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Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

abc.net.au

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Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#301

Post by ch4s3 »

boffinAudio wrote: post #271
fao_ wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Australia has secret prisons, and a star court for the things it doesn't want the world to know. Witness J, K, L, M, &etc. So does america. I'm not sure how a republic movement could save australia from having these things when one of the largest republics in the world also has, e.g. hundreds of thousands of censored warcrimes on wikileaks and guantanamo bay

The US is a military junta masquerading as a republic. Presumably Australia's republic movement will address the issue of the corruption of the republic, eventually.

Odd that many of our recent presidents were not in the military, and that top generals are regularly fired by civilian government. The whole vote on everything all the time, even dog catch, thing seems like a real waste of time for a Junta.

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#302

Post by piokoch »

baazaa wrote: post #98
motohagiography wrote: post #6

After a discussion with a lawyer friend (not australia, canada, so tangentially related), the "presumption of innocence" that would not obligate this person to have or produce a key for whatever gibberish someone sends to their devices, is what's known in legal circles as a "principle of fundamental justice," and it is not a right that is either absolute or inaliable the way that american rights are set up. One doesn…

The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia so far as I can tell. Everyone just accepts that the state has absolute sovereignty and it can pass any laws it wants. Commonwealth nations have largely devolved into illiberal elective autocracies with immense power concentrated in the PM's offices, minimal parliamentary autonomy (i…

"The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia".

The problem is that natural law needs some source, this source has to come from somewhere and majority has to agree that they like the source.

For ages the source was obvious in "the West" - it was God all mighty armed with the Bible. Now God is gone, replaced with the believe that rational people will do much better job than some possibly made up person living in the clouds.

And it turned out that the source of the natural law is the government. In theory government is democratically elected, unfortunately democratic process degraded because of the modern manipulation techniques, social media that caused even further move from making election choices by using reasoning to emotions. Those who has money, they win, as all that political marketing costs a lot.

We live in the times of emodecmocracy, who can stir the emotions, attract in this way people wins, even if underneath they have ideas like censorship - obviously with the noble cause, to remove from discussion bad people, ale those anti-vax, anti-gay, anti-renewables, anti-reduce-meet-consumption, etc. people. Bad, bad people, but the law is the same for everyone and good people can suddenly become bad people if this suits someone's interest.

Now people are waking up since they have to give away the content of their mailbox on request of some corporations who happens to own a few MPs, judges and prosecutors.

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#303

Post by SilverBirch »

orestarod wrote: post #226
SilverBirch wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I steal a car from a car dealership, what am I guilty of other than "causing economic damage"? Isn't economic damage the fundamental issue of any theft?

You are guilty of property theft. You forcibly took away something that belonged to another entity. The fundamental issue is property. No "economic damage" slips into the argument. If that was the case, market competition would be illegal as you cause economic damage to your competitors. Advocating for veganism would be illegal because you cause economic damage to meat sellers. Inventing new technologies would be ill…

The basis of the law disagrees with you - the likely consequence of me stealing something is being forced to compensate you for it. It's redress the economic harm. I'm not saying all economic damage is illegitimate, but I'm saying economic damage can be a legitimate cause for something to be illegal.

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#304

Post by andrekandre »

piokoch wrote: post #302
baazaa wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia so far as I can tell. Everyone just accepts that the state has absolute sovereignty and it can pass any laws it wants. Commonwealth nations have largely devolved into illiberal elective autocracies with immense power concentrated in the PM's offices, minimal parliamentary autonomy (i…

"The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia". The problem is that natural law needs some source, this source has to come from somewhere and majority has to agree that they like the source. For ages the source was obvious in "the West" - it was God all mighty armed with the Bible. Now God is gone, replaced with the believe tha…

  > For ages the source was obvious in "the West" - it was God all mighty armed with the Bible.
which inalienable rights come from the bible?

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#305

Post by cletus »

baazaa wrote: post #98
motohagiography wrote: post #6

After a discussion with a lawyer friend (not australia, canada, so tangentially related), the "presumption of innocence" that would not obligate this person to have or produce a key for whatever gibberish someone sends to their devices, is what's known in legal circles as a "principle of fundamental justice," and it is not a right that is either absolute or inaliable the way that american rights are set up. One doesn…

The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia so far as I can tell. Everyone just accepts that the state has absolute sovereignty and it can pass any laws it wants. Commonwealth nations have largely devolved into illiberal elective autocracies with immense power concentrated in the PM's offices, minimal parliamentary autonomy (i…

> The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia so far as I can tell

Counterpoint: this is usually code for "the government did something I didn't like".

I don't know where you're from but this reads like a very American slippery slope fallacy type way of thinking. You may not be Americans but this line of thinking is popular among Americans. Canada maybe (ie America's hat)?

