Australian Government Using Data Retention Law To Seek Out Journalists' Sources, Hunt Down Whistleblowers
from the any-law-that-can-be-abused-will-be-abused dept
If there ever were decent protections for whistleblowers in Australia, they're gone now. Australia's Attorney General was pushing for harsher whistleblower punishments two years ago, while simultaneously claiming data retention laws -- and expanded permissions for intelligence agencies to pore through retained data -- were simply the way governments were doing business these days.
And what a business it is. The Australian government wants to punish whistleblowers but finds they're often difficult to track down. It's just so much easier to find those they leak documents to, like journalists, and work towards getting them to divulge their sources. The "best" part about the new data retention laws is that those seeking whistleblowers to punish won't have to confront journalists directly. In fact, they may never need to speak to them at all.
[Journalists'] union, the Media and Arts Alliance, has warned that they’re likely to become a test case for a little known provision snuck into the Government’s Data Retention laws, the Journalist Information Warrant Scheme. The new laws allow police and other investigative bodies to seek access to the phone records, emails and browser histories of journalists in order to track down sources they suspect of leaking confidential information.
Obviously, this raised concerns when the data retention law was first proposed. A band-aid was presented by legislators who threw in a few token "safeguards" to protect journalists' sources. But in practice, these safeguards aren't guarding anything. At best, they only give the appearance of adversarial proceedings before the government is given the greenlight to go digging through metadata.
Journalists and their employers are not allowed to challenge these warrants to the issuing body or even in court. They’re not even told whether one has been granted. Instead, the legislation requires the Prime Minister to appoint two ‘Public Interest Advocates’ who can choose to make the case against issuing a warrant. However, these advocates aren’t actually required to show support for the journalist, or media organisation, or even show up to deliver their case. Warrants can be issued without an advocate’s attendance or submission, and last up to six months. The scope of the warrant extends to all the journalist’s metadata captured over the previous two years.
The article notes that 21 Australian agencies can access journalists' data through this process -- data that must be retained by ISPs to better serve the "fighting terrorism" call. If it's used to sniff out whistleblowers or, I don't know, copyright infringers, then that's presumably considered a feature, rather than a bug.
The new law acts as a double-edged weapon against government accountability. It allows the government to seek out and punish those that expose wrongdoing and the chilling effect it creates means fewer journalists will be willing to publish documents showing evidence of government misconduct.
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Filed Under: australia, data retention, privacy, whistleblowers
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Working as intended.
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Welcome to Australia.
Come join the fun, please email first.
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Metadata
> to seek access to the phone records, emails and browser
> histories of journalists in order to track down sources
> At best, they only give the appearance of adversarial
> proceedings before the government is given the greenlight
. to go digging through metadata.
If they're allowed to access a journalist's emails, they're digging through a lot more than metadata.
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Re: Metadata
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Re: Re: Metadata
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"Because screw yo- I mean national securi- you know what, I was right the first time."
...
However, these advocates aren’t actually required to show support for the journalist, or media organisation, or even show up to deliver their case.
Because nothing says 'No really, this is absolutely an adversarial court' like having the people assigned to 'represent' you not have to actually show up at all or care one bit about you.
Yeah, pretty sure the 'Public interest advocates' weren't put in place to assuage worries, instead I'm guessing that bit of the text was added solely to act as a giant one-finger salute to the ones expressing those worries, by people who were laughing the entire time they wrote it.
"No really, they're there to represent you. I mean we won't force them to show up, or actually represent you, but they're totally there to keep us in check and make sure we don't go overboard."
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Sneakernet
The thing is, if you are a journalist ANYWHERE in the world, you don't put unpublished sensitive stuff on the internet (ie. mail/cloud storage etc) that might inconvenience the government or some moron politician. If they do the data is more or less already compromised.
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Re: Sneakernet
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Is it really so hard to use darknet?
Tor, I2P, Freenet are all pretty secure (provided you use NoScript or other alternative that disables Javascript and other vulnerable protocols)
Any journalist worth his or salt should be familiar with the tech, and be using it for sources on a daily basis. If you conduct that shit through clearnet email, you have only yourself to blame when the gov't does what it's gonna do - protect itself.
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Re: Is it really so hard to use darknet?
Hard to use in a meaningful and effective way when you're up against a nation-state? Absolutely.
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Re: Re: Is it really so hard to use darknet?
Using disposable one time darknet emails devoid of personal details routed through a VPN with no AU servers is not hard to do. But very hard to crack, almost impossible if proper security protocols, which are in themselves not hard to maintain, are followed.
Setting up a freenet server for a day isn't hard, either, and removing it as soon as the documents are received. They're not going after Js for posting the info, only the sources. Ensuring their anon is doable. It requires a little forethought and basic grasp of technology.
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Re: Re: Re: Is it really so hard to use darknet?
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Re: Is it really so hard to use darknet?
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As it has benn said before and will be said again
One of the special attributes of those who reach this position is that they have to be capable of turning on everyone who is NOT paying them. So he treats every ordinary citizens, business and service suppliers, etc. as those to be used for his good pleasure. It is well understood here, that you NEVER do any business with these people as it will ALWAYS cost you greatly in the end.
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Slippery slope
Next thing you know they're giving you a rectal scan whenever you buy an ice cream, give them an inch they'll take a mile. Seriously though we need to encrypt EVERYTHING, I don't care if it's a toaster, it should be encrypted.
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Re: Slippery slope
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What's Next?
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Re: What's Next?
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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/24/police-to-raid-parliament-house- department-over-nbn-leak-says-stephen-conroy
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Re:
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Official channels my ass. Snowden was right all along even if he isn't Australian.
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If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide .. amirite?
Funny in a sad sort of way, they simply do not see their own hypocrisy.
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Re:
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Australian government says it does not promote companies to record user’s web history but as far as I see it, any Australian based ISP is required to log their users IP address, internet sessions and the websites they visit. There is a big gap in providing clarity for which data can be stored and which should not. Although the post says encryption tools such as VPNs won’t be of any use; I am afraid they will be. Especially if these VPN services are not based in Australia, they can certainly protect your internet activity from being recorded (as explained here: https://www.purevpn.com/australia-vpn-service.php).
Even if the government does not record my phone calls or the conversations that take place, they still are monitoring me, aren't they. My phone number, call duration, and the person with whom I talk are still recorded, which leaves me very vulnerable. Same is the case with internet activity. One thing I would disagree with is that in the post, the author said that the data retention regime is implemented to stop child pornography. I think that is one of the reasons but terrorism is definitely amongst them as well.
The Australian Governments website (https://www.ag.gov.au/dataretention) states that "Metadata is used in almost every serious criminal or national security investigation, including murder, counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, sexual assault and kidnapping cases." This shows that the government has implemented this law to identity anyone that they thing is involved in suspicious activities. Also, if you remember about the information that was leaked by Edward Snowden about Five Eye nations showed that Australian intelligence agencies have working for a long time in the background collecting user information. The only difference now is that things have become official with the data retention law.
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