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"The internet poses one of the greatest threats to our existence"
"The internet poses one of the greatest threats to our existence," said Senator Glen Lazarus on Thursday night. Hah! A former rugby player says something dumb, that's always funny, right? No.
The government's first tranche of tougher anti-terrorism bills, which will beef up the powers of the domestic spy agency ASIO, passed the Senate by 44 votes to 12 on Thursday night with bipartisan support from Labor.
The bill, the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, will now be sent to the House of Representatives, where passage is all but guaranteed on Tuesday at the earliest.
Anyone - including journalists, whistleblowers and bloggers - who "recklessly" discloses "information ... [that] relates to a special intelligence operation" faces up to 10 years' jail.
[...]
The new bill also allows ASIO to seek just one warrant to access a limitless number of computers on a computer network when attempting to monitor a target, which lawyers, rights groups, academics and Australian media organisations have condemned.
They said this would effectively allow the entire internet to be monitored, as it is a "network of networks" and the bill does not specifically define what a computer network is.
ASIO will also be able to copy, delete, or modify the data held on any of the computers it has a warrant to monitor.
The bill also allows ASIO to disrupt target computers, and use innocent third-party computers not targeted in order to access a target computer.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam was up for it, of course, as was independent Senator Nick Xenophon and, to a lesser extent, libertarian Senator David Leyonhjelm of the Liberal Democratic Party.
But where was the sustained pressure from Labor, the chief opposition party? Oh that's right, the "bipartisan approach to national security" meant that they'd already agreed to it.
[...]
"Incredibly draconian legislation is being passed, and the minister responsible either cannot or will not answer and is smug because the opposition is going along with it."
The responsible minister, Australia's favourite Attorney-General Senator George Brandis QC, was indeed smug.
When asked by Ludlam what kinds of things, specifically, ASIO would be empowered to do under a computer access warrant, Brandis's reply was dismissive. "What ASIO would be empowered to do would be that which is authorised by the warrant, which is in turn governed by the terms of the act," he said.
When Ludlam sought clarification, Brandis answered with variants of "I do not have anything to add to my previous answer," and eventually characterised Ludlam's questioning as "attempt to filibuster this legislation and abuse the processes of this place".
Properly fucked up, mate!
