More police powers for spyware

Police Warrant: reasonable grounds to suspect an offence?

Federal and state police now have the power to use computer spyware to gather evidence in a broad range of investigations after legal changes last week.

The Surveillance Devices Act allows police to obtain a warrant to use software surveillance technologies, including systems that track and log keystrokes on a computer keyboard. The law applies to the Australian Federal Police and to state police investigating Commonwealth offences.

Critics have called the law rushed and imbalanced, saying police will be able to secretly install software to monitor email, online chats, word processor and spreadsheets entries and even bank personal identification numbers and passwords.

Irene Graham, executive director of watchdog Electronic Frontiers Australia, said the law went too far in allowing police surveillance.

"The legislation has been passed without the proper scrutiny and the ALP is too afraid to stick to their guns and oppose it," she said.

Ms Graham also believed the act could override parts of the Telecommunications Interception Act, which tightly regulated telecommunications monitoring.

In addition to redefining the kinds of surveillance devices that can be used, the Surveillance Devices Act allows surveillance for offences far less serious than those allowed under the Telecommunications Interception Act.

Warrants to intercept telecommunications can only be obtained to investigate offences carrying a maximum jail term of seven years or more. However, Surveillance Devices Act warrants can be obtained for offences carrying a maximum sentence of three years.

Ms Graham said the three-year benchmark was too low and the act went too far in setting out circumstances in which police could use surveillance devices.

A warrant could be obtained under the act if an officer had reasonable grounds to suspect an offence had been or might be committed and a surveillance device was necessary to obtain evidence.

The act also has secrecy provisions making it an offence to publish information on an application for, or the existence of, a surveillance warrant.

Electronic Frontiers is concerned that key-logging software can even record words written and then deleted or changed and thoughts that are not intended for communication.

Related:

1) : a reasonable ground in fact and circumstance for a belief in the existence of certain circumstances (as that an offence has been or is being committed, that a person is guilty of an offence, that a particular search will uncover contraband, that an item to be seized is in a particular place, or that a specific fact or cause of action exists).

And even if it does not exist they will have more opportunity to either fabricate that evidence or find something else they can smear you with.

Same as if they raided everyone's home a fair percentage will have something illegal but not otherwise criminal but simply an excuse for the spying warrant.

It can be claimed for instance that by showing a download of a captured photo generally available on the net that a person was spying on certain government infrastructure especially when it's picked up by main stream media and beamed around the country.

By Rob O'Neill and Just Us 13 December 04

Related:

Community seeks more power to interrogate ASIO suspects
Greens Senator Bob Brown does not think increased police powers are necessary. "We have enormous powers for surveillance, apprehension or punishment of people who are engaged in or intending to engage in or thinking about being engaged in terrorist acts in this country," he said.

Greens warn of 'politicised' terror trials
AUSTRALIA/CUBA?: The Australian Greens say they are concerned that new anti-terrorism laws being debated in the Senate allow for the "political black-banning" of defence
lawyers at terrorism trials.

A corrupt way to treat the community?
I seen the police bleeding on Nine's Sunday program arguing that promotion should depend on how many crimes police have solved and not how many brains they have and that was coming from police commissioner Ken Moroney and Police Minister John Watkins?

Ruddock moves to give police access to emails
Police could get access to stored voicemails; emails and SMS messages under a Bill introduced to federal Parliament today. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says police have had trouble getting access to stored messages because of the laws preventing them intercepting phone calls.

Lawyer claims Al Qaeda suspect's evidence tainted!
Before returning to Australia last year, Thomas was arrested and held in custody for five months by Pakistani authorities before being released without charge.

Man terrorised by ASIO remanded in 'AA' isolation!
A Victorian man has been remanded in custody after being charged with terrorism offences, including having links to Al Qaeda?

Melbourne man charged over ASIO links
ASIO a know Australian terrorist organization is verballing the community again...about allegations that a man, while living overseas, received funds from Al Qaeda and had close association with the members of the terrorist group.

DING DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD
A court has been told Joseph Thomas is a sleeper? ZZZ! Melbourne Australia: A court has been told that Osama bin Laden asked a Melbourne man to become a "sleeper" in Australia before undertaking activities for the Al Qaeda network?

He was an undercover agent for the blues
He was my journalist, he was working undercover. The fellow knew all of the moves.... He really had me romping, bare footing stomping. He just kept igniting my fuse....

