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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 journ

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.

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.