9 ms·

Australian Government Scrambles to Authorize Mass Surveillance

197 points by sinak 12y ago

artichokeheart 12y ago
It's not a surprise really our streets are literally awash with headless corpses
- eksith 12y ago
  What do you mean by this?
  - seventytwo 12y ago
    He means that people have to wade through a seething froth of semi-coagulated blood, hair, and brains while on their morning commute. Obviously due to the extreme terrorist threat arising in Australia to warrant such an equally extreme response as streamlining mass surveillance. /sarcasm
    - bwldrbst 12y ago
      It's true. I was late for work today but at least I got a seat on the train.
hadoukenio 12y ago
This is Australia's Executive Order 12333 moment: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html
pserwylo 12y ago
I find it greatly concerning that laws are passed with such haste, and then justified by very recent events. To clarify, the two recent events which seem to be frequently cited by the law makers is: * An anti-terrorism raid across two states, which charged one person and questioned several others. This happened a couple of weeks ago. * A tragic incident in which an 18yo stabbed two police officers and then was shot dead. This happened a few days ago. I fail to see how any of the provisions in the new laws are able to be justified by either of these events. Firstly, the anti-terrorism raids worked seemingly well without the yet-to-be-passed-laws. They successfully used existing laws to thwart a plan that allegedly involved the beheading of random members of the public. Secondly, no amount of surveillance or detaining will stop a determined individual from being able to stab somebody who is standing right in front of them. So as troubling as these two events were, it is also troubling that they are being used in this manner by politicians of both major persuasions.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- feralmoan 12y ago
  Yeah, Nah. Abbot just learnt what a 'False Flag' operation was and is trying it out so he can feel like a big boy.
andrewstuart 12y ago
Prime Minister Abbott needs to whip up hysteria and panic to try to distract people from his government's incredibly poor performance and disastrous budget. A nice solid war along with deep fear mongering should regain control of the media message. I simply don't believe we are under threat of attack from knife wielding beheading terrorists. The poor kid who died the other day was probably just mentally ill but its to Abbott's great advantage to be able to point and say LOOK, BEHEADING TERRORISTS IN OUR SUBURBS COMING FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, WE NEED TO RAPIDLY REMOVE YOUR LIBERTIES AND PRIVACY! The first Iraq cured me of any belief in what governments ask citizens to believe. I feel deep terror at what our government will do to us. The good news for Australians is that Tony Abbott has decided that we are no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive, HOWEVER thankfully we are getting 86 F-35 Joint Strike fighter aeroplanes. http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-to-approve-australias-biggest-ever-military-purchase-of-stealth-fighter-jets/story-fncynjr2-1226851684344 http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-to-approve-austr...
- gilgoomesh 12y ago
  > no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive According to various leaked reports: http://www.themercury.com.au/nbn-co-tears-faster-cheaper-fttp-rollout-claim-to-shreds/story-fnj3twbb-1227052063532 http://www.themercury.com.au/nbn-co-tears-faster-cheaper-ftt... the all-fibre option might actually be cheaper than the proposed Multi-Technology-Mix that the government are building but they're simply too dogmatic to listen to their own internal reporting. Insert your preferred conspiracy here. There are literally dozens of corruption theories that are plausible.
  - techdragon 12y ago
    No need for a conspiracy, we are looking at flat out idiocy here folks.
  - sentenza 12y ago
    The most likely and at the same time most scary option is intellectual dogfooding. They repeated their dogmatic stance so often that they have started believing in it.
vijaykumar13 12y ago
Aaahh tried and true, good strategy, First scare the shit out, and then tell them(people) we are here to protect you, look we need to come into your house now, so that we can save you.
- estebank 12y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_30-8ZlmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_30-8ZlmQ "I wan't everyone to remember why they need US!"
DrTarantism 12y ago
I think that the Government is manipulating the people and that these new laws will certainly be abused. I think that it is up to the entrepreneurial community to come up with solutions to help mitigate the situation. This can be achieved on several levels. 1. Help whistle blowers deliver material to overseas journalists 2. Create stronger security for journalists and whistle blowers to communicate 3. Find ways to better engage the public in the politics of today so that better political parties can thrive in the future and strengthen our constitution
zmmmmm 12y ago
I am not normally one to put on a tin foil hat, but all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical. Security agencies facing the sunsetting of powers granted after 9/11 "suddenly" discover all these threats the very same week that laws are due to be voted on. There seems to be almost no evidence against individuals raided, only one arrest and that on the basis of some intercepted conversations where the idea of attacking someone was mentioned (and all this, we are taking on faith from security agencies themselves which have a massive vested interest in getting new laws passed). Even if you interpret the threat literally, one individual was proposing to attack one Australian - for this we need to discard our basic freedoms protected for hundreds years (deriving from the magna carta no less)? I think there ought to be a moratorium on passing any new laws until there is not any current terrorism scare, it is exactly not the time to be making rash judgements about what laws we need.
