The closest we get to open and public debate on security and surveillance in Australia is this type of childish bickering: Attorney General, you can and should do better.
Brandis deaf and dumb on security
In answer to a question without notice in parliament in February 2014, asked by Senator Scott Ludlam (Greens, WA) relating to indiscriminate surveillance by governments, the Attorney-General, Senator George Brandis (Liberal, Qld) replied in part:
I note that Senator Ludlam has today published on the Guardian website an article in praise of the American traitor Edward Snowden, displaying a photograph of a bus bearing the signage ‘Thank you, Edward Snowden’ and under the headline ‘Today is the day we fight back’. Senator Ludlam, you celebrate and make a hero of this man who, through his criminal dishonesty and his treachery to his country, has put lives, including Australian lives, at risk. I wonder how you can sit in this parliament and hold your head up high when you celebrate a man who, through criminal conduct and treachery, has put Australian lives at risk.
(Civil Liberties Australia has pointed out previously – see CLArion, January 2014, p6 – that AG Brandis, a barrister with QC after his name, should know better than to abuse parliamentary privilege by calling Snowden a traitor. Snowden has never been convicted of any crime, and in fact has never been charged with any crime. He cannot therefore be called, with legal accuracy, a traitor, and the AG does a disservice to his own credibility and his own legal professionalism when he wrongly labels Snowden. He knows better…or, at least, he should know better).
Subsequently, Senator Ludlam (pictured at CLA rally over the TPP agreement) said in parliament:
I rise to speak on the matter of the embarrassing and borderline hysterical display put on in this chamber by our Attorney-General, the highest law officer in the land. He was behaving like an infant; it was like having a debate with a four-year-old. I think this parliament and millions of people around this country and around the world deserve better. They have legitimate and deep concerns about the surveillance activities of the US NSA and its partner agencies—including some in Australia—and their being treated with the contempt put on the record just now by the Attorney-General is completely unacceptable. If the attorney is not up to the job, he should set it aside for somebody who is.
Today is 11 February, and around the world more than 6,000 organisations—companies, civil society organisations and groups such as the Australian Greens (and Civil Liberties Australia: ed) —with user populations ranging from sub-niche to hundreds of millions are staging a black-out. This is a global internet black-out against government surveillance. It is good timing for us that it is the first day of parliamentary sittings for the year, and I am pleased to be able to add a contribution here on behalf of the Australian Greens.
The black-out was initiated by colleagues in the United States—not the usual suspects at all but those in the technology industry, civil society organisations, groups such as the ACLU and other people from right across the political spectrum there.
Republican congressmen Jim Sensenbrenner is one of the authors of the Patriot Act, and when he—as somebody who understands the architecture of the US security estate better than most—read and understood what the Snowden releases, through the Guardian newspaper, had revealed, he said, ‘This is well beyond what the Patriot Act allows.’ In other words, he is intimating that in fact the activities of the US agencies in question are illegal. Lying to congressional committees in the United States is unlawful.
All this means that the debate occurring in the United States is very interesting. As the powers of national security agencies are brought into question, and people have some truth to deal with and some facts on the table, the debate about the role of these agencies has become fascinating. That debate is taking place against the backdrop of the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights and other protections drafted by people who clearly had a much greater understanding of the potential for tyranny that lies under unchecked government surveillance than our own Attorney-General does.
The debate that is unfolding in the United States is actually, I think, quite profound.
In contrast, what we get here in Australia is the kind of infantile display put on the record earlier by our Attorney-General. It is completely unacceptable. Senator Brandis accused Mr Edward Snowden, a whistleblower whom I hold in extremely high regard—as do, I imagine, a majority of Australians and millions of people around the world—of being a traitor. You could almost see the spittle flying from his lips.
No evidence or justification was provided for the accusation that the revelations put into the public domain by Mr Snowden—through The Guardian, The New York Times, the ABC and other news organisations doing their job around the world—had created risk for Australians. No evidence at all was provided. They said exactly the same thing about the WikiLeaks revelations: the State Department cables, the war logs that disclosed war crimes, the cables that disclosed illegal activities by the United States State Department in the UN.
There was no comment at all from the Liberal Party on those revelations. There was no comment at all about the fact that it appears these agencies have acted unlawfully in the United States or that a detailed set of reform proposals is now before President Obama.
Instead, in Australia, there is complete silence—not simply silence, but the kind of contempt on display from our Attorney-General this afternoon.
In the closing days of the 2013 parliament, the Greens were able to initiate an inquiry by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee into the surveillance regime that prevails in Australia. I acknowledge my Labor Party colleagues for supporting the reference, as well as Senator Xenophon, who, on behalf of his constituents, has made clear his own concerns on these matters.
