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

abc.net.au

341–350 of 363 posts

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

#341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) How do lockdowns to minimise deaths violate natural justice? 2) Refusing a reasonable request from an employer is grounds for termination in NZ employment law. Asking people working with vulnerable people to be vaccinated against the disease causing that pandemic is a reasonable request. The only virtue signalling was from the nurses who martyred themselves on the altar of misinformation. 3) No, the Three Waters r…

> 1) How do lockdowns to minimise deaths violate natural justice? To minimise _one form_ of death. If you locked everybody in their houses forever, nobody would die of car accidents, but more people would die of other things. All the studies now show that lockdowns achieved no reduction in overall mortality, they just delayed things a bit, and led to a bunch of other issues like increase in alcoholism/depression and…

All the studies? Which ones?

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

#342
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so trivial when you gridlock major cities REPEATEDLY to spread a 'message' that could be told in a million other ways. Its trivial to worry about things like 'the economy' that provides a means to put a roof over your head and the ability to feed yourself and your family. Only someone who has little to no responsibilities could find it trivial.

When I first watched The Blues Brothers as a kid I thought they'd go to jail forever for all the carnage they wrought driving through that shopping centre, and I totally could not understand why my dad laughed and said "it's not that serious". Now I do understand that. A long while ago I understood that.

A long while ago did you also understand the difference between fantasy and reality? That events in a movie created to entertain the viewer have no consequences. That you don’t see all the insurance claims and lawsuits because it’s not entertainment.

Do you understand what an economy is? Do you understand that you don’t build your own home or grow your own food or supply your own power and water? That there needs to be a means for you to purchase these items?

Do you understand what impacting services and business means? Do you understand the negative consequences?

It’s so ‘not serious’ that the government has had to introduce new laws to deter people from disrupting the city.

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

#343
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a really important side problem with having the judiciary enforce quite deep and complex rights and limits on government. It is that the court develops into a really contentious institution making huge political choices that get infused by default with the hallmarks of legal necessity, and eventually the people wonder why the judges themselves aren’t politically accountable. And then they start electing polit…

In this case it has become /more/ like the parliamentary countries- i.e. the court removed itself from deciding abortion rights and sent it back to legislatures, where it had been originally before an earlier court had decided to overturn precedence by creating new rights not filled rooted in the text.

No, in the US it absolutely is rooted in the text. In Australia it is not. We do not have a long list of individual rights exercisable against the government including privacy that require decisions like Roe v Wade in the first place. If you concentrate only on the effect of "sending it back to the legislatures" then it seems good, but you must realise that doing that abdicates the court's clear, universally acknowledged and long-term role in enforcing those rights. This is an unstable middle ground, because there has been a period of 50 years in which the democratic debate around it has been completely lop-sided as the pro-choice crowd barely needed to lift a finger as the right was clear. The actual effect is already to "send it back to legislatures that are stacked with people salivating at the prospect of imposing some pretty extreme views on the majority who disagrees with them". It will take a long time to settle. And the whole time, America will have to come to terms that its most important legal body is churning out pre-ordained self-serving nonsense to reach these conclusions. There is nothing coherent in the Dobbs majority decision. The current test for "is a right enforceable" is "did laws sometime before 1850 or so allow people to do this? Before you answer, we're gonna ignore all the evidence that says yes". That's not a good place to be. It is, mind you, about as logical as the doctrine of "qualified immunity", which is kind of like a hiring freeze but for yet-to-be-encountered situations involving government workers (especially police officers) violating people's constitutional rights, such that no new (ie not "clearly established" in a previous decision) kinds of constitutional rights violations have resulted in consequences since 1982. American law is fucked up, in such a way that democracy on one issue at a a time cannot fix. Even if you managed to set forth a movement for protecting abortion rights and defeated all the state legislative campaigns to thoroughly criminalise it, you would still be stuck with a really bad situation re the rights in the Constitution not really meaning anything.

In order for American constitutional law to make sense again, they should either strip the entire bill of rights from the constitution (slowly!) or once again do a huge U-turn on Dobbs (and the cases yet to be handed down in which the conservative majority will use the same ridiculous legal test that is even less rooted in the text of the constitution than the rights they're analysing to justify knocking down the right to gay marriage etc) and acknowledge it was bullshit. My thought at the moment is that doing it Australian-style is better in the long run. You get slower progress, for example we had discriminatory laws against sodomy in Queensland until 2016 (!), whereas the US has benefited economically and socially from the extremely sound policy of abortion access (cutting off a poverty/crime pipeline) for 50 years. But you don't get the instability that results from populist movements cottoning on that an independent judiciary sits in their way. As it stands the US is there. It's a very dark spot.

