The House of Representatives has finally passed the third tranche of national security legislation, concerning the mandatory retention of all Australians' data when they use telecommunications services.

In the wake of concerns about how such data retention could impact upon the media, the government and ALP adopted amendments to the Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014.

These amendments entail that law enforcement agencies aside from ASIO wanting to access journalists' data to discover their sources would first have to seek a warrant.

A public interest advocate based on Queensland’s Public Interest Monitor will be appointed to argue against access to journalists' data, while a judge will decide on whether the disclosure of the data is in the public interest.

While this might seem to be an improvement to protect journalists and their sources, plenty of problems still remain. As we wrote previously, obtaining a warrant to access journalists' data is unlikely to be difficult for law enforcement agencies. So the requirement to get a warrant cannot be viewed as an adequate safeguard.

In instances where warrants might be considered onerous, members of law enforcement agencies wanting to uncover journalists' sources may ignore this procedure. Instead, there is nothing to stop them reverse targeting the retained data of others to see if they have been in contact with known journalists.

While intentions to protect the press with a warrant scheme appear well-meaning, the current manifestation of warrant requirements for journalists in Australia’s data retention scheme would actually do little to meaningfully defend press freedoms.

So what is to be done? Inspiration could be taken from the contested warrants process found in the United States.

In the US, journalists are able to testify in a formal court proceeding to argue to a judge why a warrant should or should not be issued to reveal their source.

While this is similar to what the House of Representatives has passed, one important difference remains: that in the US, the journalists themselves can attend and speak in the court hearing.

This means that the media itself can argue why its reporting is in the public interest prior to the sources being revealed, rather than a public interest advocate doing so on its behalf.

The House of Representatives' amendments can be seen as ill-thought out and premature at this point particularly given the upcoming inquiry by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) on the impact of the data surveillance regime has on press freedom in Australia.

In any event, precisely who a journalist is or what constitutes journalism for the purposes of this extra procedure remain highly problematic.

Other jurisdictions such as the US have developed a very expansive definition of journalism or the media based on the publishing of information or opinion.

In Australia, some people – including the independent senator Nick Xenophon – have suggested starting with the definition contained within the Evidence Act 1995. This definition is based on the function of receiving information and publishing news.

However, in the amendments adopted by the House of Representatives, it seems that it is only professional journalists who will benefit from the warrant process. This is a narrower definition of journalism than even the Evidence Act’s.

Furthermore, it does not adequately protect all those receiving information or publishing news, particularly in light of many people beyond those employed by traditional media organisations using social media to perform these tasks in the public interest.

In any event, the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) is still unhappy with this additional safeguard for its members. For the MEAA, the fact that even under the new system journalists would not know whether an application has been made to access their retained data, or that this access has been granted, is still extremely concerning.

Furthermore, the MEAA has good cause to be worried about data retention being used to expose confidential sources. The Australian Federal Police has apparently already been trying to access journalists' data in order to identify these sources.

In an era of tightening restrictions around reporting in the public interest, some respected voices in the area of security-journalism are sounding stern cautionary warnings about conducting journalism that deals with national security and surveillance issues altogether.

In addition, there are still no further safeguards proposed for other professionals who have traditionally enjoyed confidentiality around their communications, such as lawyers, medical practitioners and even parliamentarians.

Indeed, Communications Minister Malcoln Turnbull has termed journalists a “special case” when it comes to increased protection of their retained data.

Nevertheless, the Law Institute of Victoria has again called for communications between lawyers and their clients to be exempted from the data retention proposals, and urged a warrant to be necessary for law enforcement to access these communications.

Australian Lawyers for Human Rights have also written to all ALP and cross-bench MPs and Senators, drawing their attention to the fact their own communications – traditionally protected by parliamentary privilege – will not enjoy an exception from mandatory data retention.

Australian politicians may be interested to note that some Green politicians in the UK are currently challenging the suspected interception of their communications – in contravention of parliamentary privilege – by UK government surveillance schemes.

The government’s mandatory data retention plans, even with the extra requirement for a warrant when it comes to journalists, are still hugely problematic. The requirement to obtain a warrant does not really provide a strong safeguard to ensure journalists can do their work in the public interest.

Other groups who also need confidentiality in their communications currently will not receive it. And none of this detracts the fundamental problems that data retention poses for rights and liberties of everyone in Australia, by introducing a mass monitoring scheme of the whole population, regardless of whether they have committed any sort of crime or engaged in any sort of wrongdoing.

Nor has any substantial evidence been provided that this data retention scheme will actually achieve its stated aim of preventing terrorism and reducing crime rates.

The rush to pass a problematic mandatory data retention package has unfortunately trumped meaningful and patient consideration of the undeniable weight of the evidence stacked against it.

http://theconversation.com/data-retention-plan-amended-for-journalists-but-is-it-enough-38896

Speaking at the National Press Club on Thursday, Greste directly addressed Foreign Minister Julie Bishop who attended the speech. 

"This comes back, as uncomfortable as it is, Minister, we need to have access, we need to see what's going on," he said.

"And as difficult as it is for the government, if we close that down, if we make it hard for journalists to do their jobs, then we end up with dark spaces where things happen that really shouldn't be happening."

Greste, a free speech campaigner who was last month freed after spending more than 400 days in an Egyptian jail on terrorism-related charges, had earlier expressed his gratitude to Ms Bishop for the diplomatic work done to secure his release. But to much applause he said the government must not block the media from doing its job.

"We hired the government, they work for us, not the other way around. And if we lose sight of that, if we lose sight of the public's need to know and to make decisions and to make democracy work, then again I think we run the risk of losing control," he said.

"I'm the son of an asylum seeker. I don't know quite what the statistics are, but the vast number of Australians - we all have asylum seekers in our blood.

"The Aborigines are the ones who can claim to have any kind of genuine Australian blood in them, and I think we need to bear that in mind that this is what built this country, it was immigrants that built this country."

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/journalist-peter-greste-delivers-blunt-message-to-politicians-on-detention-centre-secrecy-20150326-1m8dqi.html

The board of NSW Legal Aid said earlier this year that it would have to cancel or postpone trials of people charged with Commonwealth offences: people trafficking, child pornography, drug importation and terrorism.

In February, the federal government responded by stumping up $5.2m to fund some of these cases – nationwide.

This month the complaints about the $25.5m cuts to legal assistance reached a crescendo and, would you believe it, two days out from the state election, attorney general Brandis announced a magnificent somersault, with pike?

The $25.5m over two years has been restored and guaranteed to June 30, 2017.

While the state politicians have had their backs turned on the trail, the bureaucrats have been up to some monkey business. It’s emerged that the venerable and valuable NSW Law Reform Commission is to be defenestrated. It will lose its dedicated staff, who now will come from the department of justice. There is no full-time chairman of the commission and there hasn’t been for over a year. Nor has there been a full-time commissioner for a similar period, or any new references. Any research staff or project officers will now be responsible to the department, not to an independent law reform commission, which has done excellent work on sentencing, bail, offenders with mental health impairment and early guilty pleas.

A fine legal institution has bit the dust, with barely a squeak.

Happy voting.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/27/nsw-election-promises-fewer-violent-criminals-drugs-paedophiles-and-guns-add-a-pinch-of-salt

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/video/2015/mar/27/the-roast-satire-metadata-brandis-malcolm-turnbull-video

The White House has confirmed it is looking into reports president Barack Obama's passport details were leaked by an Australian official during last year's G20 Summit, saying it will "take all appropriate steps" to prevent further breaches.

Personal details of several world leaders were accidently shared by the Australian Immigration Department before the Brisbane summit.

White House press secretary Eric Schultz said the reports were being investigated.

"I have seen those reports. I can't confirm that at this time," he told reporters on Air Force One.

"I can tell you that we're looking into them and we'll take all appropriate steps necessary to ensure the privacy and security of the president's personal information."

Passport numbers, dates of birth and visa details of leaders attending the Brisbane summit were mistakenly emailed by an Immigration Department official to a member of the Asian Cup Local Organising Committee.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-31/white-house-investigates-reported-obama-passport-leak/6360788

Don't believe things will improved with the metadata that Brandis has no clue about... It's all a con, like a placebo pill to make you feel securely  better. I don't.

Australia's domestic spy agency says it is "pleased" with the passing of the Government's data retention legislation, which it has described as "critical".

"Access to historical communications data is vitally important in ASIO's effort to identify threats to Australia's security and keep Australians and Australia's interests safe," a spokesman said in a statement to the ABC.

"The legislation will ensure that ASIO is able to keep pace with a rapidly changing communications environment."

The legislation will require telephone and internet companies to retain Australians' telephone and internet data for a period of two years.

Approved officers in more than 20 government agencies, including ASIO, the AFP, state police forces, ASIC, and consumer watchdog the ACCC, will be able to authorise access to the information.

Read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-01/asio-pleased-by-passing-of-data-retention-laws/6363374

Anyone with a "secret" email address would know that, by now, the email providers "know who you are" and would ask you to confirm your primary email address to enable access to "your" secret address, compromising the secrecy of the "secret" address in the process. Therefore any emails sent to Gus are now left unread since one cannot access emails without compromising secrecy — as flimsy as secrecy is or was. I do not know if this is part of the "new" metadata collection or a general data collection to satisfy BigCorp in knowing habits of purchasing goods and services.

Take your pick. This is cookies for you. I used to clean up all my cookies in the past but cannot be bothered to defeat Big Bros anymore... The system knows who you are and what you had for breakfast, or the consistency of your stools, no matter what. Having a 'secret" address was so far useful in keeping the unwashed scribes of the MMMM (mediocre mass media de mierda) at bay. 

New "drop boxes" have been installed with specific encryption in some media organisations for dealing with secret information. Dream on... Big Bros knows who you are and what you're doing before you do the drop. It's back to park-benches and the old abandoned-newspaper trick for me.