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.<p>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:<p><pre><code> (5) If subsection (4) applies, the applicant must:
(a) provide as much information as the eligible Judge or nominated AAT member considers is reasonably practicable in the circumstances; and
(b) not later than 72 hours after the making of the application, send a duly sworn affidavit to the eligible Judge or nominated AAT member, whether or not a warrant has been issued.
</code></pre>
Subsection (4) is about immediate threats.<p>The AAT's decisions "are subject to review by the Federal Court of Australia and the Federal Circuit Court of Australia" (Wikipedia).<p><a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=LEGISLATION;id=legislation%2Fbills%2Fr6623_aspassed%2F0001;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbills%2Fr6623_aspassed%2F0000%22" rel="nofollow">https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....</a><p>This is just the digital equivalent of a police officer being able to arrest you without a court order.
I'm most curious about what they mean by "ADDING" data...<p>Does this mean the police can create a social media account in your name? Imagine for instance that they suspect one of your family members of tax evasion. Can they create a fake social media account or email account registered to you, and impersonate you for the sake of entrapping someone else? Like hey uncle, love your new car, got any hot accounting tips? I don't even see anything in these laws that says the person whose data they're accessing has to be the target of the investigation.<p>Imagine if at any time in any chat, even with your partner or parent or child, you couldn't know whether you were actually talking with them or a government agent, perhaps because someone they know is tangentially suspected of a crime - without the matter even being brought before a judge. Terrifying. This is how societies turn into places where everyone is completely fearful of saying anything at all.
This is an important piece of legislation - however OP doesn't provide the best link (it's a blog post from a company that sells encrypted email service?).<p>This should be a helpful - it's a list of politician speeches when the bill was debated in parliament.<p><a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary%20Business/Bills%20Legislation/Bills%20Search%20Results/Result/Second%20Reading%20Speeches?BillId=r6623" rel="nofollow">https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary%20Business/Bills%20Legi...</a><p>For non-Australians, politicians with (LP) or (LNP) belong to the party in government.<p>For example, speech by government party member:
<a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansardr/11b18738-de56-4d82-82f6-2c10fddd6b2b/0024/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf" rel="nofollow">https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansardr...</a><p>Speech from opposition party (that still supported the bill):<a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansards/38aecaea-ebc3-40c8-b36a-5c9638090797/0022/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf" rel="nofollow">https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansards...</a><p>Speech from a third party:
<a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansards/38aecaea-ebc3-40c8-b36a-5c9638090797/0023/hansard_frag.pdf;fileType=application%2Fpdf" rel="nofollow">https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/genpdf/chamber/hansards...</a>
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.
edit: found information about emergency authorisation<p>Here's the bill under discussion [1] :<p>This article states that it brings in new warrants, and makes no mention of "without a judge's warrant" [2].<p>Perhaps the original article is keying off of:<p>"(aab) to establish procedures for certain law enforcement officers of the Australian Federal Police or the Australian Crime Commission to obtain warrants and emergency authorisations" [3]<p>"emergency authorisations" would appear to not require a warrant, but it does include language of "it is not practicable in the circumstances to apply for a <warrant>" [4]<p>However, I'm not Australian, and definitely not a lawyer.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislation/Bills_Search_Results/Result?bId=r6623" rel="nofollow">https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://www.natlawreview.com/article/even-hacking-field-government-surveillance-bill-passed-parliament" rel="nofollow">https://www.natlawreview.com/article/even-hacking-field-gove...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;db=LEGISLATION;id=legislation%2Fbills%2Fr6623_aspassed%2F0001;query=Id%3A%22legislation%2Fbills%2Fr6623_aspassed%2F0000%22" rel="nofollow">https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display....</a><p>[4] <a href="https://pinpoint.cch.com.au/360document/legauUio1949041sl318346247/section-33-when-application-may-be-made-for-emergency-authorisation/overview" rel="nofollow">https://pinpoint.cch.com.au/360document/legauUio1949041sl318...</a>
Can we change the URL of this post to a more normal news website?<p>The current one is a blog post from an email provider company, not a journalistic entity.<p>It has unnecessary hyperbole ("End of Human Rights"), and has a clear conflict of interest given that they provide secure email services and one of their main competitors (FastMail) is Australian. (though I do share their concerns)<p>I find @jpollock's links a good replacement.
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.
Interesting. I’m not from Australia but I thought the concept of an Administrative Appeals Tribunal interesting. It seems like a way to offload work from the main court system. According to Wikipedia it also does seem to have oversight by the Federal Court of Australia. [1]<p>While I agree that this seems like a massive overstep. The actual body seems similar to the FISA court in the US. There wasn’t any detail in the article but I would hope there is a massive audit trail on the ability to modify data or impersonate someone online.<p>Anyone have any additional details on the AAT’s effect on the average Australian citizen?<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Appeals_Tribunal" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Appeals_Tribuna...</a>
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.
