Beginning of the End of Privacy on the Internet

[Dave The Man]

Government wants to know everything you do when you do it.

https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/b ... ign=buffer

[Tannin]

Beginning of the end? That happened long, long ago, around about the time that Rudd was Prime Minister and Conroy was the Minister of Truth and Wowserism, and the rot became chronic and irreversible under Brandis.

[Mugwump]

Good. The internet's dark side already has far too much blood and fraud on its hands. Subject to a warrant, there is no reason the police should be able to search your house but not see what you have done online.

Safeguards to prevent unwarranted state intrusion are necessary,, but privacy is never absolute if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting criminality. The net has been a swamp for terrorists, sickos and vile abuse for too long. We would not tolerate it in the public square, and we should not tolerate it on the digital highway.

[Dave The Man]

Good. The internet's dark side already has far too much blood and fraud on its hands. Subject to a warrant, there is no reason the police should be able to search your house but not see what you have done online.

Safeguards to prevent unwarranted state intrusion are necessary,, but privacy is never absolute if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting criminality. The net has been a swamp for terrorists, sickos and vile abuse for too long. We would not tolerate it in the public square, and we should not tolerate it on the digital highway.

What about Hackers when they get there Hand on this.

Crime will go up Massively.

You can't trust anyone that it WON'T be Abused.

When you out in Public people don't look at you and then know all your Personal Info

[Dave The Man]

This will make more People try and use Encrypton and Use TOR(Which you Can Access the Dark Web)

It will cause more problems then it Solves

[Tannin]

Good. The internet's dark side already has far too much blood and fraud on its hands. Subject to a warrant, there is no reason the police should be able to search your house but not see what you have done online.

Warrant? Who are you kidding Sunshine? No requirement whatsoever for a warrrant. The law is that they can pretty much do as they like. Not just police either: around 100 different agencies can access your data with no warrant at all.Local councils, junior public servants, the farnarking Greyhound Racing Association - I kid you not Sunshine, that one is fair dinkum. I didn't make it up.

Safeguards to prevent unwarranted state intrusion are necessary.

I agree. But there aren't any. None worth mentioning.

The net has been a swamp for terrorists, sickos and vile abuse for too long. We would not tolerate it in the public square, and we should not tolerate it on the digital highway.

In exactly what way is (for example) an email I send you different from a posted letter or a phone call? Why is it that you support unlimited warrantless snooping on your email when to read your postal mail there is and always has been a requirement for a warrant signed off on by a magistrate?

What is different? Ans: nothing.

What is your excuse? Ans: you haven't got one.

(At no-one else on the planet has been able to think of one, so if you have come up with something no-one else has been able to do, tell us about it.)

[Culprit]

Intelligent criminals/terrorists don't use electronic devices to communicate evil intentions.

[Mugwump]

Good. The internet's dark side already has far too much blood and fraud on its hands. Subject to a warrant, there is no reason the police should be able to search your house but not see what you have done online.

Warrant? Who are you kidding Sunshine? No requirement whatsoever for a warrrant. The law is that they can pretty much do as they like. Not just police either: around 100 different agencies can access your data with no warrant at all.Local councils, junior public servants, the farnarking Greyhound Racing Association - I kid you not Sunshine, that one is fair dinkum. I didn't make it up.

Safeguards to prevent unwarranted state intrusion are necessary.

I agree. But there aren't any. None worth mentioning.

The net has been a swamp for terrorists, sickos and vile abuse for too long. We would not tolerate it in the public square, and we should not tolerate it on the digital highway.

In exactly what way is (for example) an email I send you different from a posted letter or a phone call? Why is it that you support unlimited warrantless snooping on your email when to read your postal mail there is and always has been a requirement for a warrant signed off on by a magistrate?

What is different? Ans: nothing.

What is your excuse? Ans: you haven't got one.

(At no-one else on the planet has been able to think of one, so if you have come up with something no-one else has been able to do, tell us about it.)

