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Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

digitalrightswatch.org.au

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Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#871

Post by modo_mario »

oblio wrote: post #837
modo_mario wrote: post #790

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Yeah, plus they're practically the only country that hasn't had serious government threatening civil unrest for 160 years and they still brag about guns. There was that miners strike which got bombed.

Do you mean this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonus_Army Or something else? I guess that's the closest thing that would qualify. But compared to the anti-government protests that have probably happened in half the countries in the world during the same time period, it's peanuts. Example from Romania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017%E2%80%932019_Romanian_pro... Half a million people protesting out of ~18 million…

No, I meant this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

I agree tho. In general the US is rather good at keeping down any kind of protests that pose an existential threat or undermines it's major goals.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#872

Post by eru »

Aerroon wrote: post #826
eru wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for me. I'd like to see many more small countries and city states. Or at least people taking federalism and subsidiarity serious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity That's because people seem to be much more reasonable when voting with their feet and wallets, then when voting at the polling booth. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Myth_of_the_Rational_Voter for some background.) Eg in a US context,…

The issue is that all of those small separate states will do one thing or another wrong. This causes an outcry for centralization because the idea is that the central authority will set them right. And once the power has centralized it doesn't go back to the small states. Eventually people realize that the centralized state also does some things wrong, but now there's no alternative.

Where, of course, 'wrong' is in the eye of the beholder.

Many people cheer on Supreme Court decisions that forbid states from making certain laws or policies that their democratically elected legislatures and governments decided on.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#873

Post by kongin »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #869
chitowneats wrote: post #862

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such an unbelievable lie. See the recent case explosions in so called "zero covid" utopias like Mongolia: https://graphics.reuters.com/world-coronavirus-tracker-and-m... You can delay. You cannot run forever.

China, the most populous country on Earth, has no community transmission. I don't know what went wrong in Mongolia, because I haven't been following that country, but China and New Zealand have demonstrated that with a good public health system, elimination is possible and sustainable.

China also didn't have official community transmission in December 2019 yet we were seeing people coming out of airplanes sick constantly, which allowed us to calculate their infection rates, which were then released publicly when they couldn't be hid any longer.

Today there are no flights out of China and we have to trust the same government when they say they have no transmissions.

Need I point to the centuries long history of communist regimes hiding mass deaths?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#874

Post by dang »

kongin wrote: post #858
dang wrote: post #810

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are two separate questions. If you want to comment here you need to follow the rules regardless of what other people are doing.

Ok, so would you say that this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28461965 should be flagged? And if it shouldn't be how are you dealing with the abuse of the function?

I'd say it's at least borderline. If you start off with a quasi-insult like "Do you know what AIDS is?", you're already posting in the flamewar style. Please don't do that on HN. It's enough to provide correct information respectfully.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#875

Post by 9qlGq9aGgQMgaax »

oblio wrote: post #841
9qlGq9aGgQMgaax wrote: post #762

Earlier quoted context omitted.

15 days to slow the spread

And what would have done instead? Said 900 days to stop the spread? :-)

So, you are saying they were internationally lying and it was a good thing? Boiled frogs?

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#876

Post by wutbrodo »

Vecr wrote: post #863
wutbrodo wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have friends who have been unable to leave the country to see dying parents. Im somewhat neutral on most of Australia's restrictions: my opinion is that theyre unnecessarily draconian, and that some of them are not in accordance with pretty well-established science (1 hour of outdoor time is ludicrous). But this is a relatively low-confidence belief, as I don't have a strong rebuttal to those championing the mini…

If you can't leave, you can't bring the virus back. I guess.

Yea of course, but it's trivial to just ban returning without quarantine. This policy also has the advantage of not potentially violating international law

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#877

Post by wutbrodo »

chrisseaton wrote: post #824
wutbrodo wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your opinion is not factually supported. A million people were prosecuted for breaking lockdown laws in the UK. That's his point. He's drawing a contrast to blackout laws,by claiming that an individual sees direct benefit from compliance (not getting bombed) while breaking lockdown doesn't create a lot of risk for the vast majority of offenders. Ie, if a hypothetical person was 100% optimizing for self-interest, th…

> Ie, if a hypothetical person was 100% optimizing for self-interest, they would not break blackout laws but would break lockdown laws. Yes… except that’s the other way around from what happened in reality. People did break blackout lockdown rules but they generally didn’t break COVID lockdown rules.

You said "breaking lockdown rules", not "breaking blackout rules", specifically when contrasting policies that heretofore in the conversation were described as "blackout" and "lockdown".

Though it sounds like you're saying you misspoke, and intended to say that people broke the blackout rules. That makes a lot more sense, thanks for clarifying

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#878

Post by tartoran »

kingkawn wrote: post #684
tartoran wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men also means people, humans

To men.

I see your point and how the language has been masculinized but the meaning still stands as of now.. until the next changes take place. Language is evolving and these will inevitably change as well at some point.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#879

Post by skissane »

relativ575 wrote: post #432
runako wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I am not a lawyer.) The USA recognized same sex marriage in 2015, but we did so via a Supreme Court ruling. The Court's composition has changed since then, and the new Court has signaled a willingness to overturn settled precedents. While our current detent may persist, I would imagine that an action taken by the Australian Parliament would tend to be more durable.

> I would imagine that an action taken by the Australian Parliament would tend to be more durable. I'm curious to understand why you'd think a law passed by elected lawmakers is more durable than a verdict by judges who have their position for life? Obacare was surely very controversial, but despite the best efforts by the conservative and an ideologically hostile Supreme Court, it remains in place after ten years.

In Australia's case, the same-sex marriage law was approved by 61% of voters in a national plebiscite, a non-binding referendum (officially it was called a "postal survey") before Parliament enacted it.

Legally, Parliament could repeal it tomorrow and ban same-sex marriage again. Politically, that would be impossible without another plebiscite, and there is no reason to believe a new plebiscite would deliver a different outcome; it would almost certainly return the same result, and likely by a bigger margin.

No conservative politician in Australia wants to talk about this. I'm sure some of them are still personally opposed to same-sex marriage, but they all realise trying to repeal it is hopeless, and so they'd rather talk about things that they have some hope of achieving.

Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate

#880

Post by chris_wot »

valzam wrote: post #655
AussieWog93 wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This talk about "Draconian" lockdown in Australia needs to stop. I haven't been following the lockdown laws interstate, but here in Victoria there have definitely been some restrictions that seemed to be extremely harsh and soul-crushing in comparison to their effectiveness at stopping the virus. The 5km radius and curfew both spring to mind. I (legally) haven't been able to see a single friend or family member for…

Very much agree with the 5km rule and curfew. If there is strong evidence to suggest that they are necessary than so be it but after months and months of restricting basic freedoms 'we follow the health advice' just doesn't cut it anymore.

Then what does?
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