Well at least our Attorney General understands the concept of metadata. Oh, wait. http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/george-brandis-in-car-c

Well at least our Attorney General understands the concept of metadata. Oh, wait. http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/george-brandis-in-car-crash-interview-over-controversial-data-retention-regime-20140806-101849.html http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/george-... [Edit: transcribed from about 1:40] Brandis: "What the security agencies want to be retained is the electronic address of the website, that the web user..." Interviewer: "So it does tell you the website?" "Well it tells you the address of the website" "That's the website, isn't it? It tells you what website you've been to?" "Well when you visit a website, people browse from one thing to the next, and that browsing history won't be retained, or there won't be any capacity to access that." "Excuse my confusion here, but if you are retaining the web address, you are retaining the web site, aren't you?" "Well, the ... every website has an electronic address, right?" "And that's recorded?" "When a connection is made between one computer terminal and a web address, that fact, and the time of the connection, and the duration of the connection, is what we mean by 'metadata' in that context." "But that is telling you where I've been on the web." "Well it ... it ... it records what electronic web address has been accessed." "I don't see the difference between that and what websites you've visited?" "When you go to a website, commonly, you will go from one web page to another, from one link to another in that website. That's not what we're interested in."