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5:34 PM (3 minutes ago)
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Dear NEVILLE,
“The Australian people are being sleep walked into a system the Attorney-General cannot even articulate.”
So says a police insider — one whistleblower who might not be anonymous for long if the Government has its way.1
Today, it’s been reported that Labor is caving in to the Government on Abbott’s data retention bill — a law that will see every single Australian put under surveillance and our records kept for two years, regardless of who you are.2 Internet histories, calls to the doctor, location data, and emails could all be freely accessed by an undefined assortment of government and law enforcement employees.3 Basic protections, like agencies having to get a warrant before accessing your data, appear to have been turfed.
And shockingly, despite warnings from every major media company, whistleblowers and journalists will not be protected under these laws. Without doubt, this will ‘have a chilling effect on reporting in the public interest’, as media organisations warned the parliamentary committee looking at the laws.4
Labor and the Government are banking on Australians not caring enough to stand up for our rights, and our freedom of the press. We need to make it clear that a vote for metadata retention will have real political repercussions.
Click here to tell your MP or Senator that supporting this legislation puts them on the wrong side of our rights, and our votes: https://www.getup.org.au/data-retention
There’s just so much wrong with this scheme. For starters, the proposed laws would give Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies the ability to track down journalists and whistleblowers looking to expose corruption and misconduct within government agencies. This is an underhanded attempt to suppress information that could potentially embarrass government agencies, and educate and empower voters.
The Government’s laws aren’t even consistent — we’ve heard evidence that while Australian phone companies and internet service providers will be forced to maintain records for two years, the laws many not apply to international companies like Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, Gmail chat and similar services.5
There’s no judicial oversight of who gets access to these records. We don’t know exactly how much it will cost taxpayers and customers, but it will be in the hundreds of millions – a cost that internet providers will pass onto customers. And worse, the servers that this data’s kept on will inevitably create a ‘honeypot’ for hackers to intrude on our personal lives.
And the kicker — there’s no evidence that these laws will make Australia safer.
We have a chance right now to tell our parliamentarians to stand up against this flawed, dangerous and undemocratic legislation.
Contact them now and make the case against this awful legislation, before it’s too late: https://www.getup.org.au/data-retention
Leah, Erin and Aurora, for the GetUp team.
Ps. Confused about who will access these records? You should be — it’s a total mess. Currently, local councils, the Australian Taxation office and even the RSPCA have access to metadata as well as a host of other Federal bodies.6
~ References ~
[1] ‘Exclusive: police insider speaks out on mandatory data retention’, Radio National, 21 February 2015.
[2] ‘Metadata retention laws will pass as Labor folds’, AFR, 27 February 2015.
[3] ‘Who can access your metadata?’ Crikey, 26 August 2014.
[4] ‘Media companies’ metadata warnings go unheeded by intelligence committee’, The Guardian, 26 February 2015.
[5] ‘Gmail, Facebook, Skype excluded from Australian data retention’. ZDNet, 2 February 2015.
[6] ‘Spies can access my metadata, so why can’t I? My 15-month legal battle with Telstra’ SMH, 10 October 2014.
