Australia: Unprecedented surveillance bill rushed through parliament in 24 hours.

Australia Internet Surveillance Bill

Australian police can now hack your device, collect or delete your data, take over your social media accounts.
2021-08-31

The Australian government has been moving towards a surveillance state for some years already. Now they are putting the nail in the coffin with an unprecedented surveillance bill that allows the police to hack your device, collect or delete your data, and take over your social media accounts; without sufficient safeguards to prevent abuse of these new powers.

This month the Australian government has passed a sweeping surveillance bill, worse than any similar legislation in any other five eye country.

The Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 gives the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) three new powers for dealing with online crime:

Data disruption warrant: gives the police the ability to "disrupt data" by modifying, copying, adding, or deleting it.

Network activity warrant: allows the police to collect intelligence from devices or networks that are used, or likely to be used, by those subject to the warrant

Account takeover warrant: allows the police to take control of an online account (e.g. social media) for the purposes of gathering information for an investigation.

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.

Amendments rushed through parliament
The Human Rights Law Centre criticizes that there are "insufficient safeguards" and that the government ignored "crucial recommendations of the bipartisan Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security that stronger safeguards are needed to protect the privacy of all Australians" while rushing the amendments through parliament on August 25th.

"It is alarming that, instead of accepting the Committee’s recommendations and allowing time for scrutiny of subsequent amendments, the Morrison Government rushed these laws through Parliament in less than 24 hours."

What makes this legislation even worse is that there is no judicial oversight. A data disruption or network activity warrant could be issued by a member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, a warrant from a judge of a superior court is not needed.

Australian companies obliged to comply
When presented with such warrant from the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Australian companies, system administrators etc. must comply, and actively help the police to modify, add, copy, or delete the data of a person under investigation. Refusing to comply could have one end up in jail for up to ten years, according to the new bill.

Required hacking activities could include: altering, copying and deleting data; intercepting and modifying communications; surveilling networks; and changing account credentials.

Justification of the bill
Politicians justify the need for the bill by stating that it is intended to fight child exploitation (CSAM) and terrorism. However, the bill itself enables law enforcement to investigate any "serious Commonwealth offence" or "serious State offence that has a federal aspect".

In fact, this wording enables the police to investigate any offence which is punishable by imprisonment of at least three years, including terrorism, sharing child abuse material, violence, acts of piracy, bankruptcy and company violations, and tax evasion.

Criticism of the surveillance bill
The Australian surveillance bill was heavily criticized by Senator Lidia Thorpe, the Greens spokesperson for Justice:

"The Richardson review concluded that this bill enables the AFP and ACIC to be ‘judge, jury and executioner.’ That’s not how we deliver justice in this country. The bill does not identify or explain why these powers are necessary and our allies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand do not grant law enforcement these rights."

"In effect, this Bill would allow spy agencies to modify, copy, or delete your data with a data disruption warrant; collect intelligence on your online activities with a network activity warrant; also they can take over your social media and other online accounts and profiles with an account takeover warrant."

End of Human Rights
The new Australian surveillance bill signals the end of respect for Human Rights in Australia.

For lawyer Angus Murray, Chair of Electronic Frontiers Australia’s Policy Team, the hacking powers pose a serious risk to our civil liberties.

"This is now a regime in Australia where we have conferred power on law enforcement agencies to hack Australians’, and potentially overseas persons’, computers and to take over accounts and modify and delete data on those accounts," he told Information Age.

"Australia doesn’t have constitutionally enshrined rights to political speech and other human rights, but if we’re going to give law enforcement these powers, that should be checked and balanced against a human rights instrument at Federal level."

Murray warns that there could come a point where this power is used against society. In theory, at least, the police could put something like child exploitation images onto your computer. While something like this is not the intention of the bill, there are also no significant safeguards against it.

Surveillance is power
Having the ability to secretly hack into people’s computers, take over their social media channels, and spy on them fundamentally undermines our right to privacy.