- TerraHertz 12y ago
  "all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical" Uh... make that the last 51 years. If you only just noticed, you're not paying attention. And I only say 51 years from picking an arbitrary point (JFK assassination) for when the deep state's evil ways became really obvious. "If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched." -- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence. An observation by the late Director at his first staff meeting in 1981. This observation reveals the mentality of cynicism which infests the US Federal control structures, and the reality that these structures regard the American people with total contempt.
  - someone234 12y ago
    > This observation reveals the mentality of cynicism which infests the US Federal control structures, and the reality that these structures regard the American people with total contempt. Yeah, I wouldn't call plans to brainwash and mind-fuck 330 million people a "mentality of cynicism". Contempt is not quite enough either. How about "evil, malicious hostility"?
Narkov 12y ago
Surely it's inevitable that everything will be surveiled. The quicker we realise this and "encrypt all the things" the better. What's the point in fighting legislation when you can solve the problem with technology? If the technology doesn't exist now then this stupid legislation should spur it on.
- borplk 12y ago
  If you think any technical solution is going to solve these things you are delusional. It will only create an arms-race that will make things worse. We need laws.
- krapp 12y ago
  I think that unless the 'problem' that encryption is meant to solve is the existence of governments themselves, then it doesn't make sense to write off engagement with the political process altogether.. "encrypt all the things" only works if you somehow have the power and influence to make all the companies do all the work to encrypt all the things (against their own gain in some cases.) Without some kind of political pressure, or even better the force of law, or at the very least a bully pulpit to convince people that it's a good idea, I wonder if it's necessarily tenable. You can always do both anyway.
- smtddr 12y ago
  >>What's the point in fighting legislation when you can solve the problem with technology? Because encryption can be made illegal.
- doctorshady 12y ago
  The NSA - and I expect the rest of the five eyes, are archiving a very large amount of encrypted traffic in anticipation of being able to analyze it at a later date. What do you think that Utah data center is for? Unless you know the data will be useless in a short while, it's safe to say you're still talking on the shiny side of one sided glass.
contingencies 12y ago
One of my more recent contributions to Wikipedia was a 'Mass Surveillance in Australia' page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia
jsmeaton 12y ago
So Bill Shorten (the leader of the opposition) is my member of parliament. I've written him to ask that he helps to slow the process down and read the recommendations of the joint committee. Not sure what more I can do here :/
- prawn 12y ago
  Here is all you need to know about government and opposition in "times like these" - a satirical piece from The Shovel: Labor Party To Close Down Until After Iraq War: http://www.theshovel.com.au/2014/09/23/labor-party-to-close-down-until-after-iraq-war/ http://www.theshovel.com.au/2014/09/23/labor-party-to-close-... On hearing the news, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, “Until this war concludes, we’ll just have two parties saying the same thing, so it makes sense to put one away for now”. Labor leader Bill Shorten later released a statement saying “Until this war concludes, we’ll just have two parties saying the same thing, so it makes sense to put one away for now”.
  - rtpg 12y ago
    the idea that the opposition actually needs to oppose every proposal by the government in power is what leads to the current situation in the US congress. When it comes to certain thing people happen to agree. If the government came out against eating babies, does the opposition have to start taking a literal interpretation of Swift? (I am not saying that the Iraq War is "obviously right", I'm just saying that cooperation in government is a possible thing)
    - prawn 12y ago
      Not dismissing that. It's more a comment of locking step as a response to fear and war. Too politically risky not to. I commented slightly up the chain with a little bit more.
  - RubyPinch 12y ago
    > Here is all you need to know 4 sentences I mean, I know some love to think that a blog / tv show full of snarky jokes gives a hint of political driving forces behind decisions, or, you know, anything political in the slightest but they don't, they are just snarky jokes
retrogradeorbit 12y ago
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." -- Hermann Göring That'll be next. Any one who stands in opposition to these bills will be "exposing the country to danger".
- the_rosentotter 12y ago
  "You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." -- William Randolph Hearst Every war in recent history has been preceded by massive, concerted media propaganda. World War I was extreme in this regard. The monopoly situation on mass media has not improved since then.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    It's been dizzying to watch the propaganda surrounding IS in order to drum up support for a new war. From the very beginning, with their characterization as "too extreme for Al Qaeda" this has seemed highly orchestrated.
NamTaf 12y ago
