Terror laws enabling internet monitoring clear Senate
Australia's spy agency could soon have
the power to monitor the entire Australian internet after new
anti-terrorism laws passed the Senate on Thursday night.
Australian spies will soon have the power to monitor the entire
Australian internet with just one warrant, and journalists and
whistleblowers will face up to 10 years' jail for disclosing classified
information.
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.
Attorney-General George Brandis praised the laws being passed.
Photo: Andrew Meares
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.
Any operation can be declared "special" by an authorised ASIO officer
The senate votes on the bill on Thursday night.
This also gives ASIO immunity for criminal and civil liability in certain circumstances.
Many, including lawyers and academics, have said they fear the agency will abuse this power.
Those
who identify ASIO agents could also face a decade in prison under the
new bill, a tenfold increase on the existing maximum penalty.
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.
Professor George Williams of the University of NSW has warned previously the bill was too broad.
And,
unlike the government's controversial plans to get internet providers
to store metadata for up to two years, the bill passed on Thursday
allows for the content of communications to be stored.
Most groups
that had complained about the new bill also said they feared its
disclosure offences went too far, with the Australian Lawyers Alliance
saying they would have "not just a chilling effect but a freezing
effect" on national security reporting.
Attorney-General George
Brandis did not seek to allay their concerns on Thursday but said that,
in a "newly dangerous age", it was vital that those protecting Australia
were equipped with the powers and capabilities they needed.
When
the bill passed on Thursday night, he said it was the most important
reform for Australia's intelligence agencies since the late 1970s.
On
Wednesday afternoon, Senator Brandis confirmed that, under the
legislation, ASIO would be able to use just one warrant to access
numerous devices on a network.
The warrant would be issued by the director-general of ASIO or his deputy.
"There is no arbitrary or artificial limit on the number of devices," Senator Brandis told the Senate.
However,
Senator Brandis did say on Thursday that the new bills did not target
journalists specifically, despite concerns from media organisations that
they would be targets.
The new legislation instead targeted those
who leaked classified information, such as the former US National
Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Senator Brandis said.
"These provisions have nothing to do with the press."
Despite this, Senator Brandis refused to say whether reporting on cases similar to Australia's foreign spy agency ASIS
allegedly bugging East Timor's cabinet and the Australian Signals Directorate
tapping the Indonesian president and his wife's mobile phone would result in journalists or whistleblowers being jailed.
The
Australian Greens, through Senator Scott Ludlam, put forward an
amendment that would limit the number of computers ASIO could access
with one warrant to 20 but it failed to gain support from Labor or the
government.
Speaking after the bill passed, Senator Ludlam told Fairfax Media he was disappointed.
"What
we've seen [tonight] is, I think, a scary, disproportionate and
unnecessary expansion of coercive surveillance powers that will not make
anybody any safer but that affect freedoms that have been quite hard
fought for and hard won over a period of decades," Senator Ludlam said.
"I have very grave concerns about the direction that the Australian government seems to be suddenly taking the country."
Independent
Senator Nick Xenophon and Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm
also put forward amendments that would protect whistleblowers but these
did not gain enough support either.
The legislation, which also
covers a number of other issues, addresses many of the recommendations
of a joint parliamentary inquiry into Australia's national security
laws.
After concerns were raised by Labor and Senator Leyonhjelm,
the government agreed to amend the legislation to specifically rule out
ASIO using torture.
"ASIO cannot, does not and has never engaged in torture," Senator Brandis said.
The
Palmer United Party was also successful in amending the law so anyone
who exposes an undercover ASIO operative could face up to 10 years
behind bars instead of one.
"The internet poses one of the
greatest threats to our existence," Palmer United Party Senator Glen
Lazarus said, speaking out against Senator Ludlam's amendment.
The
Australian Greens voted against the bill, slamming the new measures as
extreme and a "relentless expansion of powers" of the surveillance
state.
Senator Leyonhjelm and Senator Xenophon also opposed the legislation, as did independent Senator John Madigan.
One
of the amendments put forward by Senator Xenophon would have required
ASIO's watchdog, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, to
report publicly each year on how many devices ASIO accessed.
But
Labor and the government voted against it, with Senator Brandis saying
it "would not be appropriate" to report figures as it would reveal
information about ASIO's capabilities.
The legal changes come amid growing concern over Islamic State extremists in the Middle East and terrorism threats at home.
Islamic State (also known as ISIL) has ordered followers to target civilian Australians.
In
less than a week, police in two states launched the biggest
counter-terrorism raids in Australia's history, and shot dead a known
terrorist suspect after he stabbed two officers in Melbourne.
A second anti-terrorism bill targeting foreign fighters
was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday and will be debated next month.
These
changes have opposition support and would make it a criminal office to
travel to a terrorist hot-spot without a reasonable excuse.
A third bill enabling the
collection of internet and phone metadata for a period of up to two years for warrantless access by law-enforcement and spy agencies will be introduced later this year.
smh.com.au 26 Sep 2014
And here is the hidden agenda coming to fruition, using the excuse of 'terrorism', to jail 'whistle blowers'.
The term 'whistle blower' to the average 'lay man' would mean the actions of a person that exposes corruption or illegal activity within a company or organisation or government.
Clearly the government is not interested in exposing illegal and criminal activity, but rather supporting it.
The information posted was passed on as accurately as possible from the anonymous source.
In light of this article, CorpAu has been made aware that the Fairfax media publication 'The Age' has not published an article on the topic within this post.