Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

digitalrightswatch.org.au

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 894 posts

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#71

Post by [deleted] »

lettergram wrote: post #56
d_t_w wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's complex. When I first moved to Australia I rankled at compulsory voting as I believe that not participating is a valid political act. Countries without compulsory voting talk about the turnout as relative to previous years, and if it falls too far there will be questions about a mandate to govern. In Australia that can't happen as turnout is always high, this leads to very little opportunity to overhaul the mech…

> Look at America, what an absolute shambles of a democratic system. One party spending decades attempting to stop black people voting. Voter suppression and gerrymandering (also not possible in Australia) baked into the political system. No thanks. It’s always interesting to see this essentially fake narrative. No one is trying to stop anyone from voting. It’s made up, to try and role the base, the same way you desc…

[deleted]

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#72

Post by SilverRed »

_-david-_ wrote: post #42
user123456780 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though people may not be engaged in politics mandatory voting is important. It reduces extremist politics and the constant need to be increasingly divisive. It forces regression to the mean. In non mandatory voting systems the politicians need to motivate people to the polls. The default of the population is apathy so to generate action you appeal to the extremes who are the most likely to act. The more people y…

Seeing how this law was passed, maybe you should rethink your theory that you will get less extremist politics.

It's not extremist politics. There was no TV marketing about how x group is the devil and they need this law to stop it. The government just passed quickly without much publicity. The average Australian is not radicalized like Americans are and they generally do not hate peoples existence based on how they vote / make their vote their identify.

There is no such thing as "a group of liberal supporters protesting" like you see with trump and biden supporters.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#74

Post by SilverRed »

discordance wrote: post #38
neither_color wrote: post #9

We can refer to both now as acts because — in what is an increasing trend in the Australian Parliament — the bills flew through both houses in a single day. Why is this an increasing trend? Voting is mandatory…so are voters more trusting of their institutions or just apathetic? Voting is compulsory at federal elections, by-elections and referendums for those on the electoral roll, as well as for State and Territory e…

Issues around civil liberties don’t rank with Australians. They are captive to their housing investment debts, so political campaigns are decided on policies around that.

This is pretty much it. It's not so much that people do not care about these issues, its that any time they feel spooked about their investment values or taxes, all other issues become irrelevant.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#75

Post by [deleted] »

kibwen wrote: post #31
lettergram wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider what happens when you have a bunch of uninformed voters that are forced to vote... Imagine how elections would shift if only the elderly voted or middle age. Imagine if only those with children could vote (as they have a reason for the future). The voting base is important. Forcing people to vote sets up conditions where propaganda as opposed to an informed population is making the decisions. That’s what hap…

Mandatory voting can be done well if the first two options for every race are "I approve of none of these candidates" and "I approve of all of these candidates". Nobody should be forced to vote for a candidate that they don't want to, but it's also useful to be able to distinguish between a disaffected voter (the first option) and an apathetic voter (the second option). With non-mandatory voting, that distinction is…

[deleted]

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#76

Post by cheesetable »

jakequade wrote: post #61
bingohbangoh wrote: post #44

It’s cool though, this time they’ll finally get rid of COVID. All snark aside, I ask what I’ve asked everybody: at what point is the cure not worth it anymore?

Please fuck off with anti-covid-vax rhetoric (even if tongue-in-cheek). There's enough bullshit being spun as it is.

Please keep discussion polite.

GP did not mention vaccines.

Different people are impacted by lockdown in different ways. Consider those that might have different experiences to yours.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#77

Post by [deleted] »

jakequade wrote: post #61
bingohbangoh wrote: post #44

It’s cool though, this time they’ll finally get rid of COVID. All snark aside, I ask what I’ve asked everybody: at what point is the cure not worth it anymore?

Please fuck off with anti-covid-vax rhetoric (even if tongue-in-cheek). There's enough bullshit being spun as it is.

[deleted]

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#78

Post by cheesetable »

kibwen wrote: post #36
ogwh wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ACLU has already been taken by the new American leftist orthodoxy. Turning the tide will require new thinking.

If you're trying to argue that the ACLU is espousing authoritarian causes, I'll have to ask for a citation.

A recent example: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-aclu-prior-to-covid-den...

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#79

Post by nickysielicki »

These "data disruption warrants" are the most interesting to me:

> Data disruption means adding, copying, deleting or altering data held in a computer. This can only be done in order to frustrate the commission of offences or determine relevance of data. To assist disruption, a warrant can also authorise other facilitative activities, such as entering specified premises, using electronic equipment to obtain access to data, removing a computer from premises, copying data that has been obtained, and intercepting if necessary to carry out the things authorised in the warrant. A data disruption warrant also allows the officer to take actions to conceal the access and the activities, allowing the warrant to be conducted covertly.

> Data disruption warrants can be used to affect data offshore with the consent of an appropriate consenting foreign official (if the location of data is known or can be reasonably determined). They can also be issued internally in an emergency situation, and subsequently authorised by a Judge or AAT member. They can also permit the officer to seek assistance from a person with knowledge of a computer or a computer system to help in carrying out the warrant.

- https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/about-us/our-portfolios/natio...

So they can get a warrant to come into your house while you're not home and put a keylogger in your keyboard USB cable, or put a bug on the UART of your router, etc. Or just hacking your cheap Netgear router with one of the hundreds of vulnerabilities that exist.

Scary shit. Sounds like they're pretty drunk with power. Does Australia really have a capable offensive security group like the NSA to pull these sorts of things off, though?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#80

Post by toomuchtodo »

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…

If you had to emigrate, what would your top 3 options be?
Post reply on HN