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Comment by jacques_chester | Hacker News Reader

Australia isn't exactly a safe haven. There are only a handful of pipes in and out of the country, each of them probably well within the deep packet inspection capability of serious spy gear. I'd be amazed if one of the AFP, ACC, ASIS, ASIO or DSD didn't have their own rooms in selected Telstra and Optus facilities.

And not to mention that Conroy wants to do something like what the NSA are supposedly doing; he's just going to outsource it to the ISPs.

I've seen an AFP server in a certain government datacentre. Its security was a square of black and yellow tape and the assurance that I would be detained without charge under anti-terrorism legislation if I crossed the tape to take a closer look.

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But as an Australian citizen we have our courts and public opinion to try and fight for us. Not to mention the people doing the snooping have far less incentive to pass commercial information along to a competitor.

I'm not sure I follow you.

Americans are, theoretically, in a much stronger position vs NSA snooping. US law is meant to make it illegal for their spy agencies to look inwards and the US Constitution has its famous "search and seizure" clause which can, if you find the right judge, have some formidable teeth.

As Australian citizens we have no such protections and we have no standing in US courts to get any restitution. We're fair game.

Further, as Australians, while we enjoy some protection from our own outward-looking agency (ASIS), the inward-looking agency (ASIO) can and does investigate Australian citizens with a broad range of powers, including powers to intercept telecommunications. Their powers compound of investigation with the Australian Federal Police's powers of arrest, sometimes without cause or notice.

In theory, ASIO requires the Attorney-General to grant warrants to exercise most of its powers. Statistics on the warrants haven't been published, so we have no idea if they're granted begrudgingly or rubberstamped. My guess is going to be the latter -- which Minister wants to the one who was "soft on communism/terrorism"?

In the same way that Americans are in a stronger position vs NSA snooping Australians are in a stronger position vs our own snooping.

As I noted elsewhere in the thread, Echelon taught us that the agencies can circumvent these protections by agreeing to spy on each other's citizens and then forward the intelligence.

The idea that would be just as subject to surveillance using Australian hosted servers is pure speculation and not supported by the so far leaked information on PRISM.

Great, as an American, now I have to worry about Australians snooping on me, too.

I think the issue for foreign governments is closer to countries not wanting other countries to have easy reach into their data. For them it's not a civil liberties issue, it's a security issue.

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