9 ms·

Outcry as Australian police search public broadcaster

268 points by playpause 7y ago

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
Reminds me of the Guradian being intimidated over the Snowden leaks by being forced to drill through their harddrives: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-released-guardian-editors-snowden-hard-drives-gchq https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-rele...
- lettergram 7y ago
  To be fair, working at a medical billing company standard practice was zero out drive, then drill. It was far less secret than that too
  - pjc50 7y ago
    The point was not the method of destruction but that they were forced to do it at all, on a questionable legal basis, on computers they were still using (not disposing of).
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      > but that they were forced to do it at all I'd like to underline this. The Guardian co-workers were forced to perform the entire deletion _themselves_ (!!!) It is almost like a combination of some kind of forced, unpaid employment (akin to "slavery"), shifting the blame ("you did it yourself"), or retribution ("you abused it, you take care of it"). Very twisted.
      - heraclius 7y ago
        > The book, published next week, describes how the Guardian took the decision to destroy its own Macbooks after the government explicitly threatened the paper with an injunction. They were “forced” but not in that sense. The Graun offered to do this instead, and so GCHQ came along to watch. There is a problem but not with forced labour.
  - noir_lord 7y ago
    I work for a company that makes stone products. We still drill through drives and then bash them till the platters are dust. It doesn't take long and where our main site is people dumpster dive.
    - sansnomme 7y ago
      Stone as in rock? The hard stuff on the ground?
      - noir_lord 7y ago
        Yep. I was hired to re-write the internal ERP as well as adding new features plus bring everything up to date as well as run the servers and all the other stuff, I'm an army of one basically, varied job, nice people and 9-5 - can't fault it.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    I think the point in the Guardian drive-drilling episode is that they weren't destroying the data. The data was already in numerous copies in other places, and everyone involved knew it, including the people doing the drilling and the people who had ordered it.
jMyles 7y ago
Reminds me of this crazy clusterfuck unfolding in San Francisco: https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-warrant-to-monitor-a-journalists-phone-before-raiding-his-apartment/ https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-war...
- elliekelly 7y ago
  Wow. How is this not bigger news? I'm on the East Coast and it's the first I'm hearing of it but perhaps someone nearer to SF can comment on whether it's being widely discussed?
  - xxpor 7y ago
    It's been making the rounds on the west coast, especially among reporter types in SF.
  - mikeyouse 7y ago
    It's very widely covered; NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/california-san-francisco-police-raid.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/california-san-francis... WaPO: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/14/how-police-raid-turned-death-beloved-police-critic-into-national-scandal/?utm_term=.b3b2c23a36f7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/14/how-police-... (Each have written more than 15 pieces that I can ID, I just posted a few examples)
- _jal 7y ago
  They look different to me. Australia is flexing its anti-speech authority, asserting the power to control what its subjects are allowed to talk about. My hometown cops are engaged in a much more quotidian abuse of power. Which is not to say ransacking Carmody's place wasn't egregious - it was. Watching the circular firing squad composed of the Mayor, the police chief and the cop-union attack dog just leaves me rooting for injuries. But ultimately it is a stupidity eruption caused by the cops' arrogant attempts to control their own (garbage) reputation. Our cops are criminals, but not part of a national strategy to shut down speech.
woah 7y ago
Seems that other countries are fast following the example the US government set in aggressive enforcement of press censorship against Assange.
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  NVM Assange, look within our own borders: https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-warrant-to-monitor-a-journalists-phone-before-raiding-his-apartment/ https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-war... https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-warrant-to-monitor-a-journalists-phone-before-raiding-his-apartment/ https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-war...
  - adventured 7y ago
    Implying that one illegal example in San Francisco by local police, means that it is a common procedure in the US that is being applied "within our own borders," is absurd. A given unit of police can do any given illegal thing, that doesn't make it common or mean that it's going to become common.
    - mdpopescu 7y ago
      Were they immediately arrested? If not, that means it's "unofficial" (wink, wink) de-facto policy.
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  You don't even need to reach for a controversial quasi-journalist. Normal, boring American journalists are targeted, which is a far worse situation.
chrisseaton 7y ago
