Opposition: we passed Australia's 'spook's charter' on PURPOSE

Australia's opposition has defended its stance on Australia's new national security laws, which provide maximum ten-year jail sentence for nat-sec leakers, by leaking its leader's attitude to a national media outlet. The draconian laws also allow ASIO to apply for a warrant to invade a computer network – without any limit on …

[Anonymous Coward]

Picking battles shouldn't mean "only picking the easy ones"

In reality, this sort of draconianism is wholeheartedly and lip-slatheringly bi-partisan. The polies are all cast from an identical mold, afterall. Just a sightly different paint-job.

Whelp. Time to switch to encrypted Diaspora pods. At least until such is deemed an act of terror (no coincidence that most politicians are terrified of technology - makes forever broadening the definition of 'terrorist' real easy for them).

[tkioz]

Absolutely pathetic. I expect this kind of crap from Americans, but not in my own country.

[Mark 65]

I expect no less from the piss-weak spineless parasites on both sides of politics. Anyone with a backbone would stand up, especially in light of the Snowden leaks, and call out the blatant bs going on in this rights stripping security theatre. After all the high terror alert supporting sudden raids I think one person was charged. It is nonsense. Nobody gives a toss about Australia. Shorten needs to stand up and call a c*nt a c*nt and Abbott is one of the biggest modern politics the world over has to offer. He is an utter imbecile whose playground theatrics are hilarious if it weren't for the fact he's utterly f*cking the entire country. I cannot even begin to dig through the surface of the contempt and hatred I have for this tosser.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha!

Labor has a long history of not giving a stuff about individual rights - and not just privacy. Has everyone forgotten Stephen Conroy's mandatory Internet filter? It is Labor that made it illegal to offend - not, I point out, incite violence or cause actual harm, but merely offend - someone on the grounds of race or ethnicity. It is Labor that wanted to set up a News Media Council whose remedies would be enforceable in court. (Like that could never be abused by a future government.)

No, they are not choosing their battles. Truth is, they care naught for freedom or the individual, and would quite happily do exactly the same. Or worse.

[Anonymous (Noel) Coward]

Re: Ha!

> Truth is, they care naught for freedom or the individual, and would quite happily do exactly the same. Or worse.

Historically, when it comes to abrogation of individual rights and freedoms, the next government has always been a bigger pain in the arse than its predecessor.

[silent_count]

Stranger and stranger.

The ALP: passing legislation which is bad* for the nation because it's politically expedient.

Do you reckon they'll be able to fit that on their 'how to vote' cards for the next election?

* Incidentally, I don't believe they honestly do object to government bodies intruding into citizens lives. They definitely didn't have a problem with it when it was Ms Gillard and Mr Conroy running the show.

[SpiderPig]

Mark 65 needs to take a chill pill

Do you REALLY believe what you wrote??? Have you been living under a rock during the Rudd/Gillard years?? THEY srewed this country into the ground and it now has to be fixed.

As far as the terror threat is concerned I bet if the Abbott government did nothing and we were then subject to an attack, people like yourself would be the first ones to be screaming the loudest at how slack the Libs were.

If you are not doing anything wrong then there is no reason to fear the new laws....simple as that.

[RealFred]

Re: Mark 65 needs to take a chill pill

What rubbish. It may be Ok to do now, but all bets are off if, in the future, its either not legal or frowned upon. Both parties need to get their f*cking noses out of our business. We supposedly live in a democratic country where there is freedom of speech. They have now taken that away. The journalists are just as bad, in that they have just rolled over and accepted it. When the next election comes around I won't be voting for either Labor or Liberal. I'll use my vote to try to disrupt these arseholes as much as I can. The greens can get f*cked as well

[Tim Bates]

And none of these clowns have even stopped for a second to think about the flow on ramifications of these new laws (assuming I'm understanding the possibilities correctly)...

Let's say ASIO breaks into a network, infects a few computers. The owners take them to a repair shop, where they virus scan, then connect to the network to check for updates. The ASIO virus then attacks the repair shop's network, infecting a few shop PCs (and perhaps other customer PCs).

Now a rep for Big Corporation comes in for a warranty issue at the authorised agent for their laptop manufacturer... The laptop is connected to the repair shop's terrorist suspect network, and also infected by ASIO's spyware.

How is it going to go down when a big company like News Corp, Foxtel, Telstra, etc finds signs of ASIO's busybodying on their networks? I suspect the end result is sueballs being launched towards the government.