Aust Govt seeking public response to new security legislation

[silicon_toad2000]

Any members of the community who are australian citizens, please pass on the news and please let your thoughts be known to your local member.

END DATE - 6 August 2012 - we have less than a month to get the word around and make our thoughts known.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security is seeking public submissions in response to reforms proposed increasing and expanding surveillance, collection, retention and access to digital communications and data, including mandatory recording by ISPs of all Internet activity by their customers and storage of these logs for two years, making it a criminal offence to refuse to decrypt data upon request by law enforcement, giving ASIO the power and right to ‘disrupt’ a target computer for the purpose of gaining access to it, or even access to ‘third party’ computers on the way to the target computers, and other changes designed to streamline and simplify the process of warrant acquisition to authorise surveillance and acquisition of communications and data. Submissions close August 6, which is not far away!

The Federal Parliament has rejected a number of requests from interested parties to extend the short deadline for submissions to an inquiry into a wide-reaching package of legislative reforms proposed by the Federal Government which the Greens have slammed as constituting a “systematic erosion of privacy” in Australia. - This is serious I would really appreciate OCAU encouraging people to call their MP's and make a submission to the senate committee before time runs out, because the government is trying to rush this through - before it's on peoples radars it will be LAW.

site for the call for submissions - http://apo.org.au/call/inquiry-potential-reforms-national-security-legislation

link to overclockersau articles - http://www.overclockers.com.au/news.php?id=1041646

[silicon_toad2000]

http://www.getup.org.au/campaigns/privacy-matters/government-spies-invading-your-privacy/five-ways-your-privacy-is-at-risk

Above link is to a page prepared by GetUp Australia with an online petition and a summary of the issues.

[Hooked]

Holy Cow!

Forget the subtle tactics.

Excuse me Mr./Mrs./Miss public may we perpitrate penitration and subsequent offloading of certain "materials" for future usage?

What happens when the answer is no? 

[silicon_toad2000]

is it just me or is this the same as requiring the post master to keep a copy of all letters you send and receive

[GhostShip]

This is simply a copycat law as the one we suffer under in the UK, all of the countries that are part of the global english speaking alliance have proposed such a law and its simply Australias turn to implement the game plane they all work to.

[Hooked]

This is simply a copycat law as the one we suffer under in the UK, all of the countries that are part of the global english speaking alliance have proposed such a law and its simply Australias turn to implement the game plane they all work to.

Indeed.  There is no last bastion of defense.

[silicon_toad2000]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/technology/anonymous-hackers-cripples-aussie-government-websites/story-fn7bfu22-1226433788501

Anonymous takes down aussie govt site on the back of privacy concerns

[Hooked]

I'd like to state my personal opinion here.  It may or may not be the views of the folks on this board and may or may not reflect the views of WinMx World.

While I believe that anon is sometimes misguided, the individuals involved hit this one on the head. 

Take.

Them.

Down.

Same concept  as what ought to happen here, without the bloodshed.  Good for them.

[silicon_toad2000]

A few hackers does not a society make.
I do however agree that they represent the frustrated viewpoint of a significant number of Australians.

However as I have said in a previous thread, this kind of activity just means a bunch of overtime for a bunch of system admins and matter little to the people who make the decisions.

I think the good thing out of this is that there will now be a bit more publicity and hopefully a whole lot of people who didn't know about the legislation previously that will know know about it and hopefully write to their local member.

[Hooked]

A few hackers does not a society make.
I do however agree that they represent the frustrated viewpoint of a significant number of Australians.

However as I have said in a previous thread, this kind of activity just means a bunch of overtime for a bunch of system admins and matter little to the people who make the decisions.

I think the good thing out of this is that there will now be a bit more publicity and hopefully a whole lot of people who didn't know about the legislation previously that will know know about it and hopefully write to their local member.

It's true that a handful of people may not generally represent society as a whole.  To say that they are representative of a significant number of frustrated Australians mirrors (at least from my viewpoint) what happened in my country just a couple of hundred years ago.  Simply put, it's a revolt from a move toward a more repressive society.  The parallel is fairly uncanny as far as the broad spectrum goes.  Does it make work and life more difficult for sysadmins?  Yup.  Does that suck?  Yup.  While it will bring publicity to the pending legal scripts, I don't believe that it will make too much of a difference.  From my experience, most people are sheep, readily eating from the grain trough most available to them.  ...at least until life becomes so unbearable as they are forced to change.  So what I'm looking at is a group of individuals who are motivated to watch out for their own privacy while carrying the load(and in this case, the legal risk) for the general public.  Everybody else is along for the ride whether or not they care about what the outcome of said legislation is.  The best outcome from this that I can see would be a firestorm of contact to the right public officials condemning the legislation and thus forcing it to be scrapped.  The less the firestorm, the worse the outcome for everybody.  I think a good start to that is to cripple your oppressive government. 

...as an aside, if one were affiliated with anon, it would behoove such to rally as much support for their actions and raise public awareness as much as possible.  Groupthink speak wise.  I won't however go so far as to say that their 'motivation' isn't quite self serving.  Maybe it's a mixture of both sprinkled with a healthy dose self/group or ideological grandiosity.