Why are the BBC quoting the BBC's opinion on this? Are the BBC making a political opinion statement about the police in another country? The BBC have always loved to report about themselves and often literally interview themselves. It's not unusual for them to report about their own report of an interview between themselves and one of their own executives. But this is become really bizarre now.
- johneth 7y ago
  What would you think about their transparency and impartiality if they didn't report on a story they're involved in? That's why.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    They should let other people report on stories that involve themselves, obviously.
    - johneth 7y ago
      The BBC reporting on stories about itself doesn't stop other people from also reporting on stories about the BBC. Isn't that obvious?
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        I didn't say it stopped them. I know it's possible for them to do it. I said they should stop doing it. It's completely impossible to be even remotely impartial reporting yourself. Isn't that obvious?
        johneth 7y ago
        You said they "should let other people report on stories that involve them", implying that somehow they could stop that. Bit of a blurry sentence. > It's completely impossible to be even remotely impartial reporting yourself. Isn't that obvious? No. It depends on the organisation. In the BBC's case, I'd say the opposite is true.
stkdump 7y ago
Ah yes, of course something military related. We had this moment in 1962: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_affair
SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
I'm getting a bit sick of journalists acting like they should be above the law. This comes across as though it's an audacious abuse of authority for any law enforcement official to even think about stepping foot into a media companies office. No, you are subject to criminal investigation just like anyone else is. I'm always amazed how qickly the media closes ranks when one of their own is perceived to be under attack. The outcry is always from other journalists.
- anarchy8 7y ago
  I'm pretty amazed that people on this forum are so quick to jump on the side of an authoritarian right-wing government over press freedom.
  - SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
    What a misguided comment. There are no "sides" here. Unless you think that any criticism of journalistic practices puts me on "the other team". Grow up!
    - notgonnakeep 7y ago
      So, if journalists catch wind of the government being involved in illegal activity, they should just sit down and shut up because it's not their place to publish it. Don't see bootlickers too often on HN, but here you are.
      - SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
        Journalists should know that if they walk the fine line between legal and illegal then they run the risk of being investigated. If they're confident they're on the right side of the law then they have little to worry about. What I take exception to is their attitude, as if it's some great affront to decency and democracy that they should come under any kind of scrutiny. I don't see many people hurling childish insults on HN, but here you are.
    - 7y ago
ianopolous 7y ago
Also discussed in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/05/abc-offices-raided-by-australian-federal-police https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/05/abc-offices-ra...
shusson 7y ago
For those who don't know, the ABC is funded by the government.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  Funded in the same way the US government has grants for PBS and NPR or funded in the sense it's partially or fully owned by the Australian government?
  - shusson 7y ago
    The ABC is funded mainly by the Australian government and appointments to the ABC Board made by the government [1]. The funding is currently around $1 billion a year [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation#Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corpor... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation#cite_note-Current_Govt_Funding-65 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corpor...
  - lukevdp 7y ago
    It’s funded by the government but has a charter of being impartial and unbiased.
djsumdog 7y ago
It's important to note that Australia does not have a bill of rights. Victora (Melbourne) has a Charter of Human Rights. Although Australian courts have held freedoms of protest and press in the past, technically the Crown does have the legal power to control and censor communications.
mwill 7y ago
The raid was being live tweeted by an ABC editor, the tweet that stood out the most to me was this:[0] AFP: I’m still staggered by the power of this warrant. It allows the AFP to “add, copy, delete or alter” material in the ABC’s computers. All Australians, please think about that: as of this moment, the AFP has the power to delete material in the ABC’s computers. Australia 2019. [0]https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136124130204442624 https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136124130204442624
- shusson 7y ago
  Yes this stood out to me too. I don't really understand why a warrant would enable alteration. Copying I can wrap my head around, but alteration without oversight seems awful. Hopefully the warrant has more fine print than the journalist implied.
  - wccrawford 7y ago
