A Sydney demo by a couple of hundred Muslims has exposed the lies behind a decade of expanded police and security powers. A-G Nicola Roxon has revealed the ultimate aim is total monitoring of citizens’ private lives and social activities, with police and spooks sharing open access and swapping people’s personal information instantly in real time. Welcome to a future life in Australia under a cyber-shadow.
Demo brings security lies into the open:
the future is life under a cyber-shadow
By Bill Rowlings, CLA CEO
There are four formal inquiries investigating whether – because of terrorists and organised crime – Australia’s police and security agencies need even deeper and wider powers to monitor people’s internet use, swap ‘intelligence’ amongst themselves, and store people’s private home phone, i-devices and computer data for years.
They will be able to filter, factor, and field this information against you. There will be active surveillance, probably by a real person as well as by software programs, if you once “come to the attention” of authorities. For example, you could attend a demo…and suddenly find your life, loves and longings are an open book to thousands of police, security personnel and bureaucrats throughout Australia.
Consistently, fever since 9/11 in 2001, we have been told that all the extra laws and powers granted to police and spooks by the federal parliament were against radical terrorists and the “worst of the worst” criminals.
Now, after just one small demo in Sydney involving a few hundred people, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has blown the lie wide open: suddenly, she admits that all these extra powers are making it easier for police and spooks to spy on what you’re talking to your mates about on social media. And, she has also revealed, state and federal police swap information at the drop of a hat, even when there are supposedly protocols and safeguards in place to prevent the ever-swelling reality of a growing police state across Australia.
Ms Roxon said:
“There is, I think, a growing trend that police are concerned about, how quickly information can get out through social media and Twitter. And of course you can be charged with offences that already exist under our criminal laws if you are using communication in a way which could breach those criminal laws. I guess what is the point that’s being made here is we can look at that information, where we have access to it.”
Forget the fibs about needing draconian laws for catching terrorists; let the lies die about how data would be safeguarded by one agency from use/abuse by another. The current proposals for wider powers need to be seen for what they are, further chipping away at the traditional rule of law in Australia. Ms Roxon is presiding over a process that will lead to proclaiming expanded police and security operative powers to intrude whenever and wherever they like into your private lives and what used to be your personal space.
Your most private of emails will be accessible to the 100,000 or so uniformed and non-uniformed law enforcers. Every time you sit at your computer, Big Brother watching over what sites you visit, what you research, your interests and your personal quirks…and what you say privately to lovers, friends and relatives. And, as the Attorney-General has pointed out, all your information posted on social media and Twitter will be a fair cop for the police.
We’re heading towards living under a constant cyber-shadow of surveillance: Renai LeMay, writing in Delimited, explains what is happening…