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Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

nytimes.com

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Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#81

Post by donw »

dx87 wrote: post #59
jonnybgood wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I skimmed it and that site seems highly sensationalist. I don’t know if that a good documentary. A couple of things from the site: “Operating independently from its governments...” Are the agencies involved not part of their governments? Am I missing something? “Hackers Can Disable a Sniper Rifle—Or Change Its Target...” It wants me to post this to social media. What’s the context of this quote? It gives none. It see…

I didn't go to the site, but the part about being able to hack sniper rifles is correct. It wasn't some complex nation-state level hack, it was just standard IoT device with poor security integrated into a rifle. The hack was done on the consumer version of one brand of rifle, thought the Army had ordered some for evaluation purposes. Here's an article about it: https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-can-disable-snipe…

Hopefully this isn't too political of a reply, but this is a great example as to why there is such a lack of interest in "smart guns" -- e.g., weapons that require a fingerprint, a special ring, or some other electronic safety interlock.

Not just because of the potential to be hacked, but also because electronics have a wider variety of failure modes as compared to the mechanical bits, most of which have remained both highly reliable and functionally unchanged over fifty, if not a hundred, years.

Especially when you consider that, at least when it comes to safety, there's so much low-hanging fruit on the education and awareness front.

Regardless of where you stand on the politics, it seems pretty straightforward that, in a country that today has more guns than people, that safety education should be part of school curricula at multiple points.

On that note, we should probably also make sure everybody knows how to properly use a fire extinguisher, and I'm not sure we teach that, either... :/

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#82

Post by cyphar »

sanderjd wrote: post #39
cyphar wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia (unlike the US), constitutional amendments are decided by both a majority vote in both houses of parliament and by referendum where the public votes and a double majority (majority of people in the majority of states, and the majority of people in the country) must vote YES in order for a referendum to pass. And in Australia voting is compulsory so there's no question about election turnout spoiling the…

If your point is that it's harder to pass an amendment in Australia than the US, based on your description, I would disagree. The US system requires more than a majority vote by representatives, in a couple different ways. The Australian system does sound more democratic .

I would still argue that it is harder to pass amendments in Australia, based on the simple fact that America passed 10 constitutional amendments in the first 2 years of the US Constitution being active (which is more than Australia has passed in 117 years) and that of the 33 amendments that have been proposed 27 of them were accepted (which is a much higher success rate than Australia's 8 passed out of 44 proposed).

So while purely looking at the proportion of YES votes needed and ignoring who is casting the votes, you might be able to argue it could be harder to get something passed in the US because in Australia it requires a super-majority of the public (which is generally a smaller percentage than a majority of 3/4ths of states) which means that it is not purely the role of the government to decide the rules that restrict the government's power. This means that the concern of a constitutional bill of rights in Australia being "pointless" because it would be easy for the government to overturn doesn't make much sense.

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#83

Post by peteretep »

tomjakubowski wrote: post #74
peteretep wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Any law enforcement fails to do the correct thing in these areas, courts here will throw out the case. Parliament do have the right -- however -- to simply pass a law that says "oldandtired goes to jail forever" with a simple majority.

Not so, says the highest Australian court. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_of_attainder#Australia

Thank you!

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#84

Post by BLKNSLVR »

jacques_chester wrote: post #36

There are many things to admire about Australia and many reasons that I am grateful that I grew up in Australia. But the ongoing ritual humiliation of Australian technologists over the past several decades is really tiresome.

It's also a confusing situation given the cyclical nature of headlines and government concern with Australia's brain drain (all the smart ones leave for better opportunities overseas), and the recent-ish pronouncements of Innovation! through having a specific Department and Minister for Innovation (which has now been decommissioned by the new Prime Minister).

... and the NBN debacle is another nail in Australia's "ability to compete on the world stage" coffin.

... and any lead Australia had in regards to renewable energy projects, investment, and research has been very effectively and efficiently squandered.

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#85

Post by peteretep »

shaki-dora wrote: post #69
peteretep wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Operating independently from its governments...” > Are the agencies involved not part of their governments? Am I missing something? In Britain we'd probably make a distinction between elected government and civil service. I suspect the point being made here is of operation without sufficient legislative/executive oversight, which there seems to be at least some evidence for.

They are, among other things, paid by the government. They are not independent of it, under no definition of any of those words. Maybe oversight is lax. Maybe oversight is perfect and everything happens exactly as the overseers want it. None of that changes anything about the truth of the initial claim. "Independent of" is patently false, and an obvious attempt to sensationalise.

> They are not independent of it, under no definition of any of those words

Sure. But the words actually used were: "operating independently from", which is different.

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#86

Post by mirimir »

ddeck wrote: post #73
wp381640 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ASIS[0] is CIA (foreign intel) - ASIO would be the FBI's counter-intel department ASIS is also the department that was secret between its founding in 1952 until 1972 [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Secret_Intelligence...

And is also the department that famously decided to conduct a mock hostage rescue training exercise in a 5-star hotel without obtaining permission or even notifying the hotel management and staff. When ASIS operators were refused entry into a hotel room, they broke down the door with sledgehammers. The hotel manager, Nick Rice, was notified of a disturbance on the 10th floor by a hotel guest. When he went to investig…

Wow. Impressive. But still, it was in 1983. Victoria police managed to arrest some of them, with no casualties. And ASIS head John Ryan was eventually forced to resign.

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#87

Post by twblalock »

twblalock wrote: post #29
basicplus2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but once you introduce a bill of rights all your commom law protections go out the window.. including stuff you didnt know you had

Not really -- your bill of rights can explicitly say that it does not cancel out other rights that it did not mention. That's the purpose of the 11th Amendment to the United States constitution.

Heh, that should have been the 9th amendment.

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#88

Post by BLKNSLVR »

coretx wrote: post #66
lucb1e wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to use URL shorteners on HN, it's not as if there is a character limit... Here is the full URL: https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/consultations/Documents/expla... Protip for those playing along at home: add a + to a bitly URL to view info, such as the target URL without having to go there.

And this is the culprit. ""Should governments continue to encounter impediments to lawful access to information ... we may pursue technological, enforcement, legislative or other(!) measures" Translation: Fuck your sovereignty, we'll use violence to get what we want.

I strongly doubt any tactical military response. They'd use pressure from the other countries, most likely the US given the country-of-origin of the biggest tech companies.

Australia doesn't interfere with sovereignty to a fault. Julian Assange, The Bali 9, Peter Greste. So it'll be interesting if there's any Australian response to the James Ricketson situation in Cambodia.

Re: Australia Wants to Take Government Surveillance to the Next Level

#89

Post by berti »

basicplus2 wrote: post #25
skissane wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The article mentions that Australia has no bill of rights which, whilst technically true, doesn't mean we don't have equivalent protections. Some are enshrined in our constitution The protections provided by the Australian constitution (as interpreted by the High Court) are quite weak in comparison to those included in the US Bill of Rights, it isn't really a fair comparison. > whilst others are parts of common law…

True, but once you introduce a bill of rights all your commom law protections go out the window.. including stuff you didnt know you had

NZ Bill of Rights Act 1990, s28: "An existing right or freedom shall not be held to be abrogated or restricted by reason only that the right or freedom is not included in this Bill of Rights or is included only in part." [1]

[1] http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1990/0109/latest/D...

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