Mamdouh Habib: Taunted and Tortured!
Four Corners [Walls]: Terrorist - or Taunted by the Australian Defence Force who sacked him as a cleaning contractor? Who is Mamdouh Habib? And why was he harassed by the Australian Federal Police? Then tagged and labelled as a spy? Why was he vilified by the community? When he fled to Pakistan how did he end up being tortured in Egypt? And how did he end up at Guantanamo prison camp reserved for the men America calls "the worst of the worst.

Up there Khasali: Innocent man new bail laws
The New South Wales Supreme Court has asked innocent man Bilal Khazal to increase to amount of surety offered, before the bail is formally continued.

HEY! BIG BROTHER? LET INNOCENT PEOPLE GO!
Young men terrorised, tortured, and threatened with charges for no crime by Australia mate the lucky country. Lucky if you're not used for Howard's FEDERAL ELECTION and George Dubya's WAR ON LIBERTY! Who shot liberty? IGNORANCE!

Ul-Haque 'the man who wants to become a doctor'
The taskforce is investigating French man Willie Brigitte, who was tipped back home for a visa breach. Allegedly the Un-Australian Newspaper claimed he also attended training camps before his six-month stay in Sydney. Police have not alleged Mr Ul-Haque knew Brigitte. The Un-Australian just mentioned it because they are 'you guessed it' up John Howard's butt and they like the USA want 'you guessed it' our Federal Government. Well Yankee go home!

Brain injury for suspicion 'inhumane'
Faheem Khalid Lodhi refused bail by a Sydney court and remanded until June in hell at the (HARM-U) High Risk Management Unit at Goulburn. While he is in there he will receive a brain injury and is likely to self-harm due to the gross violation of living standards.

Islamic movement denies links to Al Qaeda
The Islamic Youth Movement has denied having any links to Al Qaeda and says it is considering legal action against the Four Corners program. In a statement released early this morning, the group rejects allegations it is helping coordinate any kind of terrorist network inside Australia and says it is being unfairly targeted.

AFP: The unlikely CRIMINAL
It was born of a bombing and it made its name after a far more devastating act of terrorism. But for most of the 25 years in between, little was known about the Australian Federal Police force or the work it did.

SMS was Keelty's first choice: Alleged bomber
Keelty: "It was just days before Australia's embassy was attacked on September 9"? But you couldn't believe SMS could you? If your life depended on it? What about inviting him to you birthday party? Would you believe answering his own SMS text message? Could you trust him with that?

Liberal PR stunt, behind SMS attack warning
Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Mick Keelty has revealed information about an SMS message warning of an attack on a western embassy in Indonesia came from an Australian businessman in Jakarta.

Keep the bastards honest: Publicity keeps an eye on ethics?
The Australian Federal Police commissioner says investigations into terrorist links to Australia are being made more difficult by public debate about the progress of inquiries.

Australian accused of plot to bomb embassies
A spokesperson for Justice Action Mr Sooth Sayer said " the arrest is most likely connected to the invasion of the mans privacy by the new powers of ASIO. These are extraordinary laws that were invented, using people as pawns to get unprecedented powers to use to lever John Howard's propaganda machine."

QLD Politician (Community Safety) Amendment Bill 2004
NEW LAWS: A picture of the [false flag] Madrid killer bombings was used to introduce a terror Bill so that we are so fearful we will accept it as being appropriate behaviour by the authorities and law enforcement.

Govt rejects ul-Haque's family 'political scapegoat' claims
The Federal Government has rejected as unfounded, claims that it is making a political scapegoat out of a Sydney man arrested on terrorism charges.

Dictatorship under the crimes Act?
Attorney General Phillip Ruddock said yesterday under the Crimes Act Izhar Ul Haque committed a crime.

Standing up for liberties
When a federal Labor Opposition indicates it is prepared to agree to future government legislation even before its detailed content is known, alarm bells should ring.

Fascist wants more power for ASIO
Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock wants to strengthen Australia's terrorism laws, to make it easier for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) to hold and question suspects without any evidence for three years and ban organisations.

Police raid Iranian 'people'
IN a series of dramatic simultaneous raids in three capital cities, Australian Federal Police officers swooped yesterday on alleged members of an Iranian resistance organisation linked to watching terrorism, seizing mobile telephones and computers.