Actually, you are (half-)right - a warrant is too complex and likely to further empower the legal profession's serpentine money-gathering. The net is such a morass of vileness and such an orchestra of murder and conspiracy that proactive surveillance is broadly justified. Clearly there should be an ombudsman and independent audit process to check that it is happening within guidelines, but subject to that, I think the Web needs to be recaptured so that it functions in the service of civilization, not as a playground for cybercrime, kid porn, terrorism etc. So some better tracking, by the right agencies, of who looks at what and who sends what is in principle desirable. I am prepared to trade off some privacy, under governed principles, to prevent someone passing nuts and bolts through the bodies of children at rock concerts.

The analogy with letters is not really valid, I think. Just because technologies have the same purpose, it does not mean that they are functionally equivalent. Cyber criminals cannot send a million letters at a free stroke, and a letter is very inspectable if required, unlike encrypted messages, etc.

[Dave The Man]

Brandis showing how Little Idea what he is talking about

https://youtu.be/Hw1ryLGs2ws

[David]

Actually, you are (half-)right - a warrant is too complex and likely to further empower the legal profession's serpentine money-gathering. The net is such a morass of vileness and such an orchestra of murder and conspiracy that proactive surveillance is broadly justified. Clearly there should be an ombudsman and independent audit process to check that it is happening within guidelines, but subject to that, I think the Web needs to be recaptured so that it functions in the service of civilization, not as a playground for cybercrime, kid porn, terrorism etc. So some better tracking, by the right agencies, of who looks at what and who sends what is in principle desirable. I am prepared to trade off some privacy, under governed principles, to prevent someone passing nuts and bolts through the bodies of children at rock concerts.

The analogy with letters is not really valid, I think. Just because technologies have the same purpose, it does not mean that they are functionally equivalent. Cyber criminals cannot send a million letters at a free stroke, and a letter is very inspectable if required, unlike encrypted messages, etc.

We all want less crime to occur, and we all want to be safer from harm. That's what makes anti-privacy legislation particularly alluring when it's framed as, say, national security policy. But where do you draw the line? How much government surveillance (or potential thereof) is too much? And when so few checks and balances are embedded within that legislation, how confident can we be that it will never be misused?

I'll put up my hand and admit that I've started to reconsider my earlier vehement opposition to data retention; when we hear that security agencies are successfully stopping horrifying attacks, and that they were only able to do so via surveillance, principles about the right to privacy and civil liberties start to seem a little rarefied. Nonetheless, I need to remind myself of the danger of what can occur when governments overreach on civil liberties. The textbook case here is the US's response to 9/11, and the various emergency laws that culminated in torture and indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, the excesses of the Patriot Act, and the NSA's vast, unprecedented and secretive surveillance system heroically exposed by Edward Snowden. Orwell might have become a bit of a cliche in this context, but if we don't heed his lessons and don't speak out against excessive anti-privacy laws, we risk sleepwalking into a panopticon.

[Mugwump]

Actually, you are (half-)right - a warrant is too complex and likely to further empower the legal profession's serpentine money-gathering. The net is such a morass of vileness and such an orchestra of murder and conspiracy that proactive surveillance is broadly justified. Clearly there should be an ombudsman and independent audit process to check that it is happening within guidelines, but subject to that, I think the Web needs to be recaptured so that it functions in the service of civilization, not as a playground for cybercrime, kid porn, terrorism etc. So some better tracking, by the right agencies, of who looks at what and who sends what is in principle desirable. I am prepared to trade off some privacy, under governed principles, to prevent someone passing nuts and bolts through the bodies of children at rock concerts.

The analogy with letters is not really valid, I think. Just because technologies have the same purpose, it does not mean that they are functionally equivalent. Cyber criminals cannot send a million letters at a free stroke, and a letter is very inspectable if required, unlike encrypted messages, etc.

