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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: 4, Interesting) by Leebert on Monday April 06 2015, @11:57PM
So, having all the way down through the SN summary that was copy/pasted from a Boing Boing article that was copy/pasted from the origial Ars Technica article, I was still not able to fully understand this.
Is the act of publishing the canary illegal, or is it the failure to continue publishing the canary after you have been served with a gag order?
I'm just trying to figure out what combination of the following apply:
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:19AM
That was going to be my next point: host your service in a US Red state, and claim that your religion forbids you from acting deceptively, therefore allowing you to ignore the gag orders.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday April 07 2015, @12:28AM
The gag order probably applies to the person. And if they are in Australia then the law applies and its teeth.
(Score: 1) by Ox0000 on Tuesday April 07 2015, @02:01PM
But it's not the person publishing/removing the canary, it's the company... oh wait... those are people too...
Well, I guess they'll just have to throw the company in prison.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @05:33AM
So what you are saying is that in future all Australian based canary systems should be handled by an entity which cannot be thrown in prison
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @05:03AM
"The .au government is infringing on free speech"
If everyone started posting that they haven't received any warrants from the government then the government would have to go after everyone and maybe put everyone in jail or fine them. Good luck with that.
"The .au government is attacking religion or other moral standards which prohibit lying"
Forcing people to lie is a PR nightmare for any government.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday April 07 2015, @06:59AM
It does seem like it will be an offence to do something, but also an offence not to do something too.
For example, if I discover that upon receipt of a government order that my site is no longer commercially viable, do I have to continue to maintain that site (ad infinitum?) in order not to give anyone the idea that I might have received the said order? I hope the government are going to pay for the cost of running the site in such a case, because it will no longer be paying for itself. Is the intent to drive site owners of those sites that 'offend' the government into bankruptcy?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 07 2015, @08:40AM
I would answer you, but I can be fired for doing so.