    Perhaps they had a ruling in the past that during accessing a computer, things got changed, like the logs. And so now they have to have that in the warrant so that they don't lose their case. It sounds stupid, but I could see it happening.
    - koenigdavidmj 7y ago
      Or the right to install spyware.
    - gruez 7y ago
      >Perhaps they had a ruling in the past that during accessing a computer, things got changed, like the logs they don't have imaging tools and/or write blockers?
    - chopin 7y ago
      But this isn't a way to do a forensic analysis. You just clone the hard drive. Anything else should not be able to stand up in court. Afaik it is practice in rule-of-law countries to hand a clone to each party in the case.
peterkelly 7y ago
What we saw today was a very real, very visual, and very public display of the power the AFP (Australian Federal Police) are prepared to use to intimidate journalists and their brave sources who worked to expose war crimes. They did this by walking into a building and demanding access to sensitive information held by a news organisation, which had no choice but to comply with the warrant. But that's not what scares me the most. What does scare me is the very real prospect of all this being done silently, without any visibility or awareness of the journalists or their employers, without any knowledge of the public, and without any accountability, via electronic spying. The recently-introduced Assistance and Access legislation [1] enables the AFP and intelligence agencies to legally compel tech companies to secretly insert backdoors into their products or services in order to spy on any target, subject to the approval of the Attorney General. One day this law will be used to collect the same type of information the AFP collected today, without the news organisation, journalists, sources, or public even being aware of it. And anyone unfortunate to find themselves as the recipient of such a technical assistance/capability notice under this law will face jail time for telling anyone about it. The warrant executed today included the power to "to add, copy, delete or alter other data" [2]. Why, in particular, did they have the power to "alter" data? And what "alterations" might they make in combination with [1] which we will never know about? [1] https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2019/fa190200278-document-released.PDF https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2019/fa190200278-do... [2] https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136126140882440193 https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136126140882440193
- SuperNinjaCat 7y ago
  I'm quite sure there was a bill passed by parliament allowing federal police and/or security services to "to add, copy, delete or alter other data" when carrying out investigations (and I think this was before the Assisted Access bill was passed to my knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong though). This struck me as strange since this goes against the very fundamentals of how people are trained to carry out digital forensics on an individuals devices. I remember studying forensics a little and remember lecturers stating how damn careful they must be, as the data they collect must not be contaminated in any way for it to be admissible in court.
thrwaway5642 7y ago
Australia has recently had an election that was won (quite unexpectedly due to bad polling) by the incumbent political party (actually a semi-permanent coalition but that’s irrelevant in this case). Before the election, which the opposition was widely expected to win, there talk of “land mines” being set for the expected new government, intended to destabilise them early on. In the past week: * asylum seeker boats from Sri Lanka were intercepted. Boat arrivals are a big issue in Australian politics, and the timing would have placed a new government in a bind * a flotilla of Chinese warships sailed into Sydney Harbour on a friendly visit catching the public and media by surprise. The visit was approved post-election by the Prime Minister, but was said to be in the works for a while. Again, this would have been a very difficult issue for a new government to deal with. * These raids on journalists. The first raid, before the ABC was raided was actually on a journalist for News Corp Australia, which had been hostile to the opposition during the election. The optics would have looked terrible if they had won the election, and then their foes raided...it would have been portrayed as payback. If these raids are really “just” post-electoral land mines firing, they’ll stop soon enough, and won’t represent a fundamental shift in Australia’s freedom of the press. If not, then there is real trouble ahead
- lukevdp 7y ago
  Is there any evidence that these were “land mines”?
  - joshschreuder 7y ago
    If they were I don't see why the LNP wouldn't just call off the dogs when they won the election.
Paraesthetic 7y ago
Just for any international friends. The ABC is a cesspit of communist propaganda and leftist journalism unresearched or based in any science. Also they are owned by the government, so the government can effectively do what they want in this regard, they own it.
- aussiecorrector 7y ago
  Neither part of the above comment is accurate. I’m on mobile at work but feel it’s important to clarify that not only is the ABC independently rated as highly factual, the government does not have direct editorial control. The comment or above is also stating that the ABC is a communist cesspit at the behest of a conservative government - i.e. nonsense.

