Spying

Surveillance Legislation Amendment is the latest in abuse of due process

Posted on September 1, 2021

“This latest bill has bypassed recommendations about oversight, and also stands in the Dark Shadow of past Government abuse. While they talk about the ‘Dark Web’, it’s amazing how ‘Dark’ they themselves have become.” says Pirate Party Australia Treasurer, John August.

The legislation creates “Disruption Warrants” which can be authorised by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, under control of the Attorney General – a ministerial position. Our politicians have just granted themselves the power to hack, change or delete data on any computer or network they like. This sidesteps independent court authorisation, which is supposed to prevent corruption and targeting of political opponents.

“Most recently, the NSW Government’s Fixated Persons Unit, originally founded to prevent terrorism, was used by Deputy Premier John Barilaro as part of a personal political vendetta against public figure ‘Friendly Jordies’. On the one hand it’s NSW not Federal legislation. On the other, it all fits together in an all too familiar pattern, of which this legislation is but one more part”.

Pirate Party Australia vows to repeal the law if elected, and supports any movement to do so.

A petition to repeal the Identify and Disrupt Bill is here: https://me.getup.org.au/petitions/repeal-the-identify-and-disrupt-bill-2021

Assange on trial

Posted on September 10, 2020

Recently, two Australian journalists in China rushed to our embassy and then back home. No such help seems to be on offer for another Australian on the far side of the world. Pirate Party of Australia calls on the Foreign Minister, the Honourable Senator Marisa Payne to demand the free and unprejudiced release of Assange on the basis of human rights, free speech and his Australian citizenship.

“Australian foreign policy has rarely been about principle, but rather kowtowing to our allies and hiding behind words that ultimately mean nothing. Assange may yet receive a fair trial, in the application of unjust laws. The Government only took an interest in Timor Leste after being dragged in by public opinion, and since did the dirty by spying on them. Assange is just more of the same, and many Australians recognise the hypocrisy” said John August, Pirate Party Australia Treasurer.

As the UK trial begins this week for extradition of Assange to the US[1], civil rights activists all over the world are shocked at Australia’s cavalier abandonment of its own citizen for the “crime” of reporting on the crimes of others. Assange’s legal teams have assembled an ensemble of international witnesses to testify before the court on the politicised nature of Assange’s persecution[2].

Pirate Party Calls for Census Boycott Due to Privacy Concerns

Posted on March 21, 2016

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has recently announced that people being surveyed for the Census can no longer retain their anonymity. The ABS will now retain the names and addresses of all contributors to the 2016 Australian Census[1]. The previous Census introduced retention of private data on an opt-in basis, but this time around, retention of private data is to be compulsory.

“Whilst we don’t believe that the ABS is planning to collect identifiable information for nefarious purposes, there are serious privacy concerns with collecting names and addresses along with all of the other personal information gathered in the Census,” said Simon Frew, President of Pirate Party Australia. “A future government could simply re-collate the data and use the information to target opponents based on religion, career or ethnicity. When potential abuse can only be thwarted by the good-will of future governments, the risk to personal safety is too great.”

Data retention looms over Australians, ISPs silenced

Posted on October 10, 2015

Mandatory data retention is set to come into effect on 13 October 2015. Despite the certainty of this date, there remains considerable uncertainty within the communications industry as to what data needs to be retained to comply with the law. Among this confusion the Attorney-General’s Department has advised the industry that exemptions to the data retention regime will be revoked if their existence is publicised[1]. This is despite the legislation not specifically requiring exemptions remain confidential. The Department has argued that this is to “prevent exposing gaps in data retention legislation to be exposed to criminals”.

“The Government and the Attorney-General’s Department would have the communications industry lie down and accept its fate,” commented Michael Keating, Deputy President of the Pirate Party. “The fact is that the industry has been ignored in the Government’s push to involve itself in every individual’s and business’ communication in Australia. Not only are they dismantling the right to privacy, they want to silence anyone who challenges them, while at the same time expecting everyone to pay for the ‘privilege’. There should be no room for attacking transparency in Australia, but the Attorney-General’s Department seems willing to do this on the flimsy excuse provided.”

With the commencement of the mandatory data retention regime just around the corner, both Kmart[2] and David Jones[3] recently experienced online data breaches resulting in unauthorised access to customer details. These breaches raise serious concerns around the storage of individual’s data once the data retention regime is in operation. Internet service providers have already indicated that they would have no hesitation in storying the data overseas[4], but there is little information about security measures to prevent unauthorised access. With the stored data being capable of exposing individual’s day-to-day activities (as ABC reporter Will Ockenden’s social experiment demonstrated in August[5]), it is the perfect target for hackers wishing to access and abuse that data. The Government appears happy to use smoke and mirrors to cover this issue.

Pirate Party welcomes Human Rights Committee findings against Data Retention Bill

Posted on November 17, 2014

Last Friday, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights released its report on the Government’s planned mandatory data retention scheme, reviewing its impact on basic human rights[1]. The Committee of 5 Coalition MPs, 4 Labor MPs, and 1 Greens MP[2] slammed the new bill, citing concerns that in its current form the bill may be in violation of Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits arbitrary interferences with an individual’s privacy, family, correspondence or home. The Bill’s reliance on future regulation to define the scope of surveillance has the potential to create such an interference.

The report spells out that metadata can be used to extrapolate large amounts of personal information including “political opinions, sexual habits, religion or medical concerns”, that the two year retention period is unjustified, and that it is “very intrusive of privacy”. The report also cites the European Court of Justice ruling against the European Union’s similar “Data Retention Directive”.

“The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has all but confirmed what experts in this field have been saying all along: data retention is disproportionate and unnecessary, it is a serious breach of human rights, and no case has been made for this mass surveillance proposal,” said Brendan Molloy, President of the Pirate Party.

“The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security will hopefully recognise this farce for what it is. It has little do with national security, yet is extremely invasive, will effectively introduce a ‘surveillance tax’ for all Internet users, and will have a direct impact on freedom of expression as a result of the knowledge that everybody can have their position tracked and stored for two years. It is extremely draconian.

“This report provides of a glimmer of hope that Parliamentarians could come to their senses and block this fundamentally destructive proposal.”