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Australia's Major Parties Vote Against Encryption In Wake of Apple FBI Case (delimiter.com.au)

Posted by timothy on from the parliament-of-whores dept.

daria42 writes: If you're counting on Apple to keep your digital information safe, you may want to think again ... at least if you live in Australia. Yesterday the country's two major political parties — Labor and the Coalition — voted down a motion in Federal Parliament calling for strong encryption to be supported in the wake of the FBI's demands that Apple unlock iOS. It appears that implementing comprehensive telephone and email retention in Australia may not have been the end of demands by law enforcement in the country.

7 of 172 comments (clear)

  1. Fucked Country by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Congratulations Australia, you're fucked.

    1. Re: Fucked Country by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'm Australian and I'll never go back to the place.

    2. Re: Fucked Country by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Sure, but you realise how big the place is, and also how small our population is? We are a first world country with super high standards of living and a population density that is a fraction of your cities - none of which compare in liability in my opinion (and I actually loved living in NYC).

      Draconian social rules and nigh fascist government does not count in my world as "super high standard of living."

      Hate speech laws.

      Constant squealing about guns despite very low gun crime.

      Result of few guns equals high rape rates.

      Continual and unabashed repression of indiginites.

      Far as fuck from everything but Japanese tourists makes everything expensive.

      Failure to adhere to any coherent use of English

      ... and you horde all your good beer.

    3. Re: Fucked Country by chihowa · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wow. No wonder your government sucks so much if you guys blame the actions of Australian politicians elected by Australian citizens on a different country on the other side of the planet. It's your house: keeping it in order is your responsibility.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  2. Security or Liberty? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A big part of the issue is that voters demand 'total security' from their governments - Citizens expect to be wrapped in a big, warm security blanket. You can't have total security and total liberty, so the governments dispense with liberty. Voters don't mind because hey, their kids are 'safe.'

    1. Re:Security or Liberty? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Sure is. People dont understand that evil people mostly will use strong encryption anyway, or that in the case of phone decryption a warrant (or not, depending on circumstance) allows access to your phone records, email, internet etc etc so mostly who you have contacted, messages sent etc can still be collected with the rules in place now. Being able to decrypt the phone actually provides very little more evidence while the back doors being allowed now reduce your personal security significantly.

      Of course democracy fails for these technical subjects because its unreasonable to expect the majority of the population to understand the details and make the right decision.

    2. Re:Security or Liberty? by houstonbofh · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A big part of the issue is that voters demand 'total security' from their governments - Citizens expect to be wrapped in a big, warm security blanket. You can't have total security and total liberty, so the governments dispense with liberty. Voters don't mind because hey, their kids are 'safe.'

      And the irony is that it does nothing to make them safe. Criminals will still have guns and strong encryption, and the people now have less liberty.