Last week, the Government introduced the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify And Disrupt) Bill. It gives security agencies massive new powers to access data on people’s computers and devices, and they are trying to rush it through Parliament.
This Bill creates three new types of warrants that would allow officers to modify, add, copy or delete information on people’s devices, and in some cases, take over people’s accounts.
As always, Peter Dutton is using the threat of terrorism and the most serious offences imaginable to scare people into accepting this legislation, but in reality the thresholds are set at a much lower level.
To obtain a data disruption warrant, the AFP or ACIC would need to show that it was necessary to frustrate an offence carrying a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment.
This is a very low threshold, and would catch things like minor drug offences and even breaches of the Copyright Act. This means that security agencies could potentially covertly access people’s devices on the basis that they contain unlicensed versions of movies or songs.
We could flesh all of these issues out if the Parliament was at least given the opportunity to scrutinise this Bill through the committee process, but we have been denied that chance.
These laws are poorly drafted, rushed and typically for this government, show a complete disregard for people’s basic rights like privacy.
Over the last 20 years, well over 200 pieces of legislation which curtail fundamental rights and freedoms have been passed through Australian parliaments.
They are seldom wound back or even revised, and the net result has been a severe reduction in our freedoms and liberties. It’s time for a Charter of Rights to protect the things we value.
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