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Australia's Major Parties Vote Against Encryption In Wake of Apple FBI Case (delimiter.com.au)
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.
Congratulations Australia, you're fucked.
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.'
This is interesting. I live in Australia and I have barely even heard about this vote. It's been a "non-issue" in the news, here. There has been minor coverage of the FBI issue with Apple but extremely minor. You'll note the link in the article, "delimiter" is hardly a mainstream news outlet. The main news outlets here (abc.net.au, etc.) haven't even got this on their front page (at the time of this post).
So basically, both sides of government have managed to keep it pretty much below the radar.
I'm not saying it's totally out of the news (I heard it in a news bulletin that lastest about 4 seconds) but the media is not running with this as an issue. So Joe Public will never care because he's never going to even know he should care.
The motion called upon the Senate to note that strong digital encryption protects the personal and financial information of millions of people; that encryption is an important tool to prevent identity theft and other crime; that encryption ensures that public interest whistleblowers, journalists and other civil society actors can conduct their activities more securely; and that the Government, through services such as Medicare and Centrelink, and digital platforms such as myGov, depends on encryption to keep client information safe.
The motion also called upon the Senate to note that any decrease in public trust in digital systems and services will present an obstacle to the Government’s agile innovation agenda”.
Secondly, it called upon the Federal Government to “support the continued development and use of strong encryption technologies; resist any push from other governments to weaken encryption on personal devices; and work with law enforcement to develop alternative avenues to obtain information through warrants and targeted surveillance that does not put every Australian at greater risk of identity theft.”
It called on the senate to "support" and "note". Sounds like it was a largely pointless bill in the first place. Not that both major parties wouldn't sell out their voters for a dollar if it was on the table, but whether this particular bill passed or didn't will mean precisely squat to anyone, ever.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
You didn't hear about it because it is a non-issue, not because of people not being interested, but because anything put forward by the greens or the independents in the senate is a non-issue. It's not even about the major parties keeping this below the radar, this is about as news worthy as a greens senator saying "From now on all t-shirts must be blue" and having that voted down.
This is solely and purely a political stunt by the greens to try and get some air time in the run up to the election later this year.
At least stupidity doesn't skip continents.
You are referring to the summary above I take it ... ;)
What has happened here is that a minor party (the Greens) have, almost on the spur of the moment, put forward a motion without any attempt to shore up political support in either House of Parliament, and --unsurprisingly, not being on the policy agenda of either major party, --said motion was not carried. There was never any intention by Sen Ludlam that his motion pass (he's not insane you know). This was done instead to highlight the issue (and perhaps his party's stance, though I note he was supported by minor parties of various political shades).
To conclude, as the summary does, that "[i]t appears that implementing comprehensive telephone and email retention in Australia may not have been the end of demands by law enforcement in the country" is either wildly misinformed, disingenuous, or outright insane. Now we probably haven't heard the end of demands by law enforcement in Australia, but the ineluctable defeat of this motion in the Senate has little to do with that.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke