Bill will legitimise spying

The Interception of Communication Bill will “legitimise spying” on citizens, said temporary Opposition Senator Wayne Sturge.

“All your communications which you felt were private is no longer private once this bill is passed.” He was contributing to debate on the bill in the Senate Tuesday. He said he was under the impression the bill targeted prisoners having unauthorised communication and lawyers as well (discussing the commissioning of criminals acts with prisoners) but that is the smallest aspect of the bill.

He said the bill has far reaching consequences, was extremely intrusive and draconian, and was not limited to prisoners and lawyers but applied to every single citizen.

“There is a great deal that we all should have as citizens. And we can’t say that this targets criminals only. It targets anyone and everyone.” Sturge pointed out that with this bill all intercepted communications would be admissible whether there is a warrant or not, removing the safeguard in the original bill.

“That is downright frightening.” He said the bill was also amending that the intercepted communication could be used in not just criminal proceedings but any proceedings which would extend to civil proceedings. Sturge said the bill also included stored data and therefore authorities can go backwards and there was no cut off period.

“You think BBM no longer exists? Whatever you have in your Blackberry they can go back digging in it. Private communications. WhatsApp? You think that’s encrypted. They will go looking at it. That’s your private communications. Not for the purpose of a criminal case, because it is no longer limited to a criminal case, it extends to civil cases. BBM, WhatsApp, text messages, e-mail, Facebook, Dropbox, iCloud, all of your mobile banking apps, all of your internet banking, none of that is subject to privacy.” He said all protected communications would now be open to the scrutiny of police officers with some being used against people and “some they will snicker (over).”

“All the secrets you had you no longer had. Big Brother is watching you.” Sturge said he would expect this type of thing in Afghanistan or Iran. He also pointed out the bill would allow for a constable to get stored data and apply to a magistrate whittling down the protection from an “authorised officer” and of a judge with statutory guidelines.