Push for Australians' web browsing histories to be stored
smh.com.au
smh.com.au
"tailored data retention periods for up to 2 years for parts of a data set, with specific timeframes taking into account agency priorities, and privacy and cost impacts"
One of the main reasons it didn't end up going further was likely due to the fact so many Australians wrote to the inquiry expressing their concerns [1]:
"The Committee received 240 submissions and 29 exhibits. Three submissions were received in largely identical terms from some 5,300 individual members of the public. These submitter's expressed opposition to the reform proposals, particularly the proposed mandatory data retention proposal."
The part you will be interested in is "Chapter 5 - Data Retention" [2]. In it, the committee came to the conclusion that there wan't enough information provided in the terms of reference to make a proper judgement. However they talk about how it is of obvious interest to the law enforcement agencies, and obvious problem to civil libertarians. They commented on how it is up to the government to choose how to make a decision and take into account these two opposing views.
This is actually the first time I participated in a democratic process, beyond voting, and was pleasantly surprised to find out (only this morning during a more detailed read through the report) that they quoted my submission! [2 (Box 1)].
It is sort of the opposite to voting, where you feel "how can I make a difference". If you take the time to write in to such an inquiry, then it is highly likely that your opinion will get taken seriously.
[0] http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/hous...
[1] http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/hous...
[2] http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/hous...
By the way, your third link is broken. It should be:
http://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/hous...
This is why defeatism annoys me. There are things we can do to fight this, and we should be doing them.
[0]: https://pay.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/20mk33/asio_and_...
It's funny, because I was happy to read the coverage about the overwhelming amount of letters they received regarding data retention. However I was really dumbfounded when they mailed my a physical book with the contents of the report in it, rather than just emailing a link to the PDF or something. Lo and behold, it actually turned out to be useful for me to sit down on the couch this morning and thumb through after reading this new headline about the topic.
- Jacques Ellul "The Technological Society" (1964)
"it is a fact that excessive data do not enlighten the reader or the listener; they drown him. He cannot remember them all, or coordinate them, or understand them; if he does not want to risk losing his mind, he will merely draw a general picture from them. And the more facts supplied, the more simplistic the image"
- "Propoganda" (1965)
Australia began it's modern europeanised existence as a police state, and I honestly don't think that it's evolved through law beyond that initial modality.
It has never had in it's constitution the expectations on rights of the citizen that underpin the US constitution.
It's unlikely that there'll be much resistance from the public to these proposals.
I, for one, am sick of this defeatist attitude which I see all too often from (small-l) liberals in Australia.
Australians have fought against authoritarianism, and we need to continue to fight. We stopped the Internet filter, we pirate more than any other country, and we have Green party representatives in both houses of the national parliament.
I think a Bill of Rights is non-democratic in Westminster-judicial societies. Whereas in the US the judicial branch is somewhat accountable to the people, in the UK, Canada and Australia, the people's will is only expressed in parliament. So, if the Australian parliament amended our constitution with a bill of rights, it would be handing power from our elected representatives to our non-elected High Court judges.
Furthermore, bills of rights are only superficial in protecting rights - they are always subject to the whim of the culture and society in which they operate. Canada has a bill of rights [0] supposedly protecting freedom of speech as a fundamental right, yet "discriminatory speech" is illegal (e.g. a comedian discriminating against homosexuals [1]).
[0]: http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-12.3/page-1.html
[1]: http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2013/06/20/comedian-dinged-for...
Sure, "discriminatory speech" has been ruled illegal in Australia too [2], but my point is: what's the point of a bill of rights, then?
[2]: http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/09/29/bolt-decision-irresponsi...
Or, another example, look at how well the US' Fourth Amendment is protecting Americans from mass surveillance. I would posit that the reason the US has maintained more freedoms than other countries isn't thanks to its Bill of Rights, but thanks to their cultural belief in the importance of liberty. (or maybe its their distrust of government oppression of liberty? I can't tell)
So, as an Australian, I have no problem with not having a bill of rights. If we become a republic, and our High Court judges are then accountable to us? Maybe. But I'll want to hear from respected law professors before making my mind up. See [3] for a good discussion, and links to reading material.
