from the keeping-in-step-with-the-others dept.
The Australian Government has introduced a bill to remove some "outdated" constraints their intelligence agency ASIO works under.
From the Article:
"The bill modernises the way ASIO accesses computers allowing one warrant for a computer to extend to all computers at a location and associated to the relevant person. The act will be amended such that the definition of "computer" in the Act includes all computers operating in a network. [...] It also proposes that only one warrant be required for a series of surveillance techniques conducted as part of an investigation removing the need for a warrant for each individual surveillance effort.
The proposed legislation would also allow Australia's foreign intelligence agency ASIS to collect information on Australians located outside the country and share it with ASIO which the agency is currently required to seek ministerial approval to do."
The full text of the proposed bill is available here.
On a slightly more positive note, the Attorney-General has confirmed that the mandatory data retention proposal he supported a few months ago has been put on the back burner, saying it was "not a matter that the Australian government has yet decided to do."
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:38PM
>> mandatory data retention ... not a matter that the Australian government has yet decided to do.
If they need that information they can ask the Americans to look it up for them.
(Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:45PM
"The act will be amended such that the definition of "computer" in the Act includes all computers operating in a network."
So if the computer is connected to the internet (clearly a network), then the warrant includes all computers on the internet?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @03:55PM
Better yet, this will really bother everyone running those really popular distributed systems like Plan 9 !
(Score: 3, Insightful) by davester666 on Thursday July 17 2014, @04:58PM
Yes, including all devices such as tablets and smartphones. So all they really need to do is get a warrant for one computer, and then everything is theirs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @04:21PM
Spy Agency Powers could sap a country dry of liberty and happiness. Obviously won't do much for quality of life either.
Why is it that so many countries, often banded together as the "Free World", is losing so many Freedoms?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 17 2014, @11:36PM
Such a wide net. Everything nowadays can be considered a computer. With more and more Linux powered watches ending up on peoples wrists, I can see ASIO walking into a building and asking everyone to strip naked and put their belongings into evidence bags - from watches, to walkmans, to mobile phones, hearing aids, computer assited replacement limbs and even to computers controlling pace makers or insulan pumps.
Where is the limit of this new law?
Again, I have to point out: Australia has never had a terrorist incident and yet we are passing laws as if we had lost a million people from a neuclear bomb...
(Score: 2) by SlimmPickens on Friday July 18 2014, @02:43AM
I don't really see how it's different. Surely before computers one warrant covered everything at one address?
I'm not supporting unfettered access, absolutely not, but nor do I see why one person/address should require five seperate warrants.