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Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

digitalrightswatch.org.au

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Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#271

Post by JasonFruit »

markdown wrote: post #241
c_o_n_v_e_x wrote: post #210

In the years before covid, as the sole American in a few 'strayan social circles, I'd receive sh*t for Americans protesting about their "rights" and how entitled they are. Now with Covid, Australian citizens can't leave or can't come in (without significant effort). I've seen a shift in thinking amongst my Australian friends and family. The Australians I know now see value in something like a bill of rights. Like in…

There isn't a bill of rights without exceptions, and a pandemic (public health) is always going to be one of those exceptions. It doesn't help at all during a pandemic.

It does if the people take it seriously. If they tolerate infringement of their rights every time the government says there is a crisis, they will careen from crisis to crisis until their rights are gone. A bill of rights is just paper until the people give it force by refusing to tolerate violations under any circumstances.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#272

Post by apatheticonion »

siquick wrote: post #37

I'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…

Moved to Sydney from New Zealand and have been here for 6 years. I do like it here compared to New Zealand but I think I would move elsewhere given the chance.

The internet here is an actual joke, the politics are biased towards conservatism, don't think about owning an electric car but... the pay is quite good and it's a nice place to go out. Lots of nature and you can find nice apartments to rent if you look.

New Zealand by comparison is great but it's remote, expensive and has a low salary when compared to other western countries. It has been a while since I was there last, but public transport is hilariously bad - but if you enjoy nature and silence, it's there in abundance.

My company has offered to relocate me to NYC, which is interesting. Looking on YouTube at what the city looks like and it's pretty ugly if I am honest. Apartments seem to be small and you don't get modern style apartments even 45 minutes from Manhattan via public transport. I am concerned that my lifestyle would suffer living there.

Hey Canada, how you doing?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#273

Post by 0xdeadb00f »

alliao wrote: post #207

CCP is literally cancer on all citizens living in currently free democracy. They show that it's possible to keep a huge population under control with current tools and technology. Our politicians show public disdain, but fuck are they being seduced. And Australia is just stepping into it step by step while asking it's citizens to trust the government because they seem to be at odds with CCP publicly. As someone who l…

Hey mate. Aussie here.

I'm sorry to say that it seems to me no one around here gives a flying fuck about politics let alone anyrhing to do with digital rights. This is a war we've already lost.

I blame Murdoch but quite frankly most of the people I talk to are too wrapped up in working to pay their bills and care for their families to care about anything else.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#274

Post by gotts »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #230
gotts wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "country erode"?

Probably general stability and rise of authoritarianism.

How's that Ukraine(a country from that list) has authoritarianism on rise? Any verifiable metrics to prove it?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#275

Post by asdff »

perl4ever wrote: post #87
mdoms wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Australia for 5 years and my sense is that, as harsh as it sounds, Australia needs to go through an extreme hardship to wake up as a nation. Australia has lived true to its moniker as the Lucky Country - at least two full generations of Australians have never witnessed economic hardship or downturn of any kind. Natural disasters pass the nation by (other than wildfires). Even Covid looked like it was going…

I wonder how much Australia is influenced by people who loathe the US and move from it to Australia because it's far away and yet Anglophone and "western".

Probably very few. Liberals who are alienated with the U.S. would sooner move to Canada for the healthcare, conservatives alienated with the U.S. would sooner be dead than be alive in Australia without guns if their bumper stickers are to be believed.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#276

Post by cletus »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #193
cletus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ev…

> 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. Australia recognized same sex marriage in 2017. That was 3 years after after the USA did. I'm not sure I would call Australia as being progressive by that measure.

So, for the record, I 100% support gay marriage and abortion rights.

What you have to realize about the US is that the Supreme Court deciding these issues is... controversial. Many view it as undemocratic (although it's worth noting that many of those same people don't feel the same way about the Supreme Court's pro-2nd Amendment interpretations of modern times).

We're still seeing the ripple effects of Roe v. Wade being decided almost 50 years ago.

As others have pointed out, Supreme Court precedent is only that until a later Supreme Court comes along and changes it and that could very well happen with the current court composition. And you need look no further than the Court's refusal to stay the Texas abortion law pending a full judicial review.

So the date this was decided doesn't really give any moral superiority here of the US over Australia for two reasons:

1. Australia's position was decided by a democratic process; and

2. With 62% (IIRC) of people approving of the change, the matter is effectively settled. No one can complain about it. As such you don't see any real conservative Christian blowback like you do in the US as witnessed by the statements of Tony Abbott and others.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#277

Post by girvo »

BrissyCoder wrote: post #227
cletus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ev…

I mostly agree with everything here but will point out that SE salaries have risen quite dramatically over the past 10 years in Aus. If you are a (genuinely) senior engineer you should be on $170k+. In a place like Brisbane (if you can handle the summers) that's a reasonably liveable salary. But yeah - I fear it's going to end up like the rest of the country fairly quickly... One of my major gripes is that education…

As another senior SE in Brisbane I can 100% back up what BrissyCoder here is saying.

Its even more so right now, if you're up for contracting. $1000+ a day is common. Kind of nuts, but hey its been good for my wallet.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#278

Post by kylebyproxy »

spaginal wrote: post #213
kylebyproxy wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sic aside, I don't follow your line of reasoning. Care to elaborate?

Disengaged voters will simply vote for the current leadership or loudest guy, typically the same thing, without a thought towards the issues. Strongmen love compulsory voting, it creates a false perception of legitimacy, because corruption or no corruption, if only 30% of a population is engaged in the issues and the other 70% could give two shits, that is a slamdunk for incumbents.

Agreed on all points.

Parent's assertion that "Voting at all in an unegaged populace is bad." still rubs me the wrong way.

Why discount the votes of engaged individuals just because the masses aren't? Baby, bath water, etc.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#279

Post by dane-pgp »

adventured wrote: post #172
mrkstu wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the reality on the ground though? For instance: "Texas ranks number 10 overall when it comes to engagement among African American voters, including being first overall in proportional representation of blacks in state legislature and national party conventions." https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/african-americans-in-texas-...

> What is the reality on the ground though? The reality on the ground is that all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does and almost nobody on HN will dare to talk about that fact because it's inconvenient to the propaganda game. It's the sick joke of eg Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game from Georgia to protest new voting laws, shifting it to Colorado which alre…

> all Western European nations have stricter voting laws / requirements than the US does

The UK* has never required voting ID for elections, and it is possible to walk into a local polling station and be given a ballot paper after just stating your name and address. Sadly that may no longer be the case for future elections, because the UK Conservative party has decided to introduce a voter ID requirement, modelled on the success that the Republicans have had with it at decreasing turnout especially among the poor and minorities.

The fact that other Western European nations have voter ID laws is likely because they generally have mandatory national ID cards already, and it makes to use those to record who voted (how many times). If Republicans were first pushing for mandatory state ID, then later requiring those IDs at polling time would not be seen as so suspicious.

> The same is true of immigration restrictions.

I'm sure it's possible to find examples of policies in some European countries which are worse than the equivalent US policy, but to provide some factual comparison for how welcoming the US is of (poor) immigrants, let me point out that Sweden hosts 8.52 refugees per 1,000 people while the US hosts 0.92, ranking 13th and 68th respectively on the global league table for this.[0]

But you're right, the US would receive criticism for adopting more bigoted policies, just as France was condemned for its bigoted face veil policy.[1] If you live in the US, it shouldn't be surprising that you hear (and are more sensitivity to) criticism of the US more than criticism of countries like France.

* Technically voter ID was trialled in some English constituencies recently, and it has long been standard in Northern Ireland, so perhaps "Scotland" is a better example of a "Western European nation" here. On the other hand, not every US state requires voter ID, so I hope it's still fair for me to say "the US does" require it.

[0] https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/People/Migra...

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-niqab...

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#280

Post by girvo »

gregsq wrote: post #237
Nagyman wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can just submit a blank ballot. https://www.quora.com/As-voting-is-compulsory-in-Australia-a...

I don’t see this as anywhere near the same thing though. These so called ‘donkey votes’ are derided, and categorised as together with voting errors and other invalid voting forms. The right to withhold your vote is as fundamental as the right to withold your labour. Voter turnout is an important metric in its own right, and is observed tactically in, say, the UK. Compulsory voting simplifies competition, and destroys…

> In particular, the ‘mandate’

The amount of electorates that swung, and the percentages that the winning representative (and party) received mean that's not true at all, in my opinion anyway. Happy to be convinced otherwise, but the "mandate" still exists.

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