Showing posts with label unlawful surveillance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label unlawful surveillance. Show all posts
Wednesday, 20 May 2020
Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton makes a grab for even more surveillance powers
Crikey,
15 May 2020:
The
government’s proposed scheme to enable foreign intelligence
services to spy on Australians will enable Australia’s intelligence
agencies to circumvent measures designed to protect journalists from
unfettered pursuit of their sources.
Labor’s
Mark Dreyfus yesterday exposed the loophole, with Home Affairs
officials left unable and unwilling to explain why their minister
Peter Dutton was proposing a runaround on existing procedures
designed to protect journalists’ sources.
The
Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (International Production
Orders) Bill 2020 will to pave the way for agreements between
Australia and the United States, and other “like-minded countries”,
for the direct accessing of surveillance information, including
real-time wiretapping, by intelligence agencies from both counterpart
countries. In Australia, such requests would be signed off by members
of the Security Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal
(AAT), which is heavily stacked with former Coalition MPs and
staffers.
In
hearings before the intelligence and security committee yesterday,
shadow attorney-general Dreyfus asked Dutton’s bureaucrats why
existing protections around accessing the metadata of journalists
were not part of the proposed process.
When
the Abbott government introduced mass surveillance laws in 2015, the
mainstream media belatedly realised that journalists’ phone and IT
records would be easily accessed by intelligence and law enforcement
agencies under “data retention” laws. In response, a “Journalist
Information Warrant” (JIW) process was hastily put together that
would require agencies to apply for a special warrant, with more
stringent thresholds and procedural safeguards, like a Public
Interest Advocate, if agencies wanted to obtain data relating to a
journalist’s sources.
No
such safeguard exists under the International Production Orders (IPO)
process, meaning that if a journalist’s data was held by a US
company — such as Google, Apple, Facebook or Microsoft — it could
be obtained by ASIO or the Australian Federal Police (AFP) from those
companies through an IPO without a Journalist Information Warrant,
unlike information held by a local company such as Telstra.
“Are
you able to tell us why an Australian journalists whose telecoms data
is held by a US carrier should have fewer protections than an
Australian journalist whose telecoms data is held in Australia?”
Dreyfus asked Home Affairs bureaucrats…..
Dreyfus
pressed further. The Journalist Information Warrant process was not
replicated in this bill, was it, he asked.
“It
is not replicated,” Warnes had to admit, before insisting an AAT
authorisation was enough protection.
Dreyfus
went further. “The Journalist Information Warrant process has a
public interests monitor provided. There is no such public interest
monitor provided in the authorisation process that is provided under
this bill is there?”
“That’s
correct,” the bureaucrat admitted.
“So
it’s not the same level of protection for journalists whose data is
held by a US carrier. It’s a lesser level of protection isn’t
it?” said Dreyfus.
“Different
considerations at play, yes,” Warnes , humiliated, had to admit.
Dreyfus
also pointed out that the Journalist Information Warrant process had
additional criteria that had to be considered in granting warrants.
They weren’t in the IPO scheme, were they?
“That’s
correct,” Warnes said.
“So
why should an Australian journalist whose telecoms data is held by a
US carrier have fewer protections than an Australian journalist whose
telecoms data is held in Australia?”
“I
don’t have anything further to add,” Warnes said.
Dreyfus
told him to come back to the committee with a better explanation for
why the loophole was being pursued by the government…..
Sunday, 4 August 2019
'We told you so!' echoes around social media as Australian police found to have exceeded lawful authority in accessing citizens' metadata
Recalling the many social media voices which expressed concern when legislation was before the Australian Parliament, none of this comes as any surprise......
The Guardian, 23 July 2019:
In addition to one instance of the Australian federal police accessing a journalist’s data without a warrant reported in 2017, the ombudsman discovered two instances where the WA police applied for – and obtained – a journalist information warrant from a person not authorised to provide it.
“This occurred due to a lack of awareness by WA police regarding to whom an application for a journalist information warrant could be made,” the report said. “In response to this issue, WA police took steps to quarantine all information obtained under the invalid warrants.”
The Guardian, 24 July 2019:
The home affairs minister Peter Dutton has claimed “there are consequences” for unlawful metadata searches but conceded he doesn’t know if any action has been taken after revelations of widespread breaches by law enforcement agencies.
On Wednesday the ACT’s chief police officer, Ray Johnson, brushed off the fact his officers accessed metadata at least 116 times without proper authorisation in 2015, labelling it an “administrative oversight”.
The revelations were contained in a commonwealth ombudsman’s report which also found Western Australian police twice obtained invalid warrants targeting journalists’ data and the department of immigration received data outside the authority’s parameters in 42 cases.
Labor’s home affairs spokeswoman Kristina Keneally said the report shows metadata powers “have been abused to allow illegal searches and to target journalists”.
ZDnet, 25 July 2019:
The Commonwealth Ombudsman report [PDF] into how 20 agencies across federal and state levels government agencies across Australia handle stored communications and metadata over the period of the 2016-17 financial year has been released, with Home Affairs being the only agency that was handed recommendations.
Home Affairs was called upon to ensure it could "accurately account for the number of telecommunications data authorisations it issues in any given period" to comply with its record keeping obligations, and have a central system to store or monitor telecommunications data once it had been handed to investigators.
The recommendations were a result of the former Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) having 8 record keeping issues identified, as well as a statistical issue, and 42 instances of telecommunications data being accessed outside the parameters of authority. The Ombudsman explained that 41 of those instances were due to an automatic input from DIBP's database which has since been resolved.
Also falling under the Home Affairs banner following its transferral into the Peter Dutton-helmed superministry is the Australian Federal Police, which disclosed that between October 13 to 26, 2015, all authorisations by ACT Police were not authorised, due to the AFP Commissioner failing to authorise any ACT officers for that period.
The Guardian, 26 July 2019:
ACT Policing has admitted it unlawfully accessed citizens’ metadata a total of 3,365 times, not 116 as previously disclosed in an explosive commonwealth ombudsman’s report on Monday.
The new disclosures include a total of 240 cases that resulted in information valuable to criminal investigations and two that “may have been used in a prosecution”.
In a statement on Friday, ACT Policing revealed the 116 unlawful metadata requests detailed in the report tabled in parliament on Monday are the tip of the iceberg, with a further 3,249 requests made from 11 March to 13 October 2015 under an invalid authorisation.
The revelation comes as Western Australia’s top cop has said there have been no consequences for police who unlawfully accessed a journalist’s metadata,
contradicting Peter Dutton’s suggestion they might be penalised.
Police made illegal metadata searches and obtained invalid warrants targeting journalists Read more In the statement ACT Policing revealed it is still seeking legal advice about how to deal with two cases where invalidly obtained metadata was used in “a missing persons case and a criminal matter where the data in question may have been used in a prosecution”.
“It is not appropriate to identify particular cases,” it said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)