Press Release – Page 35 of 61 – Pirate Party Australia

Telstra sells Australia out to US intelligence

Posted on July 12, 2013

Following revelations that in 2001 telecommunications giant Telstra signed a deal to give the FBI and US Department of Justice surveillance access to monitor submarine cables linking Australia to the United States, Pirate Party Australia demands greater protections of privacy and data sovereignty for our nations’ citizens.

According to the documents released, call data, subscriber information and IP addresses are collected for all voice and data traffic traversing the US[1].

“If what the media is saying is true, why is an Australian company colluding with the United States Government to spy on Internet traffic of Australians citizens? This is entirely unacceptable and must stop immediately,” said Brendan Molloy, Lead Candidate for the Senate in NSW.

“The Government must answer why they have been complicit in the spying on of Australian citizens, as this began when Telstra was still partially Government owned.”

Recently there has been a plethora of scandals relating to the overreach of United States’ surveillance programs which have targeted not just citizens of the United States’ but also of its allies[2]. This is the last in an ever growing parade of covert privacy intrusions, blanket surveillance and breaches of confidence.

Pirate Party, Greens and others to hold pro-privacy rallies

Posted on July 4, 2013

In the aftermath of revelations that the US National Security Agency has been operating an extensive clandestine surveillance program known as PRISM, Pirate Party Australia and other organisations will be holding rallies around the country this Saturday in protest against the ever-growing surveillance state.

“As citizens of a democratic country, we must take care that our democracy stays strong, and that the relationship betweens our branches of government remains balanced. Secret mass surveillence by its very nature denies that balance because it prevents oversight,” said David Campbell, President of Pirate Party Australia and Senate candidate for NSW. “We must make sure that what has been occuring in the United States is not replicated here.”

The existence of such surveillance is less concerning to Pirate Party Australia than the fact that it was needlessly kept secret. There is speculation that Australian intelligence agencies may be implicated in the surveillance program or have had access to the data collected[1]. Last month, Senator Scott Ludlam raised a motion in the Senate to compel the Attorney-General, Mark Dreyfus, to describe the extent to which Australia had been involved in or aware of PRISM. The motion was defeated[2].

Pirate Party Supports Greens Fair Go for Fair Use Bill

Posted on June 27, 2013

Pirate Party Australia welcomes the introduction of the Copyright Legislation Amendment (Fair Go for Fair Use) Bill by Senator Scott Ludlam today[1].

Among the provisions is the introduction of fair use: a flexible, open-ended exemption in the Copyright Act to support innovation, reflect consumer expectations, and promote fair access to archives. The technology-neutral approach would not rely on Parliament passing specific exceptions each time a new technology is introduced. Pirate Party Australia supported such a provision in its submission[2] to the Australian Law Reform Commission’s “Copyright and the Digital Economy” issues paper[3].

“The Pirate Party has always been an ardent supporter of fair use, and this Bill is a great start to true copyright reform in Australia. We thank Senator Ludlam for tabling such an important Bill,” said Brendan Molloy, lead Senate candidate in NSW for the Pirate Party.

“If we want copyright law to be respected, we need respectable copyright law, and this Bill is absolutely a step in the right direction. We look forward to further reform in this area upon the conclusion of the ALRC Copyright and the Digital Economy inquiry.”

Pirate Party disappointed by National Security Report

Posted on June 25, 2013

Pirate Party Australia is disappointed over the report by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security which was released yesterday[1].

The report defers almost all decisions regarding implementing surveillance schemes such as data retention back to the Government, and does not go much beyond providing the Government with “common sense” recommendations regarding data security.

“Recommendation 42 has entirely handed the decision regarding mandatory data retention back to the Government,” said Brendan Molloy, Lead Candidate for the Senate in NSW. “Rather than seriously address the concerns brought to the attention of the Committee by Pirate Party Australia, activist organisations and leading academics, the Committee has instead essentially passed the buck straight back to the Government. The Committee also still seems to fail to recognise the fundamental issues surrounding retention of metadata.”

Pirate Party reflects on a disastrous week for civil and digital liberties

Posted on June 10, 2013

From revelations around bungled[1] and secret[2] Australian government censorship to explosive new details about the massively expanded surveillance apparatus of the United States, the people of western nations are being treated like citizens under an authoritarian regime, deprived of their right to know what their governments are doing in their names, under the auspices of ‘national security’.

As the world continues to learn the full extent of spying and surveillance by the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States, questions must be asked as to whether Australians have been caught up in the surveillance. Further revelations now implicate the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) agency as participating in the PRISM program[3], an NSA program intercepting communications such as emails, photos and videos from the largest technology companies including Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Skype and more [4].

Australians have a right to know if and under what terms any Australian intelligence agencies may also have been involved in the PRISM program and whether their personal information has been compromised or surreptitiously accessed by foreign intelligence agencies.