Surveillance is power, and that is a threat to our free and open societies.

In Germany, we know from recent history how devastating a surveillance state is.

Together we must fight for privacy!

See what we Australians are up against!

It means they could hack peoples OVERSEAS ACCOUNTS!

What it means is that they could plant Kiddie porn on your computer THEN HAVE YOU FOR IT!

Then they can tell your authorities in your country that you have it and they GET YOU FOR IT!

IT WILL BE USED FOR THIS!

Australia is determined to become a totalitarian dystopia. It's already three quarters of the way there and this may have just pushed things over the edge. I feel for them. This is why privacy and protecting your freedoms is paramount. Global freedom has never been threatened as severely as it is right now.

The question that I always ask myself when reading something like this, is: WHY?

WHY do ordinary people believe their government is after them?
WHY do ordinary people almost always believe their government will use child porn to go after them?
I mean: that's a very particular fear, isn't it?
Almost suspiciously particular.

And...WHY do those same ordinary people never think of this simple fact: IF your government ever truly wants to take you out - they can simply make you disappear.

In Australia, around 30.000 people are reported missing each year.
Not all of them get found again.

So, WHY should your government ser up an overcomplicated plot to get you behind bars, if they simply can send some black-clad goons to drag you into a van and take you for a ride to the "and-nobody-ever-saw-him-again" part of the outback?

Actually this has already happened between agencies where if I remember rightly an australian honeypot operation was found by an american one as they were using cp to keep a darknet website going.
Yep we don't have to worry about pedophiles anymore when we have police stepping in to take their place.


as to the quote "The Richardson review concluded that this bill enables the AFP and ACIC to be ‘judge, jury and executioner.’ That’s not how we deliver justice in this country. "

It's kindof how we do justice in this country i mean.. not to get political, but didn't white englishmen just invite themselves in as a people and declare themselves to be the new judges jury's and executioners over the soceriegn nation of the aboriginal people.

Besides any man an\d his dog can see the writing on the wall here.
Laws that apply to the general public use ambguously general terms whereas those that apply to government and their agencies are usually very specifically worded.
It's so government can cudgel their dissidents while not allowing them the power to hold the countries leadership to the accord of justice.

The big question is who is going to do anything about it?
You'll have the odd person throw a shoe or tell the pm to F$%# off, but noones got the follow through even with people stupidly congregating for a bit of a walk down the mainstreet of sydney during a pandemic.
Australia is full of whiney armmchair generals; that say their against authoritarianism but come the government installing tv's that cannot be turned off ala north korea they still won't actually storm parlimment.
Best you can do is hope aborigines get their foot in at the top and use it to slowly erode white power till they can succeed a good portion of their country back to theselves again and you 'might' then have soewhere more livable you can easily transition to.

This is what I have been Fighting for a good long while now and I still am not getting anywhere and it is pissing me off that's also one of the reasons I come here a bit abrasive I've had to fight off left leaners and others that try to hamper my cause!

I've had everyone scream at me "Get the VAX Get the VAX" screw the VAX it'll kill me and I know it!

I already got fatty liver, cysts in my kidneys and ulcers in my digestive tract damn it!

They already got my mother and sister to get it so I'm getting assaulted from all sides

2 people come to my house that have had 2 shots of pfizer each

so thats 4 lots of spike protiens sloughing off them
my mother had her 2 so that's 24/7 sloughing off and her room is infected by black mould so she sleeps in my bed here with me infecting me
my sister is going to have her 2nd one so she will be sloughing off disease as well so here I am Migraines 24/7 knowing that they'll only live for about 6 months to 3 years and drop dead from the vaccines now my Dumb as bricks country wants BOOSTER SHOTS! sheet with all I've been through enough is damn enough

Everything that everyone else takes for granted I NEVER GOT TO DO! It was like I was in a coma for 22 years living a horrifying nightmare to wake up and find out the nightmare is just beginning again!

