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Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
181–190 of 894 posts
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
I feel you mate. Sad part is Australia has all the potential to have a really good future but the only thing missing is competent leadership. The liberal government continues to fuck up time and time again and the Murdoch press just turns a blind eye. Fucked up quarantine, fucked up vaccine rollout, fucked up climate policies, fucked up the news media bargaining code, and fucked up numerous policies just to prop up t…
the only thing missing is competent leadership I keep hearing this every now and then, but the incompetent leadership does not come from nowhere nor has conceived itself. The country leaders have been legitimately elected, which means the leadership is the direct reflection of the country people's will. People consciously elect incompetence that bears the incompetent leadership, for that is what they desire for one r…
> The country leaders have been legitimately elected, which means the leadership is the direct reflection of the country people's will.
I don't disagree. Although influencing the people's will is a lot easier when the main stream media is monopolised and heavily biased towards one political party. If we want a government that truly reflects the people's will we need a diverse media landscape. Also a reason why I support Kevin Rudd's push for the Murdoch royal commission.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#183What a shitshow of a country. Hope people resist and break this dumb law. E2EE all the things.
I don't see what that really achieves when all the chips and OSes are backdoored. Not to mention the fact that the entire backbone is meticulously tracked.
By this logic we should just give up on security entirely.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Australians voted for these parties who then pass this policy. This policy is extreme. That sure seems like extremist politics to me. I don't get why you are talking about the US. This policy was passed by Australia. I am not saying that non mandatory voting will avoid extremist politics. All I am saying is that mandatory voting is not a silver bullet to avoiding extremism.
The Australians who voted for these parties largely do not give two shits about the bills, because a) unlike HN, they don't understand them, why they're bad or any of the consequences, and b) because the media monopoly here ensures they don't get adequate explanation or coverage, which in turn feeds a). I agree with GP that this is less about the Australian population being extremist or facilitating extremism as much…
I feel like even when they do get coverage it doesn't matter. This issue has had plenty of coverage but the situation is pretty much "yeah? well what are you gonna do about it? Both parties support it"
Even the greens have been supporting objectionable laws relating to tech. I feel a good chunk of people do care but there is not a single thing that can be done about it.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#185I've lived in Australia for 10 years and really considering my familys future in this country. We are sleep-walking towards a very average future. An undiversified export economy, out of control house prices, a job-market primarily focused on two cities, a government intent on selling all public assets, very limited political interest in positive climate policies. The latter is simply addressed with "technology will…
So I'm Australian but from the part no one ever visits (ie Perth). I say this because for most visitors Australia = Sydney, maybe Melbourne.
Anyway, I've gone to live overseas a couple of times now. The most recent time was to the US 11 years ago. I'm still here.
As many problems as the US has, the one big selling point it has is career opportunities and earning potential as a software engineer. Like... it doesn't even come close. I'll take what my US compensation buys me in NYC over whatever compensation I could get buys me in Sydney (in particular).
Property in Australia is like a game of musical chairs but the music stopped in Sydney in 1978 (in Perth and Melbourne it was more like 2003).
One thing I like about the US tax system is there is no negative gearing (mostly). Specifically if you earn over a certain amount ($150k but it starts sliding down at $100k) then you can't offset ordinary taxes with passive losses. I really think Australia desperately needs this system but negative gearing is so ingrained in Australian culture now that it's political suicide to try and change it. I believe Labor made noises about this in a recent Federal election and suffered the consequences.
It's a shame because Perth and even Melbourne used to have a relatively low cost-of-living and high quality-of-life. I honestly don't know how anyone does it now.
As for the politics, it's a bit of a mixed bag. Australia doesn't have the crazy evangelicals that the US does, for example. Like when the gay marriage issue was decided even the highly conservative former PM Tony Abbott basically came out and said the matter was settled and it's time to move on.
As for climate change, while I believe in it I also don't think anything will change out of pure altruism by any large group of people. And that's anywhere. It's not unique to Australia. Look at what's happened to the price of solar in the last decade.
I'd say the ugliest side of Australian politics and culture in general is actually the treatment of refugees and the so-called (this name still sends shivers down my spine) Pacific Solution.
