TL;DR Mandatory data retention rant. Its quite long, but this is an issue I care about. So it seems inevitable that this bill will eventually be law in Australia. In short it will force internet providers to retain metadata (data about data - who you are talking to, but not what you said) for two years for warrantless (!!) access by authorities, based on a government decided definition (which could be anything - no one knows), with no business case, costing an unknown amount. This is actually what they are trying to push, all for the sake of national security. Malcolm Turnbull actually criticized a similar Labor policy a few years ago (source: delimiter.au/2012/10/09/turnbull-has-grave-misgivings-on-data-retention/ ) showing that he is either spineless against Brandis or just doesnt care for the people he is supposed to represent. (The Minister for Communications supporting slowed and monitored communications doesnt make a lot of sense either!) This bill will literally accomplish nothing - its expensive, its vague, but most of all, the terrorists they are trying to catch are already masking their online activity - meaning this bill will affect only normal Australians and criminals who arent clever enough to hide their tracks. Its an invasion of privacy and an infringement on free speech. The government has also hinted that this could be used for normal crime fighting as well. You have nothing to hide? If youve ever downloaded a song or movie illegally, this new law can (and, I imagine, eventually will) be used against you (due to current copyright laws - a rant for another time). If legislation comes in prohibiting certain online content (or heck, even phone calls to the wrong people!) and you view it, even accidentally, this bill will be used against you. There are literally thousands of laws on the books - how could you know if you havent broken some obscure, esoteric, out-dated law? The answer is: you cant. I may sound paranoid - but this is how it starts, and this is an issue I care about. China has data retention, censored internet and little to no freedom of (mainly political) speech, because the government deems such speech and expression harmful. Both Liberal and Labor have at some point supported not only data retention, but also internet censorship. What comes next? Where do we draw the line? So how do you fight this? On the tech side, you can still hide your traffic online using Tor ( torproject.org ), a VPN, proxy servers and other related services. This will only show your computer communicating with a random machine overseas, making the metadata retention useless. On the homefront, you can fight with your voice - share this on facebook (its set to public), call your MPs and senators, and so on - and most importantly, you can vote them out at the next election. Also props to Senator Scott Ludlam and David Leyonhjelm - Liberal Democrats Senator NSW for having the courage to stand up and fight. Linked article can be found at abc.net.au/news/2014-10-30/turnbull-introduces-data-retention-bill-to-parliament/5853156 .
Posted on: Thu, 30 Oct 2014 08:31:25 +0000
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