This petition is now closed. Thanks for your support!
To the Honourable President and members of the Senate in Parliament assembled:
The petition of the undersigned shows that we object to the proposals of the National Security Inquiry, in particular, those proposals which would introduce:
- Provisions for warrants to last up to 6 months without review;
- Penalties for failing to provide computer passwords;
- Near unrestricted interception of communications;
- Data retention of everyone’s Internet activity for a minimum of two years;
- The commandeering in secret of unrelated, privately owned computer systems for surveillance purposes;
- The ability of the Attorney-General to widen the scope of warrants without sufficient oversight; and
- The ability to shield intelligence and security agents from abuse of powers and improper conduct penalties.
We are critical of:
- Claims that Australians have a low expectation of the fundamental right to privacy in order to justify greater surveillance and erosion of privacy protections;
- The expansion of the scope of interception warrants which would allow unrelated devices belonging to third parties to be accessed unknowingly; and
- The lack of proper public consultation, including a small window of time for submissions to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security to be made.
Your petitioners request that the Senate commits to:
- Only authorising surveillance where judicially sanctioned, and targetted at specific individuals for specific purpose, as opposed to indiscriminate and widescale surveillance;
- Refraining from implementing mechanisms and structures of surveillance that violate fundamental human rights and freedoms by way of disproportionate and widescale data retention;
- Expecting intelligence, law enforcement officials and lawmakers to respect the values of Australian citizens by respecting the fundamental right to privacy; and
- Reject any legislation that would contravene any of the above requests.