The Defence and Strategic Goods List includea :
" “Microprocessor microcircuits”, “microcomputer microcircuits” and microcontroller microcircuits, manufactured from a compound semiconductor and operating at a clock frequency exceeding 40 MHz;
Note: 3A001.a.3. includes digital signal processors, digital array processors and digital coprocessors."
See http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/F2013C00051
CATEGORY 3 — ELECTRONICS, 3A001
I'm speechless :-(
contains processor or
The "Left" and the "Right" are both the "Same" - e.g. "the ruling class".
Voters are just the "little people".
Notice how power shifts from one to the other and they keep adding bricks, each to their own wall, but neither side takes down bits the other side has put up?
Someday, the walls will meet and you will be on the outside...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
... is a factor here. If you can constrain your academics for "defense", then you can more easily constrain them for "IP" reasons as well. And there's no bigger business than defense.
I'm glad to hear that someone is trying to out-stupid *my* country.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
I take it you missed the article saying that no consumption of alcohol is good for you, and the previous studies failed to take other factors into account before announcing their findings that alcohol could be beneficial?
The Berlin wall was not built to keep people on the outside.
And that is why it failed...
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Well in its defense, communism fails faster if you can't keep people from leaving.
Those studies are wrong.
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.
I'm outraged by this law, sure.
But I'm doubly outraged that I had to read on slashdot that this just passed the senate and there has been ZERO coverage of this in the mainstream media. Shame on you Fairfax, News Ltd and ABC. You went to sleep and betrayed us.
I would be outraged, except Australia really hasn't got a tech industry. Try naming a CPU developed here since 1995....Good luck. same with Applications. I can't name a single top ten application that was written in Australia and I can barely list some games that were developed here. Australia's high tech industry is essentially dead. We do some minor solar research, never fund it enough and barely make anything any more. Hell we can't even make cars after 2017. We're the tourism/mining/agriculture country. Just waiting for a giant housing crash to wipe out all the savings now. We're more over leveraged than the US was before the GFC.
If the cops aren't required to arrest everyone who commits any arrestable defense, then by definition you have selective enforcement. Our entire system of law is actually designed for it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...
http://www.themalthouse.co.nz/blog/125-the-beer-of-revenge
Louis Pasteur's beer is the basis of Fosters.
The USA already did that for a while, hence RSA having to do their work offshore for many years due to utterly insane export restrictions.
I very strongly disagree - it's quickly turning to shit. Full steam ahead into the cliff and nothing slow about it.
Cutting everything other than quarrying when the mining boom is over is onion skin eating insane.
It seems a bit much for me to swallow that this single study is going to refute decades of many studies all at once. Who cares for everyone else is saying moderate consumption is good, they're all wrong. Soon we'll find out that fruits really aren't that good for us because they have sugar in them. The new recommendation is to never eat any fruits.
I want to see more research on the subject.
http://www.jcu.edu.au/cgc/Beer...
From http://www.jcu.edu.au/cgc/Beer...
So does capitalism.
That is all.
if your live is in jeopardy in Australia, you might consider coming to western Europe. We do not have wild animals with bags running through the outback. However, we have a real diverse set of climates and the best of it, we are not already that rotten that we have such laws. (Please note: It might be different in the UK).
The law is even stupid. What happens when the person leaves the country? Will they arrest scientists for leaving the country? This would mean that everyone in science working on security issues will now make plans for departing Australia. Especially, foreigners will think twice to stay there. And it sucks, if you cannot publish. If you cannot publish you cease to exist.
What would you say, when they hold a "gun" to your head? They have been in a bipartisan board where one side are military guys and the government and on the other side are scientists entangled with universities and the government spending in that area. The alternative would have been total containment. That's how such things run. On one side human rights and on the other side "security" and power. In the end you have to compromise. And human rights are restricted.
So do you just pick and chose what studies you believe?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
They could move to Europe.
Someone should show time MacGyver. They will limit access to toilet paper, knifes etc.
Instead of making their homework politicians try to control knowledge. Beside the fact that this ever backfired in history, it is also stupid in terms of the economy. Europe will rather sooner then later reduce its demand on coal and China is also doing it. Other natural resources are also limited and will not support the country for ever. You could see what happens to a country which has a ideological closed view of the world if you look at Venezuela. While it is important to give the poor schools and food, they messed it up, as they are totally oil dependent. In Australia this could go the same way, if the scientific community is frightened and leaves the country. By the way what do they think they can do about those Chinese studying in Australia, are their no longer allowed to take their heads with them?
I've heard those people in charge in AUS are Christians. Well recently, a British cleric stated that it is immoral to reject the gift of knowledge http://www.theguardian.com/env... and that is exactly that what they are doing.
One thing that I can't stand is those whiners, especially those who call themselves Scientists but still prefer to non-stop whining rather than DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
They sat already at the table with the defense guys. That law is the best they could haggle out. In democracy, you only can fix such things if you are able to alert the public to the topic. Scientist tried, but failed on that. So what they are now stating it the obvious. People who do not like that law will leave.
So they threaten that the law will drive researchers offshore ... but to where? To New Zealand? To Samoa? To Indonesia?
What about the EU? Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, France, Italy? There are a couple of countries who look for talented scientist.
Bigamy is legal?
That doesn't make any sense. Nobody is trying to escape capitalist countries to get to communist ones (unless they're some kind of wanted felon or something.) It always has been the other way around, which is why communist countries have to forbid their citizenry from leaving, and was the entire purpose of the Berlin Wall.
I mean, what kind of cool inventions have come out of Australia lately?
An anonymous comment mentioned Wi-Fi. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is responsible for at least a dozen other inventions.
Just not over RF broadcasts.
Then all the bad guys have to do to deny you freedom of speech is deny you wired Internet. This means you have to transmit your Internet connection over RF.
Then the problems are that 1. too many offenses are arrestable, and 2. too many people arrested for whistleblowing are given prison terms.
Cops and prosecutors don't have unlimited resources, so by definition they have to pick and chose which laws to enforce. Ideally, this means they threaten the 19 year old who gets it on with her 16 year old boyfriend with probation rather than having to register as a sex offender for the next 30 years, and instead focus on the deputy mayor who got caught slapping his wife around. It doesn't mean sending Kirkarou to prison for three years for revealing some of the CIA's torture, and then giving Petreaus a slap on the wrist for using beyond-top-secret information to impress his mistress.
That's sounding a little Randian. The solution to corrupt actors within the state isn't to get rid of the state, but the corrupt actors.
Cops and prosecutors don't have unlimited resources, so by definition they have to pick and chose which laws to enforce.
The state doesn't have unlimited resources, so by definition it should not make laws it can't or shouldn't reasonably enforce.
Ideally, this means they threaten the 19 year old who gets it on with her 16 year old boyfriend with probation rather than having to register as a sex offender for the next 30 years, and instead focus on the deputy mayor who got caught slapping his wife around.
Alas, we know that's not how it works.
That's sounding a little Randian.
Only if you have poor reading comprehension skills.
The solution to corrupt actors within the state isn't to get rid of the state, but the corrupt actors.
Nobody suggested abolishing the state.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"