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

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) How do lockdowns to minimise deaths violate natural justice? 2) Refusing a reasonable request from an employer is grounds for termination in NZ employment law. Asking people working with vulnerable people to be vaccinated against the disease causing that pandemic is a reasonable request. The only virtue signalling was from the nurses who martyred themselves on the altar of misinformation. 3) No, the Three Waters r…

>1) How do lockdowns to minimise deaths violate natural justice? Controlling the bodily autonomy of another by way of coercion falls under every definition of natural justice I have ever read. Which one are you using which permits this? >2) Refusing a reasonable request from an employer is grounds for termination in NZ employment law. Asking people working with vulnerable people to be vaccinated against the disease c…

> "you're wrong"

You did say "effective control", which 50% isn't.

> You don't get to just call whatever you don't like "misinformation."

The title of the page you linked to is "THREE WATERS REFORM TO GIVE IWI/MĀORI DOMINATING INFLUENCE" - 50% is dominating?

You think that co-governance directly attacks the pillars of NZ democracy? Funny, I thought that te Tiriti o Waitangi was the founding document of that nation, and that the principles of the Treaty are key to how we manage our democracy.

Obviously we vastly differ in how we interpret NZ's bicultural foundational bones, you seem to view co-governance as a fundamental threat, I view it as the Crown actually doing what we said we'd do back in 1850, which I'm very much in support of. But then I also guess it depends on how you interpret kāwanatanga and tiro rangatiratanga.

After all, NZ Europeans did promptly ignore the terms of the treaty, and go to war to steal land from the Māori, then confiscated some more land by force, even from iwi who were the Crown's allies in the New Zealand Wars, and made agreements to buy land, which provisions which were not honoured for over a century, in order to satisfy the demand from European colonists.

Oh, and then there was the deliberate efforts by the Crown to suppress Māori culture, and to disrupt their way of life.

I dunno, I just prefer it if our country was based on "treating the people who lived here first fairly".

> I get that you support the government's decision. I am simply pointing out that firing hundreds of nurses during a global pandemic was a bad idea, conceived solely to exert power and control over a badly needed cohort of public health workers.

Once again, failure to follow reasonable requests from an employer is grounds for termination. They failed to follow a reasonable request, they lost their jobs. Yes, nurses are needed, but nurses who are potential vectors for spreading Covid to people _who are in hospital for existing health problems_ are very much not needed.

> conceived solely to exert power and control over a badly needed cohort of public health workers.

That is just your subjective belief, unless you've sighted a policy document from the Minister of Health that says "Mwahaha, let's show those uppity nurses who's boss".

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

#345
post #88
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the NSW government that passed the shitty authoritarian laws that caused this. Any guess which party runs that state?

You don't remember the late Stephen Conroy of the Labour Party who is responsible for single-handedly imposing sweeping Internet censorship laws onto the Australian public and mandatory ISP level filtering with the public not having the right to know what has been blacklisted? From the horse's mouth – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Austral... : > In May 2008, the government commenced an $82 mill…

Yeah, I do. Glad he's no longer part of the labor party. It was no loss to see him go. My stance is generally that Labor is the better of the two evils when there is no other choice. But, in general, the authoritarian stances of the Liberal party are unequaled. Showing a small counterpoint to that doesn't change the statements above.

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

#346
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I first watched The Blues Brothers as a kid I thought they'd go to jail forever for all the carnage they wrought driving through that shopping centre, and I totally could not understand why my dad laughed and said "it's not that serious". Now I do understand that. A long while ago I understood that.

A long while ago did you also understand the difference between fantasy and reality? That events in a movie created to entertain the viewer have no consequences. That you don’t see all the insurance claims and lawsuits because it’s not entertainment. Do you understand what an economy is? Do you understand that you don’t build your own home or grow your own food or supply your own power and water? That there needs to…

I think we're irreconcilably on opposite sides of an ideological wall on this topic. I understand what you're saying and your point of view, I just don't agree with it. I think there's a matter of scale and timing as well.

Covid has made the economy much more fragile than it used to be, but it has also removed the veil of the importance of being in the office, so disruption to city streets is less of a hit on overall economic productivity than it used to be.

> It’s so ‘not serious’ that the government has had to introduce new laws to deter people from disrupting the city.

In regards to this, that's the core of the problem and the ideological difference of opinion. What one government legislates against, another government is just as likely to repeal as overreach based on what each government considers important or what keeps their pockets full.