[3]: http://www.reddit.com/r/auslaw/comments/q7xhm/what_are_the_a...
Anyway, more on-topic, I do agree with you that Australians need to step up their game to fight against authoritarianism. I don't agree that what we need is a bill of rights, and I do think we still have hope as a society.
However, characterizing having Greens party members in parliament as some sort of measure of liberalism made me do a double-take. The Greens are many things, but small-l liberal they most definitely are not. While they include policies on populist measures such as internet filters which appeal to their young voter base, they also include many, many policies which are an anathema to people interested in freedom. They were a large backer of government regulation of the press, they have many policies which bring in serious regulation of many industries and frequently talk of population caps. They even have an ex-soviet for a Federal Senator. There is no true liberal party in Australia, especially not the Greens.
Having said that, the new LDP senator will be worth watching to see what is said and what is voted for.
> While they include policies on populist measures such as internet filters which appeal to their young voter base
I think that's a really unfair position to take on their policy here; it trivializes the effort they (in particular, Scott Ludlam) are putting into it. [0] They've fought more than just the Internet filter - Scott Ludlam has introduced a bill [1] that would end mass surveillance by Australian intelligence agencies, he's continuously made motions in the Senate to inquire about mass surveillance, and made speeches about the importance of whistleblowers in a democracy.
Look, sure, I would agree that the Greens party could do more. Ending mass surveillance and supporting Internet freedom aren't a central tenet of their platform, but that's their right (I'm not a Greens member). It's why I vote for the Pirate Party in the senate (and I would vote for them in the lower house if they had a representative in my seat). I plan to volunteer for the Pirate Party at the next election, if I'm in Australia then.
If you take issue with a party taking a particular position to appeal to a certain voter base, then you take issue with representative democracy in general.
> They were a large backer of government regulation of the press
The Australian Greens believe that:
- Freedom of the press and effective, affordable and accessible media and communications systems are integral to the functioning of a successful democratic society.
- Australia must have an independent regulatory framework for media, communications and advertising.
- Net neutrality is important for an open internet.
- Documents placed in the public domain by government should be accessible with free non-proprietary software, and public data should be made available in open, inter-operable formats.
- The government should lead by example and embrace open source and open standards.
That said, if you believe that government is anathema to liberty (I don't), you would consider any law relevant to any part of the press as being "regulation". I think these aims of the Greens make sense (mostly):
- Diversity of both opinion and ownership of media across Australia and a strict limitation on the number of media outlets an individual entity can own or control.
- Truth in political advertising legislated.
- Individuals protected from defamation actions designed to stifle participation in public debates.
- Effective regulation of the digital games industry to ensure children are not exposed to excessive violence or sexual content.
My support of that last aim wavers on the meaning of "effective regulation". I do support a rating system for games to help parents choose, but I wouldn't support censoring anything outright (I don't think the Greens would, either).
> [the Greens] frequently talk of population caps
Source?
> They even have an ex-soviet for a Federal Senator.
I really don't care. I only care about their policies and their actions - and I mostly agree with them.
> There is no true liberal party in Australia, especially not the Greens.
It's really useful to be able to come to terms with views that differ to your own. Your version of liberty isn't the only version of liberty.
In my opinion, the Greens are far and away the most liberal major party in Australian politics. They may not align with your view of "true liberty", but that doesn't mean they're not liberal. They very clearly support liberty (in words and actions), certainly more so than Labor or the Liberals/Nationals. The Pirate Party agrees with me here: the Greens are at the top of their preferences.
> Having said that, the new LDP senator will be worth watching to see what is said and what is voted for.
There are a few policies of the LDP that I support, that few other parties care about. I support abolishing most federal departments and reforming the constitution to give states legal autonomy, because I believe smaller governments are more democratic and less susceptible to corruption. I support privatizing Australia Post, electricity generation, and bus and ferry transport, because those industries are open to competition, and their profit motives align with the public good. They do have a lot of policies supporting liberty that I agree with.
