BigBrother - Aussie Style

The Australian Federal Government wants to snoop on their citizens.

According to recent reports, it appears the government wants to be able to undertake line-taps, read Email and SMS messages of innocent people.

Should you be worried?   Very much!

These laws are passing today - and are unlikely to raise a whimper.  It will be interesting to see how much mainstream coverage it will generate.

The Greens and Democrats will oppose the bill, however nothing has been heard on the Labour front.

So what exactly does the bill provide both the AFP and ASIO?

• Ability to read SMS messages
• Ability to place a tap on a telephone line
• Ability to read Email messages
• AFP can 'monitor' for up to 45 days.
• ASIO can 'monitor' for up to 3 months
  

So this you would imagine would be for organised crime or hardened criminals under a close watch?     Not at all....  basically any innocent person who might lead them to a suspect.

Notice the word 'might'?   I might win the lottery, I might be the next prime minister.  
All AFP and ASIO officers need to do is 'judge shop' until they get one judge that is soft on ordering such warrents and they are home.

Australia already has the highest rate of line-taps in the world.  We even spy on our citizens much more than the US (who are always under constant attack for such breach of civil liberties).  The figure is staggering....  as we spy on our citizens upto 26 times more than the US!

I'm sick of everything falling under the 'terrorist' label to allow such agencies the free reign the so greedily want.   What's worse is our pollies fall for it hook, line and sinker.

I don't like the idea of terrorists any more than the next bloke, though I do believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty.    The threat from terrorists has always been here -- it's no less or greater since 9/11 -- no matter what the US and Australian governments beat their chest about.

These groups also work in code and hidden messages...   so such laws don't provide any asistance anyway.
Whilst you can do little about line taps, and SMS reading (unless you use take on your own coded message format! )  you can actually do something about your Email being read.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encrypts Email you send, allowing it only to be read by the intended person.  You can download free PGP programs that automate the process and can encrypt your Email from within Outlook at other similar Email clients.

I recommend you all look seriously at using such tools.