In addition to its village idiot approach to undermining end-to-end encryption in new surveillance laws, the government is also seeking a blunt-force trauma approach: it wants to jail people for a decade if they refuse to give up the password to their devices.
Under the draft Assistance and Access Bill 2018 unveiled yesterday, the government is giving police, spy agencies and regulators like the ATO the power to demand that tech companies help them plant malware on computers and phones to help it defeat end-to-end encryption.
But if they’re not able to access your device to put a virus on it, the government proposes to give them another option. They can go to a judge or AAT member and obtain an order directing anyone who may know anything about the device to help them get access to it. If that person fails to help, they face “imprisonment for 10 years or 600 penalty units, or both.” Six hundred penalty units is currently over $120,000.
The inclusion of AAT members is handy, as the government has stacked the AAT with Liberal figures, including the micro-thin-skinned former right-wing Tasmanian MP Andrew Nikolic, who publicly attacked debate around civil liberties as interfering with the work of intelligence agencies.
So imagine the following scenario: a journalist who has embarrassed the government with her reporting, or a lawyer representing representing a defendant in a national security trial, arrives back in Australia to be met by Border Force officials clutching an order from an ex-MP on the AAT requiring them to not merely hand over their phones and laptop but passwords to access them and the passwords of individual apps on them.
Unlike the token “journalist information warrant” provisions of the data retention bill, there are no protections for particular professions that rely on confidentiality in the new bill. The journalist or lawyer will face a significant new threat: hand over full access to all of their information to the government, potentially placing sources and clients in jeopardy, or going to jail for a decade and being bankrupted.
Thank goodness this government has no history of abusing its powers, huh?
Thank goodness we have an effective Labor party opposition. Otherwise this and all the earlier laws fake security laws might get passed. Huh?
Also otherwise, people concerned about this might have to vote for, and promote for the balance-of-power, a cross-bench-only party that is uncompromising on individual data security and against private and public surveillance, even though “waah, they will never form government”.
(No go at you Applet, just at those – even the politically informed and journalists and even commenters here – who keep thinking Australian democracy should be a 2-party-only p1ssing contest.)
You are both correct, we need an opposition that isn’t a lapdog when it comes to security and civil rights and then, like all good IT systems, some redundancy when things go wrong, or as the Democrats used to call it, third party insurance.
That’s it (although I am referring, of course, to the Greens, but cannot seem to edit my prior comment to write that explicitly).
And then additionally we need some hard-wired rules, like a Bill of Rights that incorporates digital rights.
A bill of rights is sorely needed. Either major party has had no issue with openly trying to limit rights especially when it comes to the digital space. Anyone remember Senator Conroy and Labor’s Great Firewall for Australia plan?
A third party with the balance of power in the Senate can’t block legislation by itself – it needs the support of other senators. Depending on the composition of the Senate that will generally mean that one of the 2 major parties must also oppose the legislation because let’s face it, the 2 major parties will hold most of the seats for the foreseeable future.
So, we have to get a change in Labor’s policies and politics. Labor needs to be pressured heavily in the build up to the coming election.
*tugs collar*
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK! 1984 WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A WARNING, NOT A GODDAMN GUIDELINE! I HAVEN’T BEEN MAD ENOUGH TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS IN YEARS, FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFWHAT CAN WE DO TO STOP THIS?!
As you say, “Thank goodness this government has no history of abusing its powers, huh?”
“Certainly I’ll give you my password, Herr BorderForceGuard. ‘Sugarplumfairy’. That’s it.”
“No, I’m not gay.”
“What? It’s not working? Damn! I was sure that was it. Hmmmm ….”
“Try ‘DuttonsAGoose’.”
“Still not working? Ok. Try ‘IPAforever’.”
“What? Account locked because of too many invalid attempts? Awww ….”
lol. But not the bit where you tarnish the rep of innocent geese.
I can see it now; prominent international Australian businessperson refuses to give-up passwords – fined $120K and given 12 months home detention in his/her luxury penthouse apartment. Yep, that sounds about right…