Oh and we can't forget Australia's most pustulent export: Rupert Murdoch.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#186I've lived in Australia for 10 years and really considering my familys future in this country. We are sleep-walking towards a very average future. An undiversified export economy, out of control house prices, a job-market primarily focused on two cities, a government intent on selling all public assets, very limited political interest in positive climate policies. The latter is simply addressed with "technology will…
Born in AU so bias is to stay, which leads me to push more for political change required to try to address these problems. Most of your 10 years has been under a particularly bad (and honestly corrupt) federal gov. Country has a large state capture problem from largely mining companies but also other special interests that have lobbied and . Anything that might threaten those interests is being pretty heavily targete…
> compulsory voting
This always seemed like madness to me. You can force someone to vote, but you cannot force them to vote responsibly. They may just vote "screw you" just for revenge.
The right to vote includes the right to abstain from voting when one does not care.
Forced voting sounds like a recipe for bad election results. I would expect the same from paying people to vote.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#187There is a lot of trust in Australia that their elected officials and the public service / police will do the right thing. These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good. The continual refusal of the current federal government to introduce a federal crime and misconduct commission as most of the states now have is a disturbing trend. For instance three local councils were placed…
> These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good
We already know they won't. Here's [1] the Australian anti-terrorism Police arresting a young online journalist at his house, because he was asking probing questions to a politician that said politician did not like. Video of the incident clearly shows the Politician lied multiple times in his police statement (which is a crime).
Yet the anti-terrorism taskforce was used to arrest this person at his house.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
A recent example: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-aclu-prior-to-covid-den...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts > Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the authority of states to enforce compulsory vaccination laws. The Court's decision articulated the view that individual liberty is not absolute and is subject to the police power of the state. > "[r]eal liberty for all could not exist under the ope…
The comment I replied to was asking for a citation on ACLU expousing authoritarian causes, which I did.
I fail to see how a US Supreme Court ruling is relevant to this.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#189There is a lot of trust in Australia that their elected officials and the public service / police will do the right thing. These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good. The continual refusal of the current federal government to introduce a federal crime and misconduct commission as most of the states now have is a disturbing trend. For instance three local councils were placed…
> These new laws being introduced if used in the spirit they are intended could be good.
Please find me an example of a government throughout any point in human history that has not turned on its citizens.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Australia people are compelled to vote, so the problem looks like the majority having a different take. Not that I agree with their votes, but you can’t say they don’t vote. Ultimately what is one supposed to do in a democracy (never mind Australia for a moment) when you’re just not part of the majority opinion on something?
No easy answer. It is called politics. The culture helps too. In Australia the "democracy is majority rules" meme (which is a lie) is very strong. Just ask the Australian Indians. Fun fact: Māori people had the right to vote in Australia from the start, Aboriginal Australians (just how racist are they when there is no word in Australia for the first people?) did not get that right until 1967. It is a tough fight for…
> In Australia the "democracy is majority rules" meme (which is a lie) is very strong
I don't have much idea what you mean here.
> Just ask the Australian Indians.
Uh, could you explain what you mean here?
> Aboriginal Australians...did not get that right until 1967
I thought that too until recently, but not true.
On the history of Indigenous Australians’ right to vote: https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/indigenous...
On the 1967 referendum:
While many people think that the Referendum gave Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples the right to vote, this wasn’t the case. Aboriginal people could vote at the state level before Federation in 1901; Queensland and Western Australia being the only states that expressly prevented Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples from voting.
It wasn’t until 1962, when the electoral act was amended, that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples were given the right to register and vote, but voting was not compulsory. Full voting rights were not granted federally until Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people were required to register on the electoral roll in 1984. ...
When the Constitution first came into being in 1901 there were only two parts that referred to the First Peoples of Australia: Section 51 (xxvi) gave the Commonwealth power to make laws with respect to ‘people of any race, other than the Aboriginal race in any state, for whom it was deemed necessary to make special laws’; and Section 127 provided that ‘in reckoning the numbers of people of the Commonwealth, or of a State or other part of the Commonwealth, aboriginal natives shall not be counted’. ...
On 27 May 1967, Australians voted to change the Constitution so that like all other Australians, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples would be counted as part of the population and the Commonwealth would be able to make laws for them. A resounding 90.77 per cent said ‘Yes’ and every single state and territory had a majority result for the ‘Yes’ vote.