My lockdown has been 22+ years!

Gladys said : Australians who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine will remain under lockdown indefinitely while those who have been jabbed will see some of their freedoms return, as Premier Gladys Berejiklian told unjabbed Aussies, “You have been warned!”

Premier = Mayor just to clear that up

Do the law enforcement agencies get to exercise these powers at their own discretion or do they have to get permission from a judge first? And has it officially been passed? IIRC a Bill needs to become an Act for it to come into force right? Hopefully this doesn't inspire India to do something worse because the current over-reaching social media control rules were passed after Modi talked with the Aussie PM about Australia's new social media regulations.

Seems to be a lot of security for an island.

It's already passed over here NOT so it can still remain a bill and they fully uphold them!

They get to exercise these powers at their own discretion Yes they do as they damn well please over here No guns remember

India is next for this!

The announcement was made during the same press conference in which Dr. Kerry Chant revealed that COVID contact tracing was part of the “New World Order”.

Covid-19 deaths are rising and official data shows 87% of the people who have died were vaccinated – they are dying from the effects of the fake vaccine and the Covid label (from a test not testing for the virus) is simply to cover that up

Alleged Covid-19 deaths are on the rise again in the United Kingdom, with both England and Scotland seeing significant rises since the end of June, and we can exclusively reveal that the vast majority of people allegedly dying of Covid-19 had been vaccinated against it.

I hear Oz just wants people to be quiet, that's all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shBwf97O7zk&ab_channel=thejuicemedia

I'm not some conspiracy theory nutjob. I don't automatically trust someone because they won a popularity contest. I don't trust anyone who is extremely wealthy. I don't think anyone born into wealth automatically knows a damn thing about finances. I don't trust any corporation. I don't think any corporation is suddenly the good guy because they change their twitter picture to a rainbow one in June. Nutjobs like that guy make any anti-authoritarian look insane. I personally think that every government should just fuck off.

You never want to give power to the person begging for it.

The fallacy of "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" has propagated for far too long. Does anyone want to broadcast what their turds look like? How about the most embarassing thing that they keep secret? Most people don't. The question is why do they really need to know anything. To protect me? Please, they can't even protect a toilet. I doubt they have ever investigated me beyond a standard security clearance. Remember that just because you are a part of polite society today doesn't mean you will be in the future. That one kind of rude thing you said when you were 12, so sad that you still believe it today. Just piss off the wrong person and you will be cancelled. You will lose your bank account, home, job, and all of your friends. All in the name of progress.

The reality is that people will always let anyone in any kind of power do whatever they want as long as they're told its for their own good.

I think everyone in some sort of power is going to exploit it for their own benefiet because you get nowhere with a pure heart.


The apocolypse can't come soon enough.

I am afraid this type of thing is happening worldwide now, in everything. Everyone carries mobile phones on them, with gps locating. Households fully of “smart” devices. “Smart” devices capturing health information, lifestyle, and social information. The old movies, skynet and big brother are tame compared to the future. Everyday subtle collection of every bit of your life, being fed into insurance firms, legal systems, political systems, target campaigns etc.

I don’t often use young anacronyms but, LOL!! You must have a different meaning for words like “privacy”,”protection”, “global”, and “freedom” than Rest Of World,

Only having weapons you dare to use can defend your rights.

1Kb dvotes :P

Well, answer depends. In authoritarian regimes surveillance is the norm, and so it’s quite likely the government is after them. As to how, whatever works I suppose. What’s more worrying is that democracies are starting towards that as well. The rise of the Information Age has effectively divided populations virtually down the middle on all topics thus making democracy effectively useless. Nothing can be decided without half being unhappy, which after you slice it over several issues means no one will be happy. And so there becomes a need to ascertain the “popular” view on all subjects.
TBH this is also country dependant. I don’t think anyone in the UK believes their government is capable of “taking someone out”, they aren’t capable of much other than shouting at each other. So competence levels have to be taken into consideration too.