268 points by playpause 7y ago

Reminds me of the Guradian being intimidated over the Snowden leaks by being forced to drill through their harddrives: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-released-guardian-editors-snowden-hard-drives-gchq https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/31/footage-rele...

lettergram 7y ago
To be fair, working at a medical billing company standard practice was zero out drive, then drill. It was far less secret than that too
- pjc50 7y ago
  The point was not the method of destruction but that they were forced to do it at all, on a questionable legal basis, on computers they were still using (not disposing of).
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    > but that they were forced to do it at all I'd like to underline this. The Guardian co-workers were forced to perform the entire deletion _themselves_ (!!!) It is almost like a combination of some kind of forced, unpaid employment (akin to "slavery"), shifting the blame ("you did it yourself"), or retribution ("you abused it, you take care of it"). Very twisted.
    - heraclius 7y ago
      > The book, published next week, describes how the Guardian took the decision to destroy its own Macbooks after the government explicitly threatened the paper with an injunction. They were “forced” but not in that sense. The Graun offered to do this instead, and so GCHQ came along to watch. There is a problem but not with forced labour.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  I work for a company that makes stone products. We still drill through drives and then bash them till the platters are dust. It doesn't take long and where our main site is people dumpster dive.
  - sansnomme 7y ago
    Stone as in rock? The hard stuff on the ground?
    - noir_lord 7y ago
      Yep. I was hired to re-write the internal ERP as well as adding new features plus bring everything up to date as well as run the servers and all the other stuff, I'm an army of one basically, varied job, nice people and 9-5 - can't fault it.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  I think the point in the Guardian drive-drilling episode is that they weren't destroying the data. The data was already in numerous copies in other places, and everyone involved knew it, including the people doing the drilling and the people who had ordered it.

jMyles 7y ago

Reminds me of this crazy clusterfuck unfolding in San Francisco: https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-warrant-to-monitor-a-journalists-phone-before-raiding-his-apartment/ https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-war...

elliekelly 7y ago
Wow. How is this not bigger news? I'm on the East Coast and it's the first I'm hearing of it but perhaps someone nearer to SF can comment on whether it's being widely discussed?
- xxpor 7y ago
  It's been making the rounds on the west coast, especially among reporter types in SF.
- mikeyouse 7y ago
  It's very widely covered; NYTimes: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/california-san-francisco-police-raid.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/28/us/california-san-francis... WaPO: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/14/how-police-raid-turned-death-beloved-police-critic-into-national-scandal/?utm_term=.b3b2c23a36f7 https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/05/14/how-police-... (Each have written more than 15 pieces that I can ID, I just posted a few examples)
_jal 7y ago
They look different to me. Australia is flexing its anti-speech authority, asserting the power to control what its subjects are allowed to talk about. My hometown cops are engaged in a much more quotidian abuse of power. Which is not to say ransacking Carmody's place wasn't egregious - it was. Watching the circular firing squad composed of the Mayor, the police chief and the cop-union attack dog just leaves me rooting for injuries. But ultimately it is a stupidity eruption caused by the cops' arrogant attempts to control their own (garbage) reputation. Our cops are criminals, but not part of a national strategy to shut down speech.

woah 7y ago

Seems that other countries are fast following the example the US government set in aggressive enforcement of press censorship against Assange.

jonny_eh 7y ago
NVM Assange, look within our own borders: https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-warrant-to-monitor-a-journalists-phone-before-raiding-his-apartment/ https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-war... https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-warrant-to-monitor-a-journalists-phone-before-raiding-his-apartment/ https://reason.com/2019/06/04/san-francisco-police-got-a-war...
- adventured 7y ago
  Implying that one illegal example in San Francisco by local police, means that it is a common procedure in the US that is being applied "within our own borders," is absurd. A given unit of police can do any given illegal thing, that doesn't make it common or mean that it's going to become common.
  - mdpopescu 7y ago
    Were they immediately arrested? If not, that means it's "unofficial" (wink, wink) de-facto policy.
happytoexplain 7y ago
You don't even need to reach for a controversial quasi-journalist. Normal, boring American journalists are targeted, which is a far worse situation.

