New
Phone-Tapping Powers
In Australia
By Mike Head
05 April 2006
World
Socialist Web
A
further wave of police-state laws is currently being pushed through
the Australian parliament without the Howard government even claiming
any new terrorist threat. The measures—six bills so far—are
in addition to the detention without trial, sedition and “advocating
terrorism” legislation passed by the federal and state parliaments
just before Christmas.
Virtually no media coverage
has been given to the latest laws, even though they will authorise the
government and its security agencies for the first time to intercept
the telephone and email communications of completely innocent people.
They will also extend the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation’s
(ASIO) secret detention and interrogation powers for a decade, effectively
making them permanent.
The Telecommunications Interception
(Amendment) Act 2006, which was pushed through both houses of parliament
last week, permits the federal police and ASIO to covertly monitor or
read anyone’s phone calls, emails, SMