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Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

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Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5.b ...or what? In practice these kinds of rules are unenforced because governments tolerance for their own busy schedules, giving exceptions for unavoidable delay, is infinite. And then it happens so much it's standard practice and attorneys lose social credit for even bringing it up.

I would say it depends. If it takes 80 hours to get approval and it turns out that the warrant was, well, warranted, then I don't consider it to be a big problem. If it takes 80 hours and it turns out to be abuse, then heads would probably roll. However, in most cases these things are legitimate. I've worked in government and most people have good intentions. We don't have to protect ourselves, as a society, against…

What if it turns out to be 30 days?

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I did not read the law in detail, but I am pretty sure, that tampering with evidence is not included and still forbidden with the threat of criminal investigation for the officers doing it. What is allowed here, is hacking for the police. That necessarily can include changing files on the target computers (e.g. deleting logs) - this is the way I read this. And I would see the point in it - if it really only get…

> tampering with evidence is not included and still forbidden > What is allowed here, is hacking for the police. That necessarily can include changing files on the target computers (e.g. deleting logs) How is this not tampering with evidence?

Not everything is evidence.

When there is an email on the computer that will be used as a proof - then why is this been tampered with, if just a system log was altered?

Courts are usually very strict to only allow "clean" evidence. Cases have been thrown totally over, because of a minor fuckup of police. It is all a question of how it is implemented and used. And sure, it is a very extreme thing and sadly the use case "only for serious crime" is in danger of soon to be applied to allmost anything.

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#363

It took me just a couple of minutes to find the bill in question, read up on it and find that most of the claims made in this article are incorrect. It's not "rushed through parliament in 24 hours", it's been in a process since at least December 2020. The 'without a judge' part is strongly misleading: (5) If subsection (4) applies, the applicant must: (a) provide as much information as the eligible Judge or nominated…

I don't see the necessity and equivalency to be honest. A police officer isn't allowed to search your apartment for example, why should he be allowed to search you documents without court order?

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#364
post #52

In similar news the well-known direct democracy of Switzerland just voted a new rule giving police similar surveillance powers without judicial oversight. So it's obviously the people wishing to be better surveilled and we're the outliers here.

That means the government and media successfully manufactured consent with the population. A majority of the US supported the War on Terror. That was manufactured consent with thanks to the corporate press. It was only the outliers that protested from the beginning, only proven correct after 20 years, thousands of lives and trillions of dollars wasted in Afghanistan. Now that this has ended, be on alert for the next…

Trillions of dollars wasted in the war but it should also be mentioned that the US lost over a trillion dollars shorty before the attacks on the world trade center. The war swept that topic from the table but the money has to be somewhere.

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#365
post #34

I guess my days as a paying customer of FastMail are coming to an end. I don’t expect to ever become a legitimate target of Australian law enforcement, but there is always abuse.

Me too, and I just submitted a support request seeking clarification. I'll update with any reply I get.

Update:

``` Hi,

Thank you for contacting Fastmail support.

I’ve escalated your ticket to our privacy team, who is best suited to assist with this issue. You can expect to receive an update in approximately two business days.

I thank you for your patience as we work to get this addressed for you.

Sincerely, ** ```

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#366

My girlfriend is Australian, stranded abroad here in Germany like many other Aussies. I’ve bern following the news from down under for quite a while. I have the nagging feeling that Australia is currently the Western country with the highest chance of turning into Gilead.

Gilead...? You mean Gulag?

Yep, as per the other comment. Reference to the Handmaid's Tale.

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#367
post #178

Australia is turning itself into a prison state. Citizens are allowed to go outside for maximum one or two hours, total surveillance, unconstrained searches of the property... About the same set of rights as a supermax prison inmate has, it looks like.

Depends what state you are in from what I've seen in news reports. States that failed on COVID have lost their freedoms (quarantine/lockdown) since the hospital system is under strain. If you are in 5 of the 7 states (not NSW/ACT, VIC you probably have the most freedoms out of many developed countries right now.

Its a tale of two opposing extremes.

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#368
post #367
post #178

Australia is turning itself into a prison state. Citizens are allowed to go outside for maximum one or two hours, total surveillance, unconstrained searches of the property... About the same set of rights as a supermax prison inmate has, it looks like.

Depends what state you are in from what I've seen in news reports. States that failed on COVID have lost their freedoms (quarantine/lockdown) since the hospital system is under strain. If you are in 5 of the 7 states (not NSW/ACT, VIC you probably have the most freedoms out of many developed countries right now. Its a tale of two opposing extremes.

It's only a matter of time before the other states have rising case levels and lockdowns, vaccinations rise high enough that case levels are not important, or the states realise that it's not sustainable to be on eternal lockdown.

This virus is with humanity forever now.

Let's hope the right choice is made with the least amount of time. The only proactive thing a government can do is vaccinate and increase medical capacity.

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#369

Is there anywhere where you aren’t being watched now?

I think these draconian laws are actually motivated because police forces have severe barriers to get access to peoples communication. Since tech giants do access private info, it has become some form of competition.

This is only the legal framework, I doubt they can surveil your traffic without getting physical access to your devices.

Re: Surveilance bill rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours

#370
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the police have a warrant to watch you, then, no. But that is as it should be. Is it? Any government could make $thing illegal tomorrow. Anyone associated with $thing could then be watched and imprisoned. With judicial oversight. Some possible values from $thing taken from history: being gay, (not) being christian, being a pacifist, being poor/homeless The above have all been persecuted in the past. Sometimes in…

Yes because societies are built on rules and enforcement of the societal contract has always come, in some measure, by the government's ability to enforce the basically decent behavior that the majority wants. The fact that the majority has often historically been in the wrong doesn't mean that we throw the baby out with the bathwater and get rid of enforcement of the laws: Anarchy is not preferable to a well ordered…

In my constitution surveillance is illegal and I am also obliged to resist an unjust law. That doesn't result in anarchy at all.
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