This inquiry is the first and perhaps best opportunity we will have to shed some light on the kinds of issues that many of us in this parliament, reflecting views in the broader community, believe are extremely important and urgent to address. It is to be hoped that our present Attorney-General’s tenure is as brief as possible so that somebody can come into that office who has some respect for the positions that have been put—that these things need to be urgently reformed—and so we are not again treated to the kind of display that was put on the record earlier.
Ends Senator Ludlam comments
CLA comments that we in Australia are getting the worst of both worlds: under the ‘Five Eyes’ spying/surveillance agreement, we get unannounced, unapproved and illegal (in the US) surveillance…without any appropriate local monitoring here in Australia by civil society of ‘partner’ activities by Australia and on Australians.
Then, when the checks and balances system in the USA apparently starts to work, at least in part, we in Australia get no comparable monitoring or checks and balance approach by our own government in open parliamentary processes. Civil society is again ignored.
It is as if AG Brandis and the government (both the previous Labor government and the current Coalition government) are deaf to the legitimate concerns of many Australian citizens, and dumb to the published excesses of the security agencies around the world, including – almost certainly – in Australia.
Ludlam question/Brandis reply: http://tinyurl.com/mde7tmy
Ludlam comment: http://tinyurl.com/khamtgq
Here’s how Bernard Keane, in Crikey, the online newsletter, covered the exchange:
Snowden a threat to Australian lives? Brandis refuses to show proof
United States whistleblower Edward Snowden had placed the lives of Australians at risk, according to Australian Attorney-General George Brandis, who made the sensational claim in Senate question time yesterday. Brandis’ statement marked a dramatic escalation in the government’s rhetoric against the whistleblower, and the first time the specific accusation of endangering Australians has been levelled at him.
However, Brandis failed to produce evidence to support the allegation, with the Attorney-General’s office failing to answerCrikey‘s repeated requests for further detail.
As activists, civil rights groups, NGOs and some of the world’s biggest internet sites joined together to mark February 11 as “the day we fight back against mass surveillance“, Brandis angrily lashed out at Greens senator Scott Ludlam:
“You celebrate and make a hero of this man who, through his criminal dishonesty and his treachery to his country, has put lives, including Australian lives, at risk. I wonder how you can sit in this Parliament and hold your head up high when you celebrate a man who, through criminal conduct and treachery, has put Australian lives at risk.”
Snowden has yet to be charged with treason even by the United States Department of Justice.
Both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have repeatedly made the accusation of treason, though the Prime Minister’s office has refused to provide any supporting evidence for the claim, while Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has lamented the “profound damage” he says Snowden has inflicted on the US tech sector (rather than the National Security Agency, which broke into companies’ back ends, or the companies themselves, which often co-operated with the NSA). Bishop tied herself into knots in January, insisting Snowden was a traitor but praising the review of mass surveillance into which Snowden’s revelations forced the Obama administration.
Brandis’ allegation that Australian lives have been placed at risk by Snowden represents an escalation of the government’s rhetoric against a figure who even US Republicans believe is a whistleblower who has exposed substantial wrongdoing.
It also echoes claims made against Snowden in the US and the United Kingdom, usually by intelligence agency figures but also by some politicians. However, in no instance has any agency or government produced evidence of any harm done by Snowden. Further, the review panel commissioned by US President Barack Obama found that there was no evidence that the NSA’s vast, and vastly expensive, surveillance apparatus had thwarted any terrorist attacks in the entire time it has been operating.
It’s also instructive to place Brandis’ claims in perspective. In November 2010, then-attorney-general Robert McClelland claimed that the WikiLeaks diplomatic cables release could “prejudice the safety of people” mentioned in the cables. Then-prime minister Gillard claimed the cable leak was “grossly irresponsible and illegal”. The White House claimed the leaks would put lives at risk, as did then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton; the UK Foreign Office said they might put lives at risk, as did any number of commentators.
But when Chelsea Manning, who provided the cables and other material to WikiLeaks, was sentenced last year after being convicted of espionage and theft, the military court was told that despite a “24/7“, 125-strong multimillion-dollar taskforce established by the US government to identify what damage the leaks had caused, not a single example of individual harm could be found. The head of the taskforce tried to claim he knew of one example, an Afghan national who had been killed by the Taliban, but had to concede that individual was not mentioned in the cables, and the trial judge rejected the evidence.
And as we’ve repeatedly discussed, governments are only too happy to leak national security information themselves, even information that can cause damage, if it’s in their political interests.
In their efforts to avoid transparency and accountability, politicians, security agencies and national security propagandists in the media instinctively smear whistleblowers and claim that any unofficial national security leaks place lives at risk. But they never produce a scintilla of evidence to back up their claims. Brandis’ smear of Snowden is only the latest example.
Crikey link: http://tinyurl.com/lcwhgkm
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