Gulag bill: ASIO set to ignite blazing debate
The bill, due to be introduced into the Senate, gives ASIO officers new powers to detain for a week citizens aged 14 and over. People could be detained even where they are not suspected of any crime but of having information related to terrorism.

Better late than never'Democrats'
The Democrats are confident they will win at least one seat in the upper house in the NSW election by tapping into voter unease about the Carr Government's tough anti-terrorism laws.The party is using its three-day national conference, starting in Sydney today, as the springboard for its election campaign, and will announce its candidates and policies."Clearly we have a real chance of winning one extra seat in the upper house," the party's federal leader, Andrew Bartlett, said.

Darth Vader!: NSW citizens 'terrorised'
Bob Carr dubbed Darth Vader, rests over NSW citizens unrestrained like a mushroom cloud. The State Government's repression, deleting the basic tenant of law itself.

Suspicious police are not trusted to terrorise the community
Short memory my friends when just around the corner police were out of control and now you want to trust Police in NSW to be given extraordinary powers to search vehicles, sites and even a general "type of person" in the event of a terrorism threat or after a terrorist attack.

Seriously Ten seriously blue and seriously flawed!
Channel Tens News broadcast at 5pm with Jessica Rowe reporting that, "Their news poll suggests that 96 per cent of people are in favour of 'new special police powers' to fight the terrorists."

NSW Police Force may get 'special powers'
Civil libertarians are questioning the need for further anti-terrorism laws, which will be announced in the New South Wales Parliament on Tuesday.

The scavengers of terror
The NSW Government is to introduce increased police powers bill. Legislation giving New South Wales police special powers to deal with an emergency terrorist situation will be introduced into the New South Wales Parliament today.

Blunkett to extend long arm of the law

UK: Sweeping changes to police powers were proposed by the government yesterday, with officers in England and Wales to be permitted to arrest suspects for any offence, rather than only those which attract prison sentences.

The idea, included in a consultation paper published today by the Home Office - just two days after the Conservatives made a series of hardline crime and order proposals - could be on the statute books by next summer.

But civil rights campaigners have already branded the idea of arresting people for offences such as graffiti and dropping litter "disproportionate".

The 30-page consultation paper also raises a series of other proposals, including roadside fingerprinting, extending search warrants to cover all properties connected to a suspect, and greater powers for community support officers (CSOs). The police minister, Hazel Blears, said the moves would "maintain the crucial balance between the powers of the police and the rights of the individual".

However, the director of civil rights group Liberty, Shami Chakrabarti, said of the arrest proposals: "When you create a broad, unnecessary power there is a danger of arbitrary and racially discriminatory use.

"This comes just a couple of weeks after statistics showed a 300% rise in the number of Asian people being stopped and searched.

The Home Office says the detail will be set out in guidance - an approach which has failed as far as stop and search is concerned. If powers are truly needed then parliament should debate them and perhaps pass them. But I have yet to hear any serious voice in policing in this country say that the problem the police faces is that they don't have powers to arrest people for dropping litter," she told Radio 4's Today Programme.

She added: "In a democracy you do not create extremely broad powers and say they will not be used in practice - you give the police powers they actually need.

However, Ms Blears insisted that a "necessity test" would ensure that not all suspects were arrested for petty crimes. "What we are saying here is that in future all offences will be arrestable but that does not necessarily mean that everybody will be arrested, because there will be a necessity test.

A constable could come upon an offence and he might not be sure whether it is arrestable or not. In future that would be very clear, she told the BBC.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis, said: "Today's announcements are just another headline-grabbing initiative from a gimmick-crazy home secretary. "We agree with the efforts to make the definition of arrestable offences simpler. But will we now find ourselves in a crazy situation where a litter lout is arrested and a cannabis smoker is not?  

"Every arrest brings with it reams of paperwork," he added. "The government is in danger of encouraging police to make arrests based on their heavy workload of paperwork and not on the seriousness of the offence."

The new principal speaker of the Green party, Keith Taylor, dismissed the proposals as the "latest in a series of attacks on civil liberties". He said: "This government already monitors its citizens more closely than any in Britain's history.

"The power to arrest on the suspicion of even the most minor offences undermines the fundamental right to go about one's day-to-day business without interference from the state. "As with current stop-and-search procedures, there is also the risk that these new powers could be disproportionately used against members of certain communities."