chrisseaton 7y ago

Why are the BBC quoting the BBC's opinion on this? Are the BBC making a political opinion statement about the police in another country? The BBC have always loved to report about themselves and often literally interview themselves. It's not unusual for them to report about their own report of an interview between themselves and one of their own executives. But this is become really bizarre now.

johneth 7y ago
What would you think about their transparency and impartiality if they didn't report on a story they're involved in? That's why.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  They should let other people report on stories that involve themselves, obviously.
  - johneth 7y ago
    The BBC reporting on stories about itself doesn't stop other people from also reporting on stories about the BBC. Isn't that obvious?
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      I didn't say it stopped them. I know it's possible for them to do it. I said they should stop doing it. It's completely impossible to be even remotely impartial reporting yourself. Isn't that obvious?
      - johneth 7y ago
        You said they "should let other people report on stories that involve them", implying that somehow they could stop that. Bit of a blurry sentence. > It's completely impossible to be even remotely impartial reporting yourself. Isn't that obvious? No. It depends on the organisation. In the BBC's case, I'd say the opposite is true.

stkdump 7y ago

Ah yes, of course something military related. We had this moment in 1962: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiegel_affair

SuddsMcDuff 7y ago

I'm getting a bit sick of journalists acting like they should be above the law. This comes across as though it's an audacious abuse of authority for any law enforcement official to even think about stepping foot into a media companies office. No, you are subject to criminal investigation just like anyone else is. I'm always amazed how qickly the media closes ranks when one of their own is perceived to be under attack. The outcry is always from other journalists.

anarchy8 7y ago
I'm pretty amazed that people on this forum are so quick to jump on the side of an authoritarian right-wing government over press freedom.
- SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
  What a misguided comment. There are no "sides" here. Unless you think that any criticism of journalistic practices puts me on "the other team". Grow up!
  - notgonnakeep 7y ago
    So, if journalists catch wind of the government being involved in illegal activity, they should just sit down and shut up because it's not their place to publish it. Don't see bootlickers too often on HN, but here you are.
    - SuddsMcDuff 7y ago
      Journalists should know that if they walk the fine line between legal and illegal then they run the risk of being investigated. If they're confident they're on the right side of the law then they have little to worry about. What I take exception to is their attitude, as if it's some great affront to decency and democracy that they should come under any kind of scrutiny. I don't see many people hurling childish insults on HN, but here you are.
  - 7y ago

ianopolous 7y ago

Also discussed in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/05/abc-offices-raided-by-australian-federal-police https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/05/abc-offices-ra...

shusson 7y ago

For those who don't know, the ABC is funded by the government.

djsumdog 7y ago
Funded in the same way the US government has grants for PBS and NPR or funded in the sense it's partially or fully owned by the Australian government?
- shusson 7y ago
  The ABC is funded mainly by the Australian government and appointments to the ABC Board made by the government [1]. The funding is currently around $1 billion a year [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation#Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corpor... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corporation#cite_note-Current_Govt_Funding-65 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Broadcasting_Corpor...
- lukevdp 7y ago
  It’s funded by the government but has a charter of being impartial and unbiased.

djsumdog 7y ago

It's important to note that Australia does not have a bill of rights. Victora (Melbourne) has a Charter of Human Rights. Although Australian courts have held freedoms of protest and press in the past, technically the Crown does have the legal power to control and censor communications.

mwill 7y ago

The raid was being live tweeted by an ABC editor, the tweet that stood out the most to me was this:[0] AFP: I’m still staggered by the power of this warrant. It allows the AFP to “add, copy, delete or alter” material in the ABC’s computers. All Australians, please think about that: as of this moment, the AFP has the power to delete material in the ABC’s computers. Australia 2019. [0]https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136124130204442624 https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136124130204442624

shusson 7y ago
Yes this stood out to me too. I don't really understand why a warrant would enable alteration. Copying I can wrap my head around, but alteration without oversight seems awful. Hopefully the warrant has more fine print than the journalist implied.
- wccrawford 7y ago
  Perhaps they had a ruling in the past that during accessing a computer, things got changed, like the logs. And so now they have to have that in the warrant so that they don't lose their case. It sounds stupid, but I could see it happening.
  - koenigdavidmj 7y ago
    Or the right to install spyware.
  - gruez 7y ago
    >Perhaps they had a ruling in the past that during accessing a computer, things got changed, like the logs they don't have imaging tools and/or write blockers?
  - chopin 7y ago
    But this isn't a way to do a forensic analysis. You just clone the hard drive. Anything else should not be able to stand up in court. Afaik it is practice in rule-of-law countries to hand a clone to each party in the case.

