Internet
surveillance: today is the day we fight back
The debate in Australia is subdued – thanks to a government
that wants to shut it down in the name of national security. It’s time to turn
up the volume
11
February 2014: around the
globe more than 6000 websites, with user groups ranging from sub-niche to
hundreds of millions, are blacked out today. The cause is serious: government surveillance
overkill that compromises privacy, the rule of law, journalism and democracy
itself.
The
date has a deliberate resonance for citizens of the United States, who have
discovered that expansive powers granted to intelligence agencies in the wake
of the 11 September atrocities have metastasized in casual violation of the US Constitution
to the degree that even authors of the Patriot Act have condemned. Two years on from success against Sopa
and Pipa
in the US this mobilised community is taking on the next front in the battle
for digital rights.
The
date has an accidental symbolic appeal here in Australia too: it is the first sitting day of season 2014 for the
Australian parliament. In
contrast to the fierce debate raging in the United States, successive
governments have ensured we have a different kind of blackout here in sunny
Australia.
Tony
Abbott’s government is applying the same infantile messaging tactics it applies to
foreign policy nightmares like the conflict in Syria. According to Abbott and attorney general George
Brandis, Edward Snowden is a traitor (baddie).
Anything the US Government (goodie) does to silence the messenger – presumably
up to and including the vivid daydreams of extrajudicial murder disclosed
by NSA operatives – will be
uncritically supported by team Abbott.
We
urgently need to raise the IQ of the debate here. Australians have a special
role to play in the campaign for strong digital rights: we are one of the Five Eyes countries that forms the core of the US Government’s
invasive and unnecessary global spying program. In December 2013, the
Australian Greens successfully initiated a Senate inquiry into the surveillance
regime in Australia. This is a unique opportunity to establish how the system
works, and how it’s failing us.
The first thing you discover when you dig
into the laws of warranted telecommunications intercepts in Australia is how rigorous
they are. Previous generations of legislators enacted a dense mesh of checks
and balances, judicial oversight, and fine-grained annual reporting to keep
these powers in check. For this reason among others, Australia is not a police
state. If an Australian agency wants to listen in to your phone calls or read
your email, the system is mostly targeted at individuals suspected of
involvement in serious crime, overseen by judges and other authorities
operating at arm’s length from enforcement agencies, and bounded by offices
like the ombudsman to spot systemic departures from the rule of law.
The
second thing you notice is that in the last decade or so, this warranted
interceptions regime has been utterly wormholed, circumvented to the point of
obsolescence. The advent of the smartphone, in ceaseless communication with GPS
satellites and servers all over the world, and the rapid expansion of “big
data” have resulted in staggering volumes of detailed information available
to dozens of government agencies with a few keystrokes. The legal protections that apply to agencies
wanting to listen in on your phone call are completely void when it comes to
mapping your social networks, financial habits, medical conditions, and precise
location everywhere you take your phone.
Intelligence
agencies do not have to conform to even these restrictions, and deploy the
“national security” trump card to justify remaining entirely outside freedom of
information laws or the reporting obligations that other agencies have to deal
with. Now “national security” is used to justify anything from tracking climate
change demonstrators to spying on the cabinet deliberations of the East
Timorese on behalf of the gas industry. Whether you’re trying to stop coal exports through the barrier reef
or are a farmer trying to protect groundwater resources from fracking; we’re
finding ourselves drawn ominously ever closer to the definition of terrorism,
justifying the deployment of these highly invasive spying techniques.
The
final straw for those who thought our legal framework had kept pace with the
times came with the Snowden revelations: a vast, indiscriminate surveillance
dragnet that has broken numerous domestic laws in the US and may be in
violation of the constitution. What protection could possibly be provided by
Australia’s quaint wiretapping laws, if we are complicit in shunting this much data to the
US?
The debate in the US is robust in no small
part due to the place their constitution holds in public discourse. It is
highly valued across the political spectrum, and is the lynchpin for debates as
diverse as gun control and political donations. Vocal dissent from the broad
agreement that exists across the two major parties in the US for the
surveillance of citizens keeps the issue alive. Australia’s debate is more
subdued, with the government desperately hoping this will all go away. It won’t. Today is the day we fight back – in the Parliament, on the internet, and in our communities.
Enough is enough.
1 comment:
Thank God for Snowden he brought to light the criminals within our Military, Gov. and World Banking system. He should be given a metal of honor and highly respected. I don't mind having my information monitored. Obama cast a huge net/sting operation and is catching lots of BAD GUYS. I have nothing to hide. Do YOU??? Without the new surveillance laws the REAL CROOKS would still be running the show. Don't be fooled by the Spin Doctors.
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