Unfortunately, I think their beliefs in how to achieve a free and equal society are, quite plainly, bonkers. I think there are lot of industries where the profit motive does not align with the public good (education, health, media, prison, military), or where competitiveness is intrinsically nonexistent (rural telecommunications infrastructure, metro train transport). I would always support private competition in those industries, but I think it's important to have publicly-owned offerings to provide a lower-bound in service and quality.
Furthermore, I believe there are government regulations that directly decrease liberty, but indirectly increase liberty much more. Workplace regulations (minimum wage, discrimination, safety, training), gambling, international trade (to some extent), banking, and drugs (control, not criminalization) fall into this category.
On taxation: I believe we should tax our super-profitable industries so that we can share the wealth we have now with future generations, and so that they don't create an imbalance in the rest of the economy.
A major reason I support the Pirate Party is that their entire process is really inclusive: they have a well-maintained wiki, an updated blog, and an active IRC channel. Their policy development process is open and democratic. They're like the Labor party of the 21st Century.
In contrast, most other political parties' processes are closed and private - including the LDP. It's unfortunate that for all the LDP's espousing of liberty and direct democracy, they don't seem to keen to create a democratic environment for their own party.
[0]: http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/prism
[1]: http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislati...
People will get more active when it looks more likely to go before parliament.
Australia is not the bleak wasteland you paint it as, and it's not a police state. Using this kind of hyperbole does no-one any favours. Do you really think that Australians fear their neighbours like the people in East Germany did? The PM recently said that the government broadcasting agent should not be so negative about the government and should be more like it's cheer squad. He was pilloried by the private press for saying such a thing.
I'm interested to know what privacy and personal rights you think the US has that Australia doesn't. The US has 'bear arms', true. It has slightly greater private freedom of speech, but in practice slightly worse freedom of speech for the press.
As for the content of the constitution, that's not the way we do law. Just because the US shoves every silly thing into their constitution (or at least tries to), it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist for us if it's not in our constitution. We have shitloads of law outside the constitution. Hardly surprising, since in the US, you only require politicians to amend the constitution, but in Australia, you need to hold a referendum. And even in the US, the vast bulk of nattering about the constitution is just grandstanding - a law is a law. Being in the constitution simply makes it harder to repeal. Not being in the constitution doesn't make it any less legally binding, just easier to strike down.
Those are just three points to the generalized rubbish you've posted in support of whatever argument you're making. I don't say this to be mean but to cut to the quick and point out you're not posting anything particularly insightful when you gloss over inconvenient realities in either Australia or America.
My point was that the US is not the bastion of freedom that it's PR suggests. I was pointing out the US Bill of Rights still doesn't prevent these abuses from happening, as people seem to mythologise that document. I've mentioned in other threads that the level of freedom between the two countries really isn't that dissimilar - it's just that the idea that the US is the paragon of freedom above and beyond its contemporaries just simply is not true.
Anyway, I mentioned two things about Australia that you are apparently debunking: that we don't edit the constitution in the normal process of politics, because it requires a referendum to do so; and that we don't fear our neighbours like people in East Germany did. I said "Australia is not a bleak wasteland" and you say I'm glossing over reality? I wonder if you've ever been here, or if you merely think The Road Warrior is a documentary? If you happen to be Australian, then you've got a massive dollop of cultural cringe going on.
It's certainly not a police state as the OP put forward, and neither is the US or the UK.
FBI wants records kept of Web sites visited / "The FBI is pressing Internet service providers to record which Web sites customers visit and retain those logs for two years..." http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10448060-38.html
Other proposals that have circulated around DC officialdom have included mandatory data retention requirements aimed at social networks, sites that accept photo uploads, domain name registries: http://news.cnet.com/Politicos-mull-data-retention-by-Web-ho... http://news.cnet.com/Congress-targets-social-networking-site...
Of course these proposals are being advanced by politicians and bureaucrats who have only the vaguest glimmerings of an idea of how the Internet works (and even less of an appreciation for the limits the Constitution places on the federal government).
Australian citizens should be equipped with tools to just spam the fuck out of their own ISPs, with absurd useless requests, as a form of civil disobedience.
Did I say the words "spam-the-fuck-out-of-it" enough in this post? No? SPAM THE FUCK OUT OF THAT SHIT.
