SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Boing Boing reports
The exceptionally broad new surveillance bill lets the government do nearly unlimited warrantless mass surveillance, even of lawyer-client privileged communications, and bans warrant canaries, making it an offense to "disclose information about the existence or non-existence" of a warrant to spy on journalists.
Despite that move away from retaining communications metadata by the EU and continuing concerns in the US about the National Security Agency's bulk phone metadata spying program, the Australian government was able to push through the amendments implementing data retention thanks to the support of the main opposition party. Labor agreed to vote in favor of the Bill once a requirement to use special "journalist information warrants" was introduced for access to journalists' metadata, with a view to shielding their sources. No warrant is required for obtaining the metadata of other classes of users, not even privileged communications between lawyers and their clients. Even for journalists, the extra protection is weak, and the definition of what constitutes a journalist is rather narrow--bloggers and occasional writers are probably not covered.
Warrant canaries can't be used in this context either. Section 182A of the new law says that a person commits an offense if he or she discloses or uses information about "the existence or non-existence of such a [journalist information] warrant." The penalty upon conviction is two years imprisonment.
During the relatively quick passage of the amendments, the Australian government made the usual argument that metadata needs to be retained for long periods in order to fight terrorism and serious crime--even though the German experience is that, in practice, data retention does not help. Toward the end of the debate, when concerns about journalist sources were raised, one senior member of the Australian government adopted a more unusual approach to calming people's fears.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Monday April 06 2015, @11:20PM
The AC says:
I hope you realize cops can get blank warrants presigned by a judge.
Maybe in Australia, but in the US, either a State or Federal Judge commits a crime by signing a blank warrant.
Some have been hounded from office for doing so.
There are John Doe warrants issued (rarely), but even these must state enough information to prevent picking up
any random citizen. Description, crime, locations, times etc.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday April 07 2015, @09:01AM
Have any been removed from office, prosecuted and been put in jail?
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by sudo rm -rf on Tuesday April 07 2015, @09:08AM
Don't know how it works in the US, but isn't "exigent circumstance [wikipedia.org]" abused like in the rest of the world?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 08 2015, @02:10AM
A judge isn't involved in exigent circumstance cases in the US.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 5, Informative) by VortexCortex on Tuesday April 07 2015, @10:44AM
Oh yeah, well, I've "repaired" some government PCs and seen the blank warrants ready for cops to print out as many as they want, pre-signed, some even with boilerplate arrest language like, "When I approached the vehicle I smelled the presence of alcohol", just to be sure the cop doesn't forget to invent a probable cause. Also seen a fair share of school district miss appropriation of funds, etc. It's all in my insurance file.
Seeing things like that gets the FBI and DHS breathing down your neck, harassing you; It does not get Judges, Officials, Officers, District Attorneys or School Boards fired. The media doesn't even want to know about the corruption unless it's OK'd by the state first (for use as political propaganda).
I don't know what country you think you live in, but the USA is fucked.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday April 08 2015, @02:15AM
Wait, you are equating a document template with a blank warrant pre-signed by a judge? Are you daft?
You can download blank search warrants from the web. Getting a Judge to sign it while its still blank is a totally different thing.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 18 2015, @07:34AM
"pre-signed"