There's a lot you can criticize the Australian government for. Top of mind for me would be the treatment of boat people. The anti-eryption stuff is really just laughable because it's performative with very little actual impact. It's old people who don't understand technology trying to regulate technology in the most ignorant way possible. Ties to the two old media empires of Murdoch and Packer are more problematic.

But the Australian government still has done a lot of good things (eg the assault weapons ban following the Port Arthur massacre).

> ... immense power concentrated in the PM's offices

This... shows a lot of ignorance about how the government works, at least in Australia's case. First, PM isn't actually a constitutional position with any explicit authority in Australia. The government has been dissolved by the Governor-General (ie Gough Whitlam). PMs have been frequently ousted by their party (eg Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott). There was a period where in 10 years not a single PM had survived their entire 3 year term.

As a counterexample to the "autocracy", Tony Abbott as PM was largely undone by giving an Australian knighthood to Prince Philip. This was deeply unpopular and at the same time completely irrelevant.

Calling this level of accountability to the voters (even though the party-room coup against Abbott had nothing directly to do with voters) an "autocracy" betrays a gross ignorance of how the Australian government works.

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#306

Post by xienze »

krapp wrote: post #252
macinjosh wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither gay rights nor abortion are enumerated as rights in the US Constitution. Sure, some appointed judges have found ways to reason those rights out of the text. But the fact is that rights not enumerated there are left up to the states to decide on. We may not like it but if we want to protect these basic rights we need to go through the established Democratic processes to update the US constitution.

>But the fact is that rights not enumerated there are left up to the states to decide on. We may not like it but if we want to protect these basic rights we need to go through the established Democratic processes to update the US constitution. The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. - Ninth Amendment Gay marriage, abortion and…

> and states only have authority to regulate those rights with the consent of the people.

And guess what -- in states like Alabama, the people of that state have elected politicians that choose to regulate things like abortion in a manner different than what would be the case in a state like California. On the flip side, you have states/municipalities that regulate the second amendment -- something DEFINITELY in the constitution, and not in a "squint really hard and it sorta makes sense" way like abortion -- much more stringently than other states. The system is working as intended.

The issue is that you're expecting every state to have the exact same cultural attitudes towards things like abortion. They don't. The majority of people in certain states are against it, and they have voted accordingly.

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#308

Post by jaza »

Jedd wrote: post #210
Aerroon wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A bad PM can be ousted in a day. By whom? The parliament that confirmed him as PM? The parliament where the PM's party almost always holds the most seats? A parliamentary system essentially combines the executive and legislative powers to one party.

By the House (of Representatives), or in extraordinary circumstances by the head of state (currently the regent of the Commonwealth) but typically that requires the former to formally seek such a remedy from the latter. I believe by convention the deputy PM in Australia is necessarily a member of this group (also called the Lower House), though our PM could in theory be a member of the upper house (aka the Senate). I…

Going purely by our Constitution, technically all Ministers of State - that's all 42 people currently listed at https://www.aph.gov.au/about_parliament/parliamentary_depart... - equally share Executive power (and technically they themselves have no power, they can only advise the Queen, and her representative, the Governor-General, who are the ones with the actual power).

However, as with everything in the Westminster system, the written law is only part of the picture, and by convention, we have one Minister to rule them all, and he/she exercises actual Executive power.

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#309

Post by trinsic2 »

cletus wrote: post #305
baazaa wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia so far as I can tell. Everyone just accepts that the state has absolute sovereignty and it can pass any laws it wants. Commonwealth nations have largely devolved into illiberal elective autocracies with immense power concentrated in the PM's offices, minimal parliamentary autonomy (i…

> The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia so far as I can tell Counterpoint: this is usually code for "the government did something I didn't like". I don't know where you're from but this reads like a very American slippery slope fallacy type way of thinking. You may not be Americans but this line of thinking is popular am…

The country is it's people and the government represents the interests of its people, not the other way around. So you have some belief about what you think the government is that doesn't line up with reality. The government is its people, when it stops working for the interests of the common good, it's no longer legitimate.

Re: Australian activist can't use encrypted apps, must let police access phone

#310

Post by sbaiddn »

andrekandre wrote: post #304
piokoch wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The entire tradition of thought around natural law and limits on the legitimate scope of the state have simply disappeared in Australia". The problem is that natural law needs some source, this source has to come from somewhere and majority has to agree that they like the source. For ages the source was obvious in "the West" - it was God all mighty armed with the Bible. Now God is gone, replaced with the believe tha…

> For ages the source was obvious in "the West" - it was God all mighty armed with the Bible. which inalienable rights come from the bible?

Read the Talmud. Then proceed to read the Church Fathers through to the scholastics. Add Justinian for good measure.

The roots of (real) liberalism are all there in these largely theological treatises including the inalienable right of the people to revolt against the state when it becomes tyrannical (see Juan de Mariana).

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