[LINK] SMH: 'Concern over how AFP got comments'

[Roger Clarke]

Concern over how AFP got comments
Date: August 2 2007
The Sydney Morning Herald
Asher Moses
http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2007/08/01/1185647979267.html

FEDERAL POLICE are refusing to say how they got snippets of online 
conversations between Mohamed Haneef and his brother.

The Herald asked the Australian Federal Police yesterday how they got 
the transcript of the internet conversation last month.

But a spokesman refused to specify whether the snippets came from 
logs stored on Dr Haneef's computer or from internet-based 
surveillance conducted by police, citing the ongoing investigation.

The chairman of the online users' lobby group Electronic Frontiers 
Australia, Dale Clapperton, said under existing laws the police would 
have had to obtain a "telecommunications interception" warrant to 
conduct internet surveillance.

He said questions remained about how such a warrant was obtained. 
"The police do not seem to have enough information to have gotten a 
TI [telecommunications intercept] warrant," he said. "They didn't 
even have enough information to make the SIM card charge stick."

Federal police are refusing to reveal the extent of their 
surveillance in Australia, but the Telecommunications (Interception 
and Access) Act gives police the power to monitor virtually all 
internet activity provided they first obtain the warrant.

"Anything you do using the internet can be monitored by law 
enforcement agencies, it doesn't matter whether it's emails, web 
browsing, chat rooms, whatever," Mr Clapperton said.

But under new laws to go before Federal Parliament next week, the 
warrant can be issued by the head of a police service or a security 
agency, bypassing judicial oversight.

"If the police don't trust the judges, how are we supposed to trust 
the police?" Mr Clapperton said.

Nigel Waters, chairman of the Australian Privacy Foundation's policy 
committee, accused the Government of rushing unprecedented 
surveillance legislation through Parliament before the public had the 
chance to work out how the provisions applied to new technologies.

"There is no doubt that there is significant erosion taking place in 
the privacy of telecommunications and internet communications," he 
said.


-- 
Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
			            
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Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW