[LINK] Fwd: MEDIA: ASIO bugs 3000 calls a year
Jan Whitaker
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
Wed Jun 10 14:02:22 AEST 2009
link:
<http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25555119-5013044,00.html>http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,25555119-5013044,00.html
ASIO bugs 3000 calls a year
Natalie O'Brien | May 29, 2009
AUSTRALIAN authorities, including the spy agency ASIO, are bugging
the telephones of Australian citizens at a rate of more than 20 times
their US counterparts.
Figures cited in a federal parliamentary estimates hearing this week
revealed that about 3000 Australians had their phone calls
intercepted every year.
Greens senator Scott Ludlam told the committee there was something
"rather peculiar happening in Australia".
"We are per capita vastly more likely to have a telephone intercept
than a citizen of the US," he said. Senator Ludlam said that on a per
capita basis, Australians were 23 times more likely to have their
phones bugged than Americans. He told the Legal and Constitutional
Affairs committee that a comparison of data showed that 2929 warrants
were issued in Australia in a 12-month period but in the US there
were only 1800 during the same time.
Senator Ludlam was asking questions of new ASIO chief David Irvine,
who took over at the agency six weeks ago, including how many of the
phone taps were performed by ASIO.
Mr Irvine, formerly the head of the Australian Secret Intelligence
Service, said he "most certainly would not answer".
He did admit, however, that he was surprised by the figures.
The Attorney-General's Department first assistant secretary of
national security, law and policy division, Geoff McDonald, said data
from the two countries could not be compared because there was
substantial undereporting in the US. [JW: how does he know that? How
does he know there isn't underreporting in Australia? Absurd.]
ASIO is one of a number of agencies, including the Australian Crime
Commission, the Australian Commission for Law Enforcement Integrity,
the Federal Police and state and territory police and intelligence
agencies, that can apply for telephone intercept warrants.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
Our truest response to the irrationality of the world is to paint or
sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer
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