We all want less crime to occur, and we all want to be safer from harm. That's what makes anti-privacy legislation particularly alluring when it's framed as, say, national security policy. But where do you draw the line? How much government surveillance (or potential thereof) is too much? And when so few checks and balances are embedded within that legislation, how confident can we be that it will never be misused?

I'll put up my hand and admit that I've started to reconsider my earlier vehement opposition to data retention; when we hear that security agencies are successfully stopping horrifying attacks, and that they were only able to do so via surveillance, principles about the right to privacy and civil liberties start to seem a little rarefied. Nonetheless, I need to remind myself of the danger of what can occur when governments overreach on civil liberties. The textbook case here is the US's response to 9/11, and the various emergency laws that culminated in torture and indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, the excesses of the Patriot Act, and the NSA's vast, unprecedented and secretive surveillance system heroically exposed by Edward Snowden. Orwell might have become a bit of a cliche in this context, but if we don't heed his lessons and don't speak out against excessive anti-privacy laws, we risk sleepwalking into a panopticon.

I think any reasonable person recognizes that this is a balance, and that safeguards are certainly necessary to prevent arbitrary abuse. I have not looked at the proposed legislation, so I do not know whether the safeguarding proposed in this specific bill is adequate. However, I think we need to look at the powers of government holistically. We do not have a totalitarian government, and I do not judge it likely that this measure will help bring one to power. If such a government did come to power, it would probably quickly implement such measures regardless of whether they existed already. So why deny it to a democratic government trying to protect us ? And if one does deny it, at least acknowledge that you have hamstrung the many very decent people in the security services who want to do the right thing, and accept that the costs could be counted in the murder of innocent people and the immiseration of many innocent and unworldly people via fraud. I would not trade off that freight of grief and sorrow against a theoretical risk.

[stui magpie]

The fear of a totalitarian government is the same argument the US gun lobby uses to justify retaining the 2nd amendment.

[pietillidie]

The biggest problem is that no one knows enough to explain what a reasonable line looks like, forcing everyone to reach for cliche or reflexive bias.

I would note that a lot of arguments for increased surveillance seem to combine two propositions: (a) the slimy depths of the internet are obviously repugnant and threatening (true); and (b) as an average Joe, I am of no interest to anyone, and therefore subject to little cost should surveillance powers be increased (false).

The problem with the latter assumption is that while most folks are of no interest to anyone, what about their political representatives? Every serious decision we have a stake in is funneled towards a node of power somewhere, and those nodes of power are most certainly subject to surveillance mischief.

Because of the farce of politics it's easy to dismiss this, but representation is still the only game in town.

Even so, we still don't know where to draw the line because of the intransparency concerned. That fact should surely bother people most.

[Mugwump]

The biggest problem is that no one knows enough to explain what a reasonable line looks like, forcing everyone to reach for cliche or reflexive bias.

I would note that a lot of arguments for increased surveillance seem to combine two propositions: (a) the slimy depths of the internet are obviously repugnant and threatening (true); and (b) as an average Joe, I am of no interest to anyone, and therefore subject to little cost should surveillance powers be increased (false).

The problem with the latter assumption is that while most folks are of no interest to anyone, what about their political representatives? Every serious decision we have a stake in is funneled towards a node of power somewhere, and those nodes of power are most certainly subject to surveillance mischief.

Because of the farce of politics it's easy to dismiss this, but representation is still the only game in town.

Even so, we still don't know where to draw the line because of the intransparency concerned. That fact should surely bother people most.

We accept that the relevant authorities have all kinds of powers, and that these are curbed by law and oversight of the bodies concerned. The argument that powers may be abused are just as valid as regards the vast level of financial data collected on individuals by the ATO, or the very existence of Asio. This sensitive stuff is also potentially highly intrusive, but its use is controlled by a framework of laws and bureaucratic rules and audit. Why does this principle suddenly become intolerable where the internet is concerned ?

[ronrat]

What make people think the internet and social media is at all private anyway.

Tell that to Nick reiwoldts dick.