For the record, the recent 'terrorist threats' involved an apparent plan to kidnap random citizens off the street and behead them on camera, then send the footage to ISIS for subsequent release. The raid to stop said threats involved ~800 police officers across multiple states. Its result? Two people charged, with only one having anything to do with terrorism. Just about every ounce of effort was put in to drumming it up as 'averted disaster at the last moment', yet very little effort was (probably intentionally) made to mention that the mobilsation of over 800 police resulted in the arrest of exactly 1 person on terrorism-related charges. This is undoubtably an opportunistic move on the back of marginal news. It's a travisty and it will pass without much debate because both parties give approximately no care whatsoever about preserving individual freedoms and privacy, and every care about eroding those rights for increased capacity to monitor and police the public.
- stephen_g 12y ago
  I think it's actually been pretty shameful how they've been milking everything they can for all it's worth - first the MH370 disaster, where for some reason it was Abbot on camera every night making announcements every time they found a tiny piece of debris off WA (probably none of which was related to the incident at all in hindsight), and then their going on and on about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite the fact we have absolutely nothing to do with it... Now, we have this 'huge terror threat', milking the IS conflict in Syria and Iraq.
thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago
The "Stop The Spies" campaign will be launching prematurely in light of this news. Here is the website design we were trying to achieve -> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByT3WMbCYAEsFcA.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByT3WMbCYAEsFcA.jpg:large Expect it to be launched today or tomorrow. When the campaign website launches, we need to generate numbers for the press, so make sure you take all the action available on the site. In the mean time follow our lonely social media accounts to stay up to date with the campaign Twitter: https://twitter.com/stopthespies https://twitter.com/stopthespies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-The-Spies/354999514650401 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-The-Spies/35499951465040... ----- The government nearly passed the first bill in one day, this caught us by utter surprise. And the legislation proposed sets no upper limit on the number of devices in a network that they can monitor, meaning without oversight, they could potentially monitor every device in Australia with a single warrant. The bill containing the mandatory data retention proposals will be hitting the senate next week and we imagine that it might get very little opposition like this first bill. The only opposition to the bill is from the Greens and one LDP member so there is but a flicker of hope. But I imagine if we can at least delay these proposals, a more lively debate may spring up and pressure may be placed on legislators to reconsider their positions. It is in the best interest of journalist to write about these bills at the moment because it highly affects them. Personal thanks to Sen. Ludlam for delaying the bill yesterday!
thomasfoster96 12y ago
'straya! I'm not sure how to feel about Australia's response to ISIS. The right-wing side of politics seems to be going completely over the top in trying to crack down on terrorist cells operating in the country (we did just have two policemen stabbed in what appears to be a terrorism-linked beheading attempt), arguing that security is more important than freedom. Then we've got the left wing side of politics, which is trying to do all it can to downplay the risk and argue that there is literally a 0% of an attack on Australians, despite an incident just days ago and dozens of Australians having travelled to fight in the Middle East who may return.
- Intermernet 12y ago
  I do tend to side with the left on this one. We have one incident where the emotional term "beheading" seems to be the key word, adopted by both perpetrator and media, and the number of people involved was minimal. We also have "dozens" of Australians travelling to the middle east, just as we had dozens of Australians of Serbian / Croatian background travelling to the Balkans in the 90's, and probably dozens of other dissidents travelling to their respective places of allegiance during many past disputes in global history. These numbers ("dozens" or fewer) are the same sorts of numbers as the "average" murder rate. These people are just psychopaths with an easily accessible justification. The police can currently handle most cases of this without any extra powers. They're extremely good at it. The risk isn't 0% (and politicians generally shouldn't be trusted anyway, on any statement), but it's actually statistically negligible (less than 100 divided by greater than 20,000,000), and preventable with current policing practices and powers.
- 1stop 12y ago
  I don't think there has ever been a "Terrorist" attack in Australia that has targeted "White Australians". I make that qualification based on the fact that a number of foreign embassies have been attacked within Australia, but that is quite a different thing. How was the stabbing "terrorist-linked?" And how is people travelling to the middle east (even to fight), terorrist linked?
  - thomasfoster96 12y ago
higherpurpose 12y ago
You know what all these "ramp ups" for mass surveillance in the so called "democratic countries" tell me? That this sort of stuff has been going on for quite a while, but now much of it has become public, and they are scared some of them could go to prison, or at least Courts could stop them from having these powers, so they try to "legalize" all of it now. Even if people test its constitutionality, it will probably be a very long battle, to get rid of all of these powers, and they'll use the powers as much as possible against the people questioning them to try to maintain these powers.
andrewstuart 12y ago
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/no-conspiracy-to-ambush-vic-officers-cops-20140926-3go8u.html http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/no-conspira...

