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Australia outlaws warrant canaries
71–80 of 116 posts
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#72This also puts Australia on the blacklist for hosting a VPN service, if they were not already, I assume.
Prohibitive bandwidth costs already made it a very poor location for one.
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#73What happened in the last few years to allow our civil rights in the most forward thinking countries to unravel so easily? And why do citizens not care? How is it possible that all countries have elected such a group of corrupt, nearsighted politicians to the point where freedom is an inconvenience over them consolidating practically dictatorial power? And again, why does no one care?
And why do citizens not care? This is the real mystery. I can't count the number of times I've had conversations with smart people that just don't seem to care. After the PATRIOT ACT was passed I was livid and knew it would be used for non-terrorism things. As we know now, it's mostly used for non-terrorism. People would look at me like I had some tin foil on my head. It couldn't even get people to talk about it. (Le…
Is it really much of a mystery at all?
A lot of issues are met with the mindset of "It would never happen to me". Terrorists blowing something up make the front pages, so people think it might happen to them (even though the odds of it are tiny). Slow erosions of civil liberties usually do not make the front pages, so people don't pay much attention and assume that only bad people are going to be arrested, denied due process, shot, or otherwise the victim of a resulting injustice.
A lot of issues related to freedoms and civil rights also take second place to much more immediate practical concerns, particularly in an economic downturn, like whether your kid has a good school to go to, or whether your parent gets looked after properly at hospital. The old "It's the economy, stupid" line is as true in politics today as it ever was.
To be fair, it is also true in the West today that just as the risk of being a victim of terrorism is low, so the risk of being a victim of government abuse or incompetence in applying these anti-terrorism measures is also low. A rational and objective citizen looking at the practical reality right now might consider that neither issue is that significant and there really are much more important things to worry about.
The strongest arguments for promoting civil liberties and reducing government powers are generally those of equality (just because something bad is unlikely to happen to you, it doesn't mean it's unlikely to happen to someone equally innocent but in a less fortunate position) and long term risk (just because today's governments and security services and police forces don't routinely abuse these capabilities and legal powers on a wide scale, that does not mean tomorrow's won't, and history shows that the risk of such abuse is real and the consequences can be catastrophic).
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#74the Australian government made the usual argument that metadata needs to be retained for long periods in order to fight terrorism and serious crime—even though the German experience is that, in practice, data retention does not help Which only goes to show that it's not about fighting crime, but supporting it on the highest levels. Civil rights and the rule of law are obstacles to the coming rule of institutionalised…
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#75[deleted]
It looks to me like a transition to 'inverted totalitarianism'/'managed democracy': https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism The state is increasingly controlled by the hyper-wealthy individuals and corporations that fund politics, and its policies and propaganda increasingly reflect their interests. Standard totalitarianism, by contrast, is where the corporations are controlled by the state. As to whet…
>However, it's only recently that we have developed tools that make it possible for one person (e.g. Snowden) to undo billions of dollars of secrecy by leaking more documents that one could physically carry if they had been printed on paper, then distributing them to millions at zero cost.
I've often wondered what has been said, or what kind of policies have been changed, or implemented, etc. in the NSA since Snowden came to the public forefront.
I wonder what they've done internally to try to ensure that this doesn't happen them again.
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
And why do citizens not care? This is the real mystery. I can't count the number of times I've had conversations with smart people that just don't seem to care. After the PATRIOT ACT was passed I was livid and knew it would be used for non-terrorism things. As we know now, it's mostly used for non-terrorism. People would look at me like I had some tin foil on my head. It couldn't even get people to talk about it. (Le…
What does "care" mean in your mind? You say were you livid and you expressed your lividity by talking to people? I think a lot of people "care" they are just not given anything actionable to do. Expressing impotent rage on FB is not really helping AFAICT.
Expressing impotent rage on FB is not really helping AFAICT.
Very nice straw man. I didn't mention FB. And these were conversations in person.
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#77Australia is officially the only place in the world where the laws and technological restrictions make me never want to go there. Bandwidth is capped, porn is filtered, videogames cost a ridiculous amount. I know the country was founded by criminals, but I didn't realize they still ran the place.
Enjoy your world tour of such havens of freedom as most of the Middle East, North Korea, Cuba...
Obviously, the current Australian government is a disaster in many areas, but there are a large number of places which are considerably worse.
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#78What happened in the last few years to allow our civil rights in the most forward thinking countries to unravel so easily? And why do citizens not care? How is it possible that all countries have elected such a group of corrupt, nearsighted politicians to the point where freedom is an inconvenience over them consolidating practically dictatorial power? And again, why does no one care?
And why do citizens not care? This is the real mystery. I can't count the number of times I've had conversations with smart people that just don't seem to care. After the PATRIOT ACT was passed I was livid and knew it would be used for non-terrorism things. As we know now, it's mostly used for non-terrorism. People would look at me like I had some tin foil on my head. It couldn't even get people to talk about it. (Le…
I think a lot of it is a kind of learned desensitization. The constant bombardment of advertising from a young age, and 24-hour news cycles conditions a natural response of cynicism and numbness to certain kinds of alarming messages. Our brains are already saturated with the kind of "buy this and you'll be happy" and "the world is scary and falling apart" messages that we develop categorical methods of dealing with all messages of that form. It is a painful act to care about something and be let down later, and it is painful to care about things that you feel like you can't do anything about. Add in a generally accepted (if thinly veiled) terrorism narrative and a socially acceptable practice of "let's not talk about politics" and you get the kind of response you've been getting.
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#79Australia seems to be leading the world in oppression in a way even the US has yet to manage.
This has been true of Australia for decades. The corporate elite have been using Australia as a proving-ground for their strategies for a long time now, since Australia is one of those western nations where heinous, fascist behaviour, has been permitted for centuries. The colonial/imperial systems used to rule Australian society - and destroy its previous occupants - have been refined and enhanced for application in…
Most of your other comments are fair about Audtralia. This one is not.
Australia has always been apathetic - "she'll be right" was our catch cry. Until recently (the last 20 years or so), we maintained that casual attitude.
Since then, we have culturally become Americanised through TV and movies. With it has come a callousness and a higher level of sophistication and a greater sense of entitlement.
I would suggest two points. It's a combination of apathy and self-focus that are driving our indifference to draconian policy. The second point is that the crimes you accuse Australia of are typical throughout the west. While I don't like to see what Australia has become, other western countries are no better.
Does anyone remember the blue ribbon campaign about free speech from the 90s? I went into all of the Australian IRC channels before the news hit. I called for my fellow Australians to rise to protect their freedoms. I don't think I've been attacked so viciously by so many people before or since that day.. That was and still remains Australia's apathy.
Like you, I feel we are in the minority in Australia. Social consciousness and concern for others rights is not on the landscape.
Re: Australia outlaws warrant canaries
#80the Australian government made the usual argument that metadata needs to be retained for long periods in order to fight terrorism and serious crime—even though the German experience is that, in practice, data retention does not help Which only goes to show that it's not about fighting crime, but supporting it on the highest levels. Civil rights and the rule of law are obstacles to the coming rule of institutionalised…
Tempodox's phrasing may seem a little out there, but there are plenty of arguments that could be in line with his reasoning.
For example, was the Bush administration's lies about the CIA report a crime? [1]
I don't think Hanlon's Razor applies here. While calling it institutionalized crime may be inflammatory, valid, (or even distracting), it's quite clear that those in power pass laws to perpetuate their power. This is in line with the iron law of oligarchy. [2]
[1]https://news.vice.com/article/the-cia-just-declassified-the-... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_oligarchy