only now can it truly be said that the Islamist fascists have won. They have degraded the freedoms and civil protection that made our Western democracy great. They goaded us into throwing away the Enlightenment principles reducing the gap between our civilisation and their backwards theocratic tyrannyAustralian spies will soon have the power to monitor the entire Australian internet with just one warrant, and journalists and whistleblowers will face up to 10 years' jail for disclosing classified information.
they also get the power to break state, territory and Commonwealth laws with immunity from prosecution and to force courts to accept illegally obtained evidence
So they're just like the American Congress. Politicians are the same the world over...
The government's first tranche of tougher anti-terrorism laws, which
have nothing to do with terrorism but give pornographic absolute powers to the security agencies. They will decide what they do to whom and when, and in secret and sometimes because they enjoy it
beef up the domestic spy agency ASIO's powers, passed the Senate 44 votes for and 12 against on Thursday at 9.35pm AEST with bipartisan support from Labor.
thus proving Labor to be a phony opposition. Also revealing how hollowed out australia's media has become. The news cycle chasers depend on press releases and leaks for all their news. So when there is bipartisan agreement then all the party stooges stay silent. They don't ring journos to complain. The party-funded think tanks don't put out research, studies or press releases. so barely a peep in the media
Very few journalists can use their own loaf. This one, Ben Grubb can be proud.
The bill, the National Security Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2014, will now be sent to the House of Representatives, where passage is all but guaranteed on Tuesday at the earliest.
the unelected security agencies want these laws so badly they conducted the biggest ever terror raids, 900 cops to charge 1 person. They filmed and used professional photographers and gave all the juicy footage to the press who they usually starve for stories. Then they told the politicians there was a terror threat and put heavily armed police in the halls of Parliament to scare the Pollies into thinking the Moslems were going to kill them. They wanted to pressure Parliament to vote the laws in a hurry. They coukd have gone for redrafting and back for a third reading but they want them through fast so people don't get time to read it all
Anyone -- including journalists, whistleblowers and bloggers -- who "recklessly" discloses "information ... [that] relates to a special intelligence operation" faces up to 10 years' jail.
Any operation can be declared "special" and doing so gives ASIO criminal and civil immunity. Many, including lawyers and academics, have said they fear the agency will abuse this power. Those who identify ASIO agents could also face a decade in prison under the new laws, a tenfold increase in the existing maximum penalty.
destroying Freedom in order to save it. What have you got left? And they still haven't outlawed Islamist fascism. Nothing has been done about banning Sharia law
The new laws also allow ASIO to seek just one warrant to access a limitless number of computers on a computer network when attempting to monitor a target, which lawyers, rights groups, academics and Australian media organisations condemned.
They said this would effectively allow the entire internet to be monitored, as it is a "network of networks" and the bill doesn't specifically define what a computer network is.
Professor George Williams of UNSW previously warned that the laws were too broad.
"The problem is [this specific new law regardless of amendments] applies to computer networks and the internet is a computer network -- it's a network of networks," he said.
Most groups that had complained of the new laws also said they feared the new disclosure offences went too far, with the Australian Lawyers Alliance saying they would have "not just a chilling effect but a freezing effect" on national security reporting.
Attorney-General George Brandis did not seek to allay their concerns on Thursday but said in a "newly dangerous age" it was vital that those protecting Australia were equipped with the powers and capabilities they needed. When the laws passed on Thursday night he said they were the most important reforms for Australia's intelligence agencies since the late 1970s.
On Wednesday afternoon, Senator Brandis confirmed that under the legislation, ASIO would be able to use just one warrant to access numerous devices on a network. The warrant would be issued by the director-general of ASIO or his deputy.
"There is no arbitrary or artificial limit on the number of devices," Senator Brandis told the senate.
Senator Brandis did, however, say on Thursday that he didn't believe the new laws targeted journalists specifically, despite concerns from journalists and media organisations that they would be targets.
The new laws instead targeted those who leaked classified information, like the former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, Senator Brandis said.
"These provisions have nothing to do with the press."
Despite this, Senator Brandis refused to say whether reporting on cases similar to Australia's foreign spy agency ASIS allegedly bugging East Timor's cabinet and ASD tapping the Indonesian president and his wife's mobile would result in journalists or whistleblowers being jailed.
The Australian Greens, through Senator Scott Ludlam, put forward an amendment that would limit the number of computers ASIO can access with one warrant to 20 but it failed to gain support from Labor or the government.
Speaking after the bill passed, Senator Ludlam told Fairfax Media he was disappointed.
"What we've seen [tonight] is I think a scary, disproportionate and unnecessary expansion of coercive surveillance powers that will not make anybody any safer but that affect freedoms that have been quite hard fought for and hard won over a period of decades," Senator Ludlam said.
"So I have very grave concerns about the direction that the Australian government seems to be suddenly taking the country."
Independent Senator Nick Xenophon and Liberal Democratic Senator David Leyonhjelm also put forward amendments that would protect whistleblowers but these did not gain enough support either.
more at the site. Biggest political story in at least a decade. Many are the high profile media names that ignored it. The powers resemble that of the Stasi. All this to preserve high levels of immigration and multiculturalism