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).
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?
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.
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.
I'm glad to hear that someone is trying to out-stupid *my* country.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
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.