197 points by sinak 12y ago

artichokeheart 12y ago

It's not a surprise really our streets are literally awash with headless corpses

eksith 12y ago
What do you mean by this?
- seventytwo 12y ago
  He means that people have to wade through a seething froth of semi-coagulated blood, hair, and brains while on their morning commute. Obviously due to the extreme terrorist threat arising in Australia to warrant such an equally extreme response as streamlining mass surveillance. /sarcasm
  - bwldrbst 12y ago
    It's true. I was late for work today but at least I got a seat on the train.

hadoukenio 12y ago

This is Australia's Executive Order 12333 moment: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/meet-executive-order-12333-the-reagan-rule-that-lets-the-nsa-spy-on-americans/2014/07/18/93d2ac22-0b93-11e4-b8e5-d0de80767fc2_story.html

pserwylo 12y ago

I find it greatly concerning that laws are passed with such haste, and then justified by very recent events. To clarify, the two recent events which seem to be frequently cited by the law makers is: * An anti-terrorism raid across two states, which charged one person and questioned several others. This happened a couple of weeks ago. * A tragic incident in which an 18yo stabbed two police officers and then was shot dead. This happened a few days ago. I fail to see how any of the provisions in the new laws are able to be justified by either of these events. Firstly, the anti-terrorism raids worked seemingly well without the yet-to-be-passed-laws. They successfully used existing laws to thwart a plan that allegedly involved the beheading of random members of the public. Secondly, no amount of surveillance or detaining will stop a determined individual from being able to stab somebody who is standing right in front of them. So as troubling as these two events were, it is also troubling that they are being used in this manner by politicians of both major persuasions.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
feralmoan 12y ago
Yeah, Nah. Abbot just learnt what a 'False Flag' operation was and is trying it out so he can feel like a big boy.