peterkelly 7y ago

What we saw today was a very real, very visual, and very public display of the power the AFP (Australian Federal Police) are prepared to use to intimidate journalists and their brave sources who worked to expose war crimes. They did this by walking into a building and demanding access to sensitive information held by a news organisation, which had no choice but to comply with the warrant. But that's not what scares me the most. What does scare me is the very real prospect of all this being done silently, without any visibility or awareness of the journalists or their employers, without any knowledge of the public, and without any accountability, via electronic spying. The recently-introduced Assistance and Access legislation [1] enables the AFP and intelligence agencies to legally compel tech companies to secretly insert backdoors into their products or services in order to spy on any target, subject to the approval of the Attorney General. One day this law will be used to collect the same type of information the AFP collected today, without the news organisation, journalists, sources, or public even being aware of it. And anyone unfortunate to find themselves as the recipient of such a technical assistance/capability notice under this law will face jail time for telling anyone about it. The warrant executed today included the power to "to add, copy, delete or alter other data" [2]. Why, in particular, did they have the power to "alter" data? And what "alterations" might they make in combination with [1] which we will never know about? [1] https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2019/fa190200278-document-released.PDF https://www.homeaffairs.gov.au/foi/files/2019/fa190200278-do... [2] https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136126140882440193 https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136126140882440193

SuperNinjaCat 7y ago
I'm quite sure there was a bill passed by parliament allowing federal police and/or security services to "to add, copy, delete or alter other data" when carrying out investigations (and I think this was before the Assisted Access bill was passed to my knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong though). This struck me as strange since this goes against the very fundamentals of how people are trained to carry out digital forensics on an individuals devices. I remember studying forensics a little and remember lecturers stating how damn careful they must be, as the data they collect must not be contaminated in any way for it to be admissible in court.

thrwaway5642 7y ago

Australia has recently had an election that was won (quite unexpectedly due to bad polling) by the incumbent political party (actually a semi-permanent coalition but that’s irrelevant in this case). Before the election, which the opposition was widely expected to win, there talk of “land mines” being set for the expected new government, intended to destabilise them early on. In the past week: * asylum seeker boats from Sri Lanka were intercepted. Boat arrivals are a big issue in Australian politics, and the timing would have placed a new government in a bind * a flotilla of Chinese warships sailed into Sydney Harbour on a friendly visit catching the public and media by surprise. The visit was approved post-election by the Prime Minister, but was said to be in the works for a while. Again, this would have been a very difficult issue for a new government to deal with. * These raids on journalists. The first raid, before the ABC was raided was actually on a journalist for News Corp Australia, which had been hostile to the opposition during the election. The optics would have looked terrible if they had won the election, and then their foes raided...it would have been portrayed as payback. If these raids are really “just” post-electoral land mines firing, they’ll stop soon enough, and won’t represent a fundamental shift in Australia’s freedom of the press. If not, then there is real trouble ahead

lukevdp 7y ago
Is there any evidence that these were “land mines”?
- joshschreuder 7y ago
  If they were I don't see why the LNP wouldn't just call off the dogs when they won the election.

Paraesthetic 7y ago

Just for any international friends. The ABC is a cesspit of communist propaganda and leftist journalism unresearched or based in any science. Also they are owned by the government, so the government can effectively do what they want in this regard, they own it.

aussiecorrector 7y ago
Neither part of the above comment is accurate. I’m on mobile at work but feel it’s important to clarify that not only is the ABC independently rated as highly factual, the government does not have direct editorial control. The comment or above is also stating that the ABC is a communist cesspit at the behest of a conservative government - i.e. nonsense.