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

[Russell Ashdown]

DCS1000 (previously known as 'Echelon' and/or 'Omnivore' / 'Carnivore') 
my dear Roger...  Oh, and let's not forget the infamous 'Narus STA 6400'

See:
<http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Privacy/surveillsys.html>
and:
<http://www.narus.com/products/intercept.html>

Cheers,

Russell

Roger Clarke wrote:
> 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.
>
>