andrewstuart 12y ago

Prime Minister Abbott needs to whip up hysteria and panic to try to distract people from his government's incredibly poor performance and disastrous budget. A nice solid war along with deep fear mongering should regain control of the media message. I simply don't believe we are under threat of attack from knife wielding beheading terrorists. The poor kid who died the other day was probably just mentally ill but its to Abbott's great advantage to be able to point and say LOOK, BEHEADING TERRORISTS IN OUR SUBURBS COMING FOR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY, WE NEED TO RAPIDLY REMOVE YOUR LIBERTIES AND PRIVACY! The first Iraq cured me of any belief in what governments ask citizens to believe. I feel deep terror at what our government will do to us. The good news for Australians is that Tony Abbott has decided that we are no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive, HOWEVER thankfully we are getting 86 F-35 Joint Strike fighter aeroplanes. http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-to-approve-australias-biggest-ever-military-purchase-of-stealth-fighter-jets/story-fncynjr2-1226851684344 http://www.news.com.au/national/tony-abbott-to-approve-austr...

gilgoomesh 12y ago
> no longer getting a fibre to the home national broadband network because that was too expensive According to various leaked reports: http://www.themercury.com.au/nbn-co-tears-faster-cheaper-fttp-rollout-claim-to-shreds/story-fnj3twbb-1227052063532 http://www.themercury.com.au/nbn-co-tears-faster-cheaper-ftt... the all-fibre option might actually be cheaper than the proposed Multi-Technology-Mix that the government are building but they're simply too dogmatic to listen to their own internal reporting. Insert your preferred conspiracy here. There are literally dozens of corruption theories that are plausible.
- techdragon 12y ago
  No need for a conspiracy, we are looking at flat out idiocy here folks.
- sentenza 12y ago
  The most likely and at the same time most scary option is intellectual dogfooding. They repeated their dogmatic stance so often that they have started believing in it.

vijaykumar13 12y ago

Aaahh tried and true, good strategy, First scare the shit out, and then tell them(people) we are here to protect you, look we need to come into your house now, so that we can save you.

estebank 12y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_30-8ZlmQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iu_30-8ZlmQ "I wan't everyone to remember why they need US!"

DrTarantism 12y ago

I think that the Government is manipulating the people and that these new laws will certainly be abused. I think that it is up to the entrepreneurial community to come up with solutions to help mitigate the situation. This can be achieved on several levels. 1. Help whistle blowers deliver material to overseas journalists 2. Create stronger security for journalists and whistle blowers to communicate 3. Find ways to better engage the public in the politics of today so that better political parties can thrive in the future and strengthen our constitution

zmmmmm 12y ago

I am not normally one to put on a tin foil hat, but all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical. Security agencies facing the sunsetting of powers granted after 9/11 "suddenly" discover all these threats the very same week that laws are due to be voted on. There seems to be almost no evidence against individuals raided, only one arrest and that on the basis of some intercepted conversations where the idea of attacking someone was mentioned (and all this, we are taking on faith from security agencies themselves which have a massive vested interest in getting new laws passed). Even if you interpret the threat literally, one individual was proposing to attack one Australian - for this we need to discard our basic freedoms protected for hundreds years (deriving from the magna carta no less)? I think there ought to be a moratorium on passing any new laws until there is not any current terrorism scare, it is exactly not the time to be making rash judgements about what laws we need.

TerraHertz 12y ago
"all the events of the last week seem so orchestrated that it is hard not to be cynical" Uh... make that the last 51 years. If you only just noticed, you're not paying attention. And I only say 51 years from picking an arbitrary point (JFK assassination) for when the deep state's evil ways became really obvious. "If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched." -- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." -- William Casey, Director of Central Intelligence. An observation by the late Director at his first staff meeting in 1981. This observation reveals the mentality of cynicism which infests the US Federal control structures, and the reality that these structures regard the American people with total contempt.
- someone234 12y ago
  > This observation reveals the mentality of cynicism which infests the US Federal control structures, and the reality that these structures regard the American people with total contempt. Yeah, I wouldn't call plans to brainwash and mind-fuck 330 million people a "mentality of cynicism". Contempt is not quite enough either. How about "evil, malicious hostility"?

Narkov 12y ago

Surely it's inevitable that everything will be surveiled. The quicker we realise this and "encrypt all the things" the better. What's the point in fighting legislation when you can solve the problem with technology? If the technology doesn't exist now then this stupid legislation should spur it on.

borplk 12y ago
If you think any technical solution is going to solve these things you are delusional. It will only create an arms-race that will make things worse. We need laws.
krapp 12y ago
I think that unless the 'problem' that encryption is meant to solve is the existence of governments themselves, then it doesn't make sense to write off engagement with the political process altogether.. "encrypt all the things" only works if you somehow have the power and influence to make all the companies do all the work to encrypt all the things (against their own gain in some cases.) Without some kind of political pressure, or even better the force of law, or at the very least a bully pulpit to convince people that it's a good idea, I wonder if it's necessarily tenable. You can always do both anyway.
smtddr 12y ago
>>What's the point in fighting legislation when you can solve the problem with technology? Because encryption can be made illegal.
doctorshady 12y ago
The NSA - and I expect the rest of the five eyes, are archiving a very large amount of encrypted traffic in anticipation of being able to analyze it at a later date. What do you think that Utah data center is for? Unless you know the data will be useless in a short while, it's safe to say you're still talking on the shiny side of one sided glass.

contingencies 12y ago

One of my more recent contributions to Wikipedia was a 'Mass Surveillance in Australia' page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia

jsmeaton 12y ago

So Bill Shorten (the leader of the opposition) is my member of parliament. I've written him to ask that he helps to slow the process down and read the recommendations of the joint committee. Not sure what more I can do here :/

prawn 12y ago
Here is all you need to know about government and opposition in "times like these" - a satirical piece from The Shovel: Labor Party To Close Down Until After Iraq War: http://www.theshovel.com.au/2014/09/23/labor-party-to-close-down-until-after-iraq-war/ http://www.theshovel.com.au/2014/09/23/labor-party-to-close-... On hearing the news, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said, “Until this war concludes, we’ll just have two parties saying the same thing, so it makes sense to put one away for now”. Labor leader Bill Shorten later released a statement saying “Until this war concludes, we’ll just have two parties saying the same thing, so it makes sense to put one away for now”.
- rtpg 12y ago
  the idea that the opposition actually needs to oppose every proposal by the government in power is what leads to the current situation in the US congress. When it comes to certain thing people happen to agree. If the government came out against eating babies, does the opposition have to start taking a literal interpretation of Swift? (I am not saying that the Iraq War is "obviously right", I'm just saying that cooperation in government is a possible thing)
  - prawn 12y ago
    Not dismissing that. It's more a comment of locking step as a response to fear and war. Too politically risky not to. I commented slightly up the chain with a little bit more.
- RubyPinch 12y ago
  > Here is all you need to know 4 sentences I mean, I know some love to think that a blog / tv show full of snarky jokes gives a hint of political driving forces behind decisions, or, you know, anything political in the slightest but they don't, they are just snarky jokes

retrogradeorbit 12y ago

"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." -- Hermann Göring That'll be next. Any one who stands in opposition to these bills will be "exposing the country to danger".

the_rosentotter 12y ago
"You furnish the pictures, I'll furnish the war." -- William Randolph Hearst Every war in recent history has been preceded by massive, concerted media propaganda. World War I was extreme in this regard. The monopoly situation on mass media has not improved since then.
- dublinben 12y ago
  It's been dizzying to watch the propaganda surrounding IS in order to drum up support for a new war. From the very beginning, with their characterization as "too extreme for Al Qaeda" this has seemed highly orchestrated.

NamTaf 12y ago

For the record, the recent 'terrorist threats' involved an apparent plan to kidnap random citizens off the street and behead them on camera, then send the footage to ISIS for subsequent release. The raid to stop said threats involved ~800 police officers across multiple states. Its result? Two people charged, with only one having anything to do with terrorism. Just about every ounce of effort was put in to drumming it up as 'averted disaster at the last moment', yet very little effort was (probably intentionally) made to mention that the mobilsation of over 800 police resulted in the arrest of exactly 1 person on terrorism-related charges. This is undoubtably an opportunistic move on the back of marginal news. It's a travisty and it will pass without much debate because both parties give approximately no care whatsoever about preserving individual freedoms and privacy, and every care about eroding those rights for increased capacity to monitor and police the public.

stephen_g 12y ago
I think it's actually been pretty shameful how they've been milking everything they can for all it's worth - first the MH370 disaster, where for some reason it was Abbot on camera every night making announcements every time they found a tiny piece of debris off WA (probably none of which was related to the incident at all in hindsight), and then their going on and on about the Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite the fact we have absolutely nothing to do with it... Now, we have this 'huge terror threat', milking the IS conflict in Syria and Iraq.

thomasfromcdnjs 12y ago

The "Stop The Spies" campaign will be launching prematurely in light of this news. Here is the website design we were trying to achieve -> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByT3WMbCYAEsFcA.jpg:large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ByT3WMbCYAEsFcA.jpg:large Expect it to be launched today or tomorrow. When the campaign website launches, we need to generate numbers for the press, so make sure you take all the action available on the site. In the mean time follow our lonely social media accounts to stay up to date with the campaign Twitter: https://twitter.com/stopthespies https://twitter.com/stopthespies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-The-Spies/354999514650401 https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-The-Spies/35499951465040... ----- The government nearly passed the first bill in one day, this caught us by utter surprise. And the legislation proposed sets no upper limit on the number of devices in a network that they can monitor, meaning without oversight, they could potentially monitor every device in Australia with a single warrant. The bill containing the mandatory data retention proposals will be hitting the senate next week and we imagine that it might get very little opposition like this first bill. The only opposition to the bill is from the Greens and one LDP member so there is but a flicker of hope. But I imagine if we can at least delay these proposals, a more lively debate may spring up and pressure may be placed on legislators to reconsider their positions. It is in the best interest of journalist to write about these bills at the moment because it highly affects them. Personal thanks to Sen. Ludlam for delaying the bill yesterday!

thomasfoster96 12y ago

'straya! I'm not sure how to feel about Australia's response to ISIS. The right-wing side of politics seems to be going completely over the top in trying to crack down on terrorist cells operating in the country (we did just have two policemen stabbed in what appears to be a terrorism-linked beheading attempt), arguing that security is more important than freedom. Then we've got the left wing side of politics, which is trying to do all it can to downplay the risk and argue that there is literally a 0% of an attack on Australians, despite an incident just days ago and dozens of Australians having travelled to fight in the Middle East who may return.

Intermernet 12y ago
I do tend to side with the left on this one. We have one incident where the emotional term "beheading" seems to be the key word, adopted by both perpetrator and media, and the number of people involved was minimal. We also have "dozens" of Australians travelling to the middle east, just as we had dozens of Australians of Serbian / Croatian background travelling to the Balkans in the 90's, and probably dozens of other dissidents travelling to their respective places of allegiance during many past disputes in global history. These numbers ("dozens" or fewer) are the same sorts of numbers as the "average" murder rate. These people are just psychopaths with an easily accessible justification. The police can currently handle most cases of this without any extra powers. They're extremely good at it. The risk isn't 0% (and politicians generally shouldn't be trusted anyway, on any statement), but it's actually statistically negligible (less than 100 divided by greater than 20,000,000), and preventable with current policing practices and powers.
1stop 12y ago
I don't think there has ever been a "Terrorist" attack in Australia that has targeted "White Australians". I make that qualification based on the fact that a number of foreign embassies have been attacked within Australia, but that is quite a different thing. How was the stabbing "terrorist-linked?" And how is people travelling to the middle east (even to fight), terorrist linked?
- thomasfoster96 12y ago

higherpurpose 12y ago

You know what all these "ramp ups" for mass surveillance in the so called "democratic countries" tell me? That this sort of stuff has been going on for quite a while, but now much of it has become public, and they are scared some of them could go to prison, or at least Courts could stop them from having these powers, so they try to "legalize" all of it now. Even if people test its constitutionality, it will probably be a very long battle, to get rid of all of these powers, and they'll use the powers as much as possible against the people questioning them to try to maintain these powers.

andrewstuart 12y ago

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/no-conspiracy-to-ambush-vic-officers-cops-20140926-3go8u.html http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/no-conspira...