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

#347
post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly I do not see the UK/AU/NZ/CAN creating their own Constitutions. Australia and Canada both have constitutions (I don't know about the Canadian one, but the Australian one was definitely written by Australians), and while NZ doesn't have a codified constitution it does have several treaties and laws which effectively form a constitution in all but name (in particular they have the concept of entrenched laws whi…

>Australia and Canada both have constitutions While this is technically true, it does not appear that either guarantee the rights of citizens to speak freely, especially when the speech is objectionable. When I lament the lack of a Constitution, I lament a Constitution which permits us the same inalienable rights. Both Australia and Canada place harsh restrictions on speech.

It's not "technically" true, it's simply true.

As for enshrining rights, Canada has the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms[1] which is a constitutional document that includes the freedom of expression. New Zealand has the Bill of Rights Act[2] which includes freedom of expression. As mentioned before, it's not entrenched law (though it was originally intended to be) but since most countries don't have constitutional bills of rights, this is hardly unusual.

As for Australia, I personally do think we should have a bill of rights of some kind (currently the basis of freedom of political speech is based on a High Court ruling about the Constitution's preamble which is in my view incredibly flimsy). I personally wouldn't model it on the US Constitution -- I would base it on the NZ Bill of Rights, but that's a minor detail.

However, it's simply not true to say that those countries don't have constitutions when you actually want to say that they don't have constitutional protections of certain rights (and in the case of Canada, they actually do!)

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Bill_of_Rights_Act...

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

#348
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so trivial when you gridlock major cities REPEATEDLY to spread a 'message' that could be told in a million other ways. Its trivial to worry about things like 'the economy' that provides a means to put a roof over your head and the ability to feed yourself and your family. Only someone who has little to no responsibilities could find it trivial.

When I first watched The Blues Brothers as a kid I thought they'd go to jail forever for all the carnage they wrought driving through that shopping centre, and I totally could not understand why my dad laughed and said "it's not that serious". Now I do understand that. A long while ago I understood that.

[deleted]

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

#349
post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A long while ago did you also understand the difference between fantasy and reality? That events in a movie created to entertain the viewer have no consequences. That you don’t see all the insurance claims and lawsuits because it’s not entertainment. Do you understand what an economy is? Do you understand that you don’t build your own home or grow your own food or supply your own power and water? That there needs to…

I think we're irreconcilably on opposite sides of an ideological wall on this topic. I understand what you're saying and your point of view, I just don't agree with it. I think there's a matter of scale and timing as well. Covid has made the economy much more fragile than it used to be, but it has also removed the veil of the importance of being in the office, so disruption to city streets is less of a hit on overall…

Just because you believe in something doesn't mean any action you take to push that belief is acceptable. There are not multiple groups blocking major roads, bus ways, bridges, trains etc. only climate protestors.

Take this scenario, imagine someone dying in gridlock in the back of an ambulance because a protestor glued/chained himself to the road. Extreme? It's happened. Now for what special reason was this person glued to the road for? So they could hold a sign that says 'end fossil fuels'. Thats it, holding a sign!

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

#350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think a constitution needs to have answers to these questions. Laws need to define these edge cases which are determined elected governments. They just have to be in harmony with the constitution. For what would the US constitution be a liability for? It was designed to limit power. That some people might perceive that as limiting is probably for the better. It was imperative for the idea of checks and balanc…

If you're interested in this topic, the thing to Google for is "constitutional theory". Constitutions do not just limit power. They prescribe how a society organizes itself, including how to exert power (not just how to limit it). A major goal for democratic constitutions is enabling a society to make collective decisions. E.g. the US congress is famously struggling to make decisions. An interesting question then is…

Of course constitutions describe more than that, it is what the US constitution famously improved upon aside from providing a fundamental set of laws. In contrast to constitutions before of course which most often just ascribed absolute power to certain institutions, monarchs or other political bodies.

But I still do think the US constitution does indeed hold up rather nicely, especially in their current political climate where people might tend to disagree with each other. It provides the most essential legal guarantees. In this case a constitution has the important role to define what people actually agree on.

I think what you say about the irrelevance of the constitution in poor outcomes is also true for the success case. Switzerland or Norway score very high on metrics measuring democracy and social services. But their overall strategic position is probably a major factor.

It is difficult to quantify success in governance and this might highly depend on perspective. Japan or South Africa have solid constitutions too, but you have to read it very differently than that of the US. You have to mind the age difference.

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