Howardist hold-outs still driving “national security” agenda
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The Federal Government’s proposal to extend the Telecommunications Act to enable employers to monitor email usage shows that the national security state mindset that afflicted the Howard Government and its bureaucrats is alive and well under the Rudd Government. The source of this proposal is the Attorney-General’s Department, which in recent years under Phillip Ruddock and his Secretary, Robert Cornall, has led a number of successful initiatives to curb the basic freedoms and rights of Australians in the name of public safety. They include the successive iterations of the Howard Government’s draconian anti-terrorism laws and the outrageous ban on internet discussion of euthanasia. Cornall’s most recent effort in this vein was an attempt in December to silence judicial criticism of ASIO by complaining to the NSW Judicial Commission about Justice Michael Adams, who found that ASIO agents had kidnapped and falsely imprisoned Izhar ul-Haque. The Commission rightly binned his complaint. Now Cornall has convinced Robert McClelland that the private sector should be deputised to spy on its employees in case they turn out to be terrorists. But only in the critical infrastructure sector, McClelland assures us - which narrows it down to good corporate citizens like Telstra, airport owners, Sydney Water, petrol companies and the banks. Phew. As Katherine Wilson demonstrated in Crikey yesterday, the extension of snooping powers to employers is part of an ongoing co-option of the private sector into the national security state framework. In particular, the protection of “critical infrastructure” has allowed the development of a complex and highly-rewarding partnership between governments and the private sector. The critical infrastructure protection framework is overseen by Attorney-General’s Deputy Secretary Miles Jordana – John Howard’s international adviser who was at the centre of the children overboard affair and the false weapons of mass destruction claims on the basis of which Australia joined the attack on Iraq. The private sector, across areas such as transport, communications, IT and energy, is a willing participant in the process of establishing a system for monitoring and protecting their facilities and the public infrastructure they use, all in the name of preventing or effectively responding to terrorism. After all, the process allows companies access to government funding for the maintenance and upgrading of monitoring and information-collection systems they would otherwise have to invest in themselves, enables – in the name of greater security – the development of new regulatory requirements that raise the barriers to entry for possible competitors, and transfers an element of operational risk to taxpayers. And all in exchange for attending a few working group meetings a year and learning several dozen acronyms (language specialists - check out this page for a particularly bad case of Bureaucratic Acronymitis). In return, governments get compliant supporters of the absurdity of the national security state – the state that requires us to suspend our critical faculties and accept long screening queues at airports, security agents who abduct people and gaol sentences for making a joke about bombs in the wrong place. The test for any of these national security proposals should always be what might be christened the Haneef Test: would you trust the clowns who bungled that investigation, either through malice or incompetence, with even greater powers than they already have? And in this case, even if you trusted the judgement of the Australian Federal Police or ASIO, would you trust employers with the power to monitor your communications? McClelland has promised consultation on the proposals. He should chuck them out entirely. And get rid of his two Howardist hold-outs, Cornall and Jordana, while he’s at it. |
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10 Comments
Robert McClelland as an astute lawyer is turning out to be a major disappointment in this portfolio as he rolls over for every thing the security services throw at him to justify their existence. He first job should have been to demand answers for all the bungles to date including he Iraq War-now he looks like rewarding those who have done us no favours and continue to peddle false information.
Many lives around the world have been saved by secuity services monitoring the exchange of information between those plotting to kill and/or maime as many as possible. Even Sept 11, 2001 could have been prevented if someone had connected the dots and security services had worked togehter instead of allowing petty jealousy to cloud their vision.
I dont have a problem with the surveillance outlined so long as our elected representatives have proper oversight.
Expectations of the people who voted for labour is fast turning into dissappointment with some of the behind the scenes activities of the new government. In particular relating to issues of “individual freedom” being further eroded from a worsening situation to apaplling situiation. Progressive thinking peopel within the Australian community should wake up to this soon and tell their elected representatives now before it is too late for them and for us Austrlaians.
Re checking other people’s e-mails. Who will be doing this job?
And who will be controlling the controllers?
Bernard is actually right on here. It is time that the Rudd Government looked very closely at the actions and deeds of some of the senior bureaucrats who fell over themselves trying to second guess Howard’s agenda, and outdo themselves in coming up with more and more restrictive policies. The Attorney-General’s Department was one of the agencies at the forefront of this.
The presence of `hold-outs` illustrate the basic continuity of the Government policy no matter what party is in power. And so, we will still have the universally-hated WorkChoices (under another label), the 40-or-so pieces of `anti-terrorist` legislation, the open-ended support for the US, in particular the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, the alliance with the `Big-end-of-town`, and the assurance that the `working families` will bear the cost .Plus ça change?
Another point is that every Government without exception, strives to increase it`s power and control over the population, by a series of seemingly innocuous and benign steps, claiming that it`s for the good of the people, and for their own `protection`.In reality it`s for the Government`s own security.
We should then seriously take Chomsky`s advice, and “never trust a Government, but watch it`s hands”, and vigorously oppose these and other crass attempts to limit our liberties, so hard fought-for and won in the past.
With a title like that you were just encouraging the left loon anti-Howard cheer squad. He’s been out of power for 5 months never to return and I swear some of the commentaries suggest that they miss the man they love to hate…..
Yep, Cornall and Jordana are clowns but let’s ask another question. When I worked in offices for years, including for a pollie and some unions, all letters in and out were checked and seen by the boss.
What is the difference in checking emails in and out on work computers on the bosses time at the bosses expense?
I would appreciate some knowledge way beyond BK political sources/jealousies here. Like from IT experts not prone to talk their own book if that is actually possible. For instance the intel CAN go into anyone’s email they want regardless of all commercially available firewalls, parasite checkers etc. Should this remain a public function and indeed subject of the current Inspector General regime of checks and balances? Yes, probably. More readily under parliamentary scrutiny. Which means more publicly employed spooks, depending on … Secondly my sense of IT security is that it’s an ever evolving move and counter move form of game theory, and it will always be so. Does this mean IT security will become a bigger and bigger task, stay the same, or settle down? I really don’t know. My intuition is that the greater computerisation of all society, and greater levels of sophistication of I Thacker literacy including foreign espionage (eg China etc) means the task will just get bigger.
I asked the el-supremo of IT today at Loy Yang B Power Station, whether he would be spying on us under Julia and McClellands new regieme. (As you would know LYB represents a significant piece of infra structure.) He pointed out the organisation’s policy to me that goes back at least eight years that basically says they can do what they like. They already do spy on us. After all emplyees are only units of production. Simply the chattels of their employers. Given that the employers own the IT systems, administer them and have no legal impediments to do whatever they like, what will McClellands changes be. Perhaps McClelland will provide some employee safeguards. Or maybe not. Will employers have the right to spy on emails on the employees home systems payed for privately by emplyees and unconnected with their employment? Do politicians and theirs pooks live in the real world? Are labour governments any different to the Torys?