I suspect that there are quite a few stories in this should any clever young journalist be at all curious - but I doubt that much will appear in our media.
And of 177 submissions 9 are confidential - Why? I can imagine that ASIO and ASIS might not want to telegraph their punches - but what about the other 7. OK - at least one is bound to be from the US Government - but do we now have another half dozen secret security organisations looking out for us?
I haven't yet read all the public submissions - but number 87 by Mark Newton impresses. If you are going to wade through this stuff then you could do worse than start there.
Mark does a pretty good job of demolishing the arguments that have been put forward by the *Security Services* and related industry - but the thing that I really like are his closing remarks - reproduced below.
The other issue that seems clear to me in so many diverse areas of policy is that the Australian Government harbours a deep distrust of the Australian people.
In a democracy it should work the other way around: The Government should trust voters to make good decisions about the kinds of people they elect to represent them, and voters should have every expectation that the Government will mess it up, and demand strong and effective checks and balances to make sure they don’t.
In Australia the voters seem to be doing their job adequately, with levels of Government trust at near historic lows. But the Government is not doing its job: The Government is not trusting the electorate, and, at least in relation to our security services, it’s not carrying out its duty by implementing adequate checks and balances to protect the electorate’s interests.
How is it that we can have the AFP, ASIO, ASIS, and other agencies I’m probably not even authorized to know about, propose that I’m so mistrusted that I need to have the last two years of my communications logged in excruciating detail, just in case I one day commit a crime?
The Government needs to do better.
Stop being frightened of everything; replace fear with rational decision making, where we understand that we don’t need to panic just because the Americans are panicking on “24.”
And live up your side of the democratic social contract: You’re supposed to live within strict constraints, unavoidable checks and balances, and have faith that we voters will generally get it right.
Lowering the standards on search warrants, creating offence provisions for not decrypting data, and implementing data retention systems aren’t compatible with those principles.
As a Government, you were wrong to ever propose them in the first place. Now please, withdraw them, and help us enjoy our historically safe society by letting the pendulum swing the other way for a while.
I agree 100%.
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