The consultation period ends in October, enabling the government, if it wishes, to table bills based on the proposals in a November, [war criminal], Queen's speech.

The paper - entitled Modernsing Police Power to Meet Community Needs - also suggests giving CSOs greater powers to direct traffic, tackle beggars, [?] search people for weapons and enforce bylaws, leaving police officers free to concentrate on frontline duties. It also proposes that CSOs - who can already issue £40 on-the-spot fines for being drunk and disorderly - be given extra powers to deal with drunks and underage drinkers.

The proposals, which originate with the Home Office rather than the police forces, were given a guarded welcome by the Association of Chief Police Officers.

The association's vice-president, Denis O'Connor, said: "There is undoubtedly a need to rationalise some of the powers we currently hold and strengthen those we need most. "We are supportive of the government's effort to enhance the powers of the wider police family, particularly CSOs, enabling them to assist the police in tackling crime and disorder." He added: "However, we would sound a note of caution at any major extension of powers for CSOs before the Home Office evaluation is complete."

The Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers and is opposed to the expansion of the role of CSOs, gave the proposals a lukewarm reception. Its vice chairman Rod Dalley said: "Any use of or change in police powers should be taken seriously.

"Therefore we will carefully consider the Home Office paper and will be engaging fully in the consultation process. In particular we will be closely examining any proposals to extend the powers given to CSOs in view of the fact that no evaluation of their role has taken place."

Other proposals include:

- Testing people arrested for property crimes for class A drugs.

- New powers to fingerprint suspects at the roadside and to take DNA samples and footwear impressions.

- Allowing police to take DNA and fingerprint samples covertly.

- for example, by undercover officers

- to determine identification of suspects and their possible involvement in an offence, although such material would be for intelligence use only and not as evidence in court.

- Allowing revenue from motoring fixed penalties to fund automatic number plate recognition systems, which are already in use in 23 forces in England and Wales.

- Removing the requirement for civilian investigators to wear a uniform, so that they can go "plainclothes" if required.

- Allowing the courts to remand in police custody anyone suspected of swallowing parcels of drugs

- possibly for as long as 12 days

- to allow the drugs to be passed and seized as evidence.

- Create a new offence of "keeping an incorrectly registered vehicle" to tackle the problem of an estimated 1.2 million untaxed, unsafe or uninsured vehicles on Britain's roads.

- Giving police a new power to stop, search, seize and confiscate fireworks where they suspect the items are held illegally under the Fireworks Act 2003.

- which made possession by under-18s illegal.

- Possible new legislation to deal with demonstrations outside parliament.

- Allowing officers to photograph suspects outside the police station, and use moving images such as video.

By Matthew Tempest posted 13 August 04

Related:

Welcome to the MatrixB
US - In what civil liberties advocates call the most massive database surveillance program in US history, the Multistate Anti-Terrorism, [scapegoat and patsy], Information Exchange, or Matrix, continues to compile billions of records on law-abiding citizens and receive federal funding, despite public outcry and suspicion.

Govt tests airport security eye scanner
Technology that identifies people by scanning their eyes could be introduced into Australian airports as early as next year.

law and order days over, says Blair
Their 3D-iD system is ideal for both stationary assets, such as large physical inventories or for mobile assets like people and portable equipment.

Fingerprints now required for US visas
United States consulates in Australia have begun taking fingerprints from Australians applying for visas.

I won't be a criminal for you!
The only looming rules are for fools giving up personal details to the Devil in the first place when visiting the US.

Putting Your Finger on the Line: Biometric Identification Technology The NSW Department of Corrective Services has progressively been implementing biometric identification technology (BIT) for use on all entrants into maximum security prisons since August 1996. It currently operates in seven prisons in NSW and is scheduled for introduction at Parklea prison later this year. BIT has raised the ire of many community agencies, the legal fraternity and government authorities. Framed examines what the controversy is all about and what the implications of this technology are.

Mossad agents Killing Oz Tourists Steal their Identity to use in terror opps
The fugitive Israeli Mossad intelligence agent Zev Barkan has been dealing with Asian criminal gangs to obtain Australian and other passports stolen from Australians Killed in Asia, a New Zealand security official has said.

The U.S. system of 'justice' is a tragic joke
US: Police abuse, and sometimes kill, innocent persons at will. Cops plant evidence, they lie, they coerce confessions and they commit perjury. Many are, simply, criminals.