In what way was this bill "rushed through Australian parliament in 24 hours"? The bill in question is dated 2020 and the committee was requesting submissions by 12th February[0]<p>[0] <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence_and_Security/IdentifyandDisruptBill" rel="nofollow">https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joi...</a>
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.
As an Australian, how concerned should I be about this authoritarian trend?<p>I've heard people saying that Australia is used as a test-bed for government policy. I've also heard the creep of China could be the cause of this trend.<p>I've seen how quickly a functioning country can dissolve (Syria, Ukraine, Hong Kong). Just how concerned should we be about this? And apart from voting, is there any kind of action that can be taken?
Well, just added Australia to the list of places I'm never going.<p>> The two Australian law enforcement bodies AFP and ACIC will soon have the power to modify, add, copy, or delete your data should you become a suspect in the investigation of a serious crime.<p>How would one prove the bodies didnt add/modify incriminating items? in the US that would be nigh impossible to argue against as the system implicitly trusts police testimony over accused
In the U.S. we have the 4th Amendment to our Constitution, which reads:<p>The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Over the past two years, Australian and New Zealand's governments have become great examples of how statism can take over so quickly. As an outsider, I feel really sad for people in Australia and New Zealand.
Reminds me of anti-free speech laws that was almost passed in France.<p>It was designed to help fight « hate speech ».<p>It enable police to remove literally ANY content from the interne t as long as it was « hateful » of course there is no legal definition of hateful.<p>I think similar laws have been passed in Belgium and Germany.<p>I find it funny that has economic growth from the post war era is slowing down and climate change is accelerating our fundamentals rights and freedom are slowly being taken away from us ,bits by bits with more or less the same laws everywhere.<p>Very strange.
I do have a question.<p>'Data disruption warrant: gives the police the ability to "disrupt data" by modifying, copying, adding, or deleting it.'<p>What does it really mean? Can they now legally change what website says to me? Intercept and change what signal message says?<p>I am genuinely trying to understand what functionality hides behind this broad language.
The bigger and more important issue here in my opinion is that this completely paves and protects the road to breaking Apple style CSAM detection systems by any 5 eyes country for other uses. Game Over.
Crime rates have been going down for decades in the Western world (including Oz). Yet governments continue to pass surveillance laws to “fight crime.”<p>If that doesn’t highlight their true aims, I don’t know what else does.
Why is Australia trying so hard to become an authoritarian state? It's an island nation with few serious internal or external enemies.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/australias-enemies-looking-where-the-light-shines-brightest" rel="nofollow">https://thediplomat.com/2016/12/australias-enemies-looking-w...</a>
One downside to all this surveillance that's never considered are the consequences of all this intel after a foreign invasion and life for the surveiled after a defeat.<p>It would be much easier to occupy a foreign territory if all of this intel were available as you roll in. Makes one wonder...
I’m appalled at this legislation, but also curious about how they intend to do this. Are they going to be compelling service providers to comply with specific requests, or give them admin accounts, or…? Do targets of their activities receive notification when their online content is modified or removed? What recourse is there in cases of abuse of these powers?
What is it about Australia that is driving it to be so uniquely totalitarian among the English-speaking countries? I always envisioned it culturally more individualistic than the UK, but they've gone even farther down the path of state control and surveillance.
Something really bizarre and unsettling is happening in Australia. Despite a small number of covid deaths, they have by far the most totalitarian lockdowns and are pursuing some of the most extreme social control measures of any country on earth. They are building quarantine imprisonment camps, doing national manhunts for people who aren't quarantining, arresting people for anti-government speech, using the military to limit movement. You are not even allowed to leave the country anymore! Things really happened so fast and with so little debate that it rivals the speed and severity of loss of rights that occurs in a communist revolution. What the heck is even going on there?
I make the same observation as other people have made. These types of laws are being passed with increasing intensity and scope in most western countries.<p>They seem to follow the same idea. Purportedly they are being passed to stop crime or at least aid the investigation of suspected criminals.<p>The other set of laws are purportedly meant to stop the spread of infectious disease.<p>But the laws are clearly not well balanced in terms of privacy rights and personal freedom.<p>There is also this ominous synchronization between government and trans-national bodies such as the WHO with major technology firms; having the latter act as uncritical propaganda arms of the former - no matter the evidence or reasons for doubt.<p>Rather than discussion and reasoning, there is this flow of labels thrown around at dissenters, regardless of who they are and what they say.<p>If they critique transwomen competing with women they are called transphobic and accused of hate speech.<p>If they prefer not to take a vaccine shot and/or critique lockdowns and restrictions; they are called anti-vaxxers and accused of spreading misinformation.<p>All of this points in the direction of tyranny and totalitarianism. All we can do is vote with our feet.
One intention is for the Australian police to be able to fabricate evidence that can then be used to generate American warrants and prosecutions, very similar to the way the FBI and DNC fabricated the British Steele dossier in order to generate FISA warrants and prosecutions of various Trump staffers.