Doesn't matter if they've performed analysis on the total possible consumible bandwidth, per subscriber, per ISP, and budgeted storage allocations times a hundred.
JUST SPAM THE FUCK OUT OF EVERYTHING AT ALL TIMES. FUCK THIS BULLSHIT. DON'T BEHAVE.
Not for $59.99 anyway - and from what I found, it is $79.99 with TPG, as you have to bundle your home phone with them. Also note the ~Limited coverage availability at selected ADSL2+ with Home Phone enabled exchange areas. Which would relate to the fact that they have to be exchanges that TPG owns, which you'll find is predominantly exclusive to Sydney (http://www.tpg.com.au/maps/).
Even with all of this, TPG is notorious for having poor service and high contention.
> Flagger is a browser add-on that automatically puts red flag keywords (like bomb, Taliban and anthrax) into the web addresses you visit. Install Flagger and help us send a message: government surveillance has gone too far.
Even with data caps in place I'm sure one could perform quite a few requests/second continuously for an entire month.
Multiply that by (hundreds of?) thousands of protesters and the logging system could be overwhelmed. Especially considering such a system would likely be badly implemented by the lowest bidder.
Even if it were not overwhelmed, the requests could be tailored to trigger as many false-positives as possible.
Just once I'd like to see a law-enforcement agency somewhere in the world and do the unexpected: come out for individual liberty, and against invasive data practices. It would be remarkable because this data represents leverage that the cops can use against, well, anyone, and so to give it up as a matter of principle would be a laudable position.
Another interesting thing about this quote is that it so blatantly gives lie to the notion that any of this power is used, or is even intended to be used, for national security. No, this data is going to be used by cops on the street. It's going to be used as leverage, and as an insurance policy: if they beat you up, they do a background check and see if you did something wrong. If you did, they offer to reduce charges on those grave offenses if you agree not to charge the department with brutalizing you. If it wasn't for all that data, where would the poor old police have the leverage to strike such a deal? They'd have to go to all the trouble of actually getting warrants and seize your data, which is of course an undue burden on the police. Much better to have it all stored and waiting for use.
http://www.itnews.com.au/News/375286,attorney-generals-new-w...
It's almost like Australia was watching UK, and all of the sudden they realized UK is getting too far ahead of them in becoming a totalitarian state, and they can't let UK win the race! If it wasn't so sad and terrifying, it would almost be fun to watch which of the two becomes a police state the fastest.
Unfortunately, potentially millions of lives will be affected by increasingly more draconian laws in these countries, whether they realize it or not (like with censorship, when it becomes hard to know what you're missing out on, because you don't know what's been censored).
By the time anybody figures out shenanigans went down nothing will come of it because everybody involved will deny, and any elections authority that could have investigated will be gutted, de-funded and dissolved to make sure nothing comes of it. If irregularities are recognized then they will simply put together a bullshit reform package, call it the 'Fair elections act' and it will be anything but fair
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/bill-would-dise...
Let voter turnout drop to single digit percentages. It would be hard for anybody to claim that the elected person had any kind of mandate. The news headlines would be farcicial, "Prime Minister elected, wins 55% of the popular vote, on 7% turnout"
Of course in Australia they currently fine you if you don't vote. Perhaps in future they'll make it a criminal offense and put people in prison for not voting!
Considering the voting debacle in Western Australia (where a Senate result was declared with just a 14 vote margin, despite the Australian Electoral Commission admitting to losing 1375 ballot papers), I think there are some Australians debating whether they should participate in future elections.
[1] http://www.elections.wa.gov.au/vote/failure-vote [2] http://delimiter.com.au/2013/11/18/wa-likely-vote-senate/ [3] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-01-29/court-of-disputed-retu...
If someone did try the voting date switcheroo and succeeded in stopping a sizeable portion of people from voting, the most likely outcome - apart from the scandal - would be that the Australian Electoral Commission would call for a repeat of the voting for that electorate. By-elections happen all the time; it's not something that would be procedurally unusual.
Blackmail is still an option though, and still a good reason to oppose the law.
The problem is that when one wing of government 'temporarily retains' something, local intelligence agencies will tap the cables and keep it forever.