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Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

digitalrightswatch.org.au

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Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#751

Post by flyinghamster »

grishka wrote: post #725
flyinghamster wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just did a quick look, searching (without quotes) "Australia permission to leave" on DDG. It looks to me like you're conflating emergency restrictions for COVID [0] with something like the exit visas that the former USSR used and Russia still uses. There are a great many people dying in the US at this very moment who were making this same sort of argument, right up until they caught COVID and ended up on ventilator…

> Russia still uses No it does not. I'm Russian, and the only thing you need to leave the country is an international passport. You can apply for one online, then come to the immigration service to have your picture taken, then a month later you come again and collect it. The passport is valid for 10 years. I believe it's fairly similar to the process most other countries use. Many other countries require Russian cit…

Good to know, that's more in line with the normal world. I would think that only applies to Russian citizens, though. Getting a visa into Russia is a different story under normal conditions, let alone a pandemic, and exit visas do apply to foreign visitors (at least from the US).

https://ru.usembassy.gov/u-s-citizen-services/russian-visas/

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#752

Post by logicchains »

CrazyPyroLinux wrote: post #714

The fact that they haven't strung up the puppy killers in Bourke Shire says a lot about Australia's COVID mania.

I remember one time as a child attending school in Australia, overhearing a discussion between a woman who lived near the school and a local council officer. The council officer had discovered the woman had a dog of a certain breed that wasn't permitted in that region, and was telling the distraught woman that the dog would need to be taken away and killed. The dog hadn't caused any trouble or bitten anyone, mind you. Although at the time I didn't have any notion of "freedom", it shocked me nonetheless.

As someone put it, "The problem with Aussies is not that so many are descended from convicts – it's that so many are descended from prison officers".

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#753

Post by b0tzzzzzzman »

Nursie wrote: post #573
sandworm101 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being forced to use the app. Download the app or we send you to a camp? That isn't much of a choice. I'd say it is about as non-choice as possible while still meeting the literal definition.

I'll say what I said on the other thread - If you want to present an argument against quarantine being needed or warranted, please go ahead. Checking in on the app is the least intrusive of the three options - quarantine under guard (usually in a hotel, like the one I'm in right now), quarantine at home with police visits tio ensure compliance, or quarantine at home checking in to the app once or twice a day. In this…

Did you just say you are under guard, being forced to stay in a hotel? And this is acceptable? Do you have covid, were you exposed to one person who had it? Did they provide proof of this or just tell you and cart you away?

Bound to repeate history looks more and more valid everyday.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#754

Post by ncallaway »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #693
thinkingemote wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is revealing and truthful. It's almost been 2 years and most people have suffered. They blame and identify a minority for their suffering. It's one way that if you look at history minorities have also been identified. Scapegoat behaviour from the crowd is a response to senseless suffering and pain. It actually makes those who scapegoat others feel better and people want to feel better. Why would anyone v…

The important take away from these sorts of restrictions, though, are such state powers set to end when the pandemic is controlled or terminated? I'm not from Australia, so I can't speak to their power systems, but almost every time our federal institutions take a more broader domestic power towards spying, restricting speech, restricting movement, etc. etc. those powers don't come back at the end of the panic, whate…

I guess I don’t understand this concern, because it doesn’t seem historically accurate.

There have been many pandemics in the past. Governments have responded in the past with aggressive quarantines. Yet, before this current pandemic, no country had aggressive quarantines in place.

These kinds of restrictions imposed by governments have historically disappeared with high reliability when the situation calling for them has ended.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#755

Post by gorwell »

tikwidd wrote: post #431
fallous wrote: post #401

I've lived to see this kind of thing enacted in a good portion of the Anglosphere and my visceral reaction is to engage in a combination of civil disobedience and a determination to undermine every overstep made. With regards to things like the Aussie requirement for phone check-ins every 15 minutes or they will deploy police to follow up and confirm your location, turn off the phone and make them eat the cost of hav…

You seem to be referring to the South Australia Home Quarantine app [1]. There has been a lot of misinformation circulating about this app recently. I'd just like to clear up some things: The app only applies to people that need to quarantine, not the general population. The app allows people who are required to isolate to opt to do their isolation at home, rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being f…

"Our oppressor isn't as bad as you've heard. They give us choices! For example, we get to choose chicken or beef for our 12pm meal."

Be careful. Stockholm syndrome is real.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#756

Post by throwanem »

roody15 wrote: post #707
tikwidd wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be referring to the South Australia Home Quarantine app [1]. There has been a lot of misinformation circulating about this app recently. I'd just like to clear up some things: The app only applies to people that need to quarantine, not the general population. The app allows people who are required to isolate to opt to do their isolation at home, rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being f…

“ The app allows people who are required to isolate to opt to do their isolation at home, rather than stay at a quarantine facility.” Sounds just like this was taken from a dystopian novel.

So does a global pandemic that's killed millions worldwide.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#757

Post by docmars »

daniel-grigg wrote: post #609
sandworm101 wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being forced to use the app. Download the app or we send you to a camp? That isn't much of a choice. I'd say it is about as non-choice as possible while still meeting the literal definition.

It’s a consensual decision on behalf of the individual - when you travel from a high risk region to another it’s understood by all parties you will need to quarantine for a period to prevent unknowingly spreading the virus on untold others. Which to me just seems you know, ethical and responsible?

^ Hey everyone, the propaganda worked on this one! ;)

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#758

Post by Workaccount2 »

slowmotiony wrote: post #590
jezzzabell wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the alternative is thousands and thousands of deaths, most of us are willing to temporarily give up a bit of civil liberty.

Well, I hope you won't be regretting it soon when you find out it's not temporary.

Where are you going to post your retraction when it is just temporary?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#759

Post by futureshock »

jezzzabell wrote: post #551
slowmotiony wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The phone check in thing is for enforcing the two weeks home quarantine for returned travelers and close contacts of confirmed cases. So the government can effectively just inprison you in your own house, with no proof, no recourse and no due process, because they suspect you were near some guy at some particular time some days ago. They don't even ask to get tested first! How can people on hacker news of all place…

When the alternative is thousands and thousands of deaths, most of us are willing to temporarily give up a bit of civil liberty.

We are way past temporary here. Australia is not as far along in vaccinations as other countries, but at this point the most vulnerable have had ample chance to be vaccinated. The virus can't be eradicated, will continue to mutate, and herd immunity by vaccination alone is not likely. At some point, Australia, New Zealand and China will need to join the rest of the world in the new normal, unless they want to become virtual prison states.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#760

Post by kongin »

dang wrote: post #667
kongin wrote: post #447

[flagged]

Could you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN? You don't have to change your views but we want thoughtful, substantive comments here, not battlefield stuff. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

How are you dealing with weaponised flags?

I'd put more effort into posts if they weren't just removed by someone who didn't like what they said. Give than you've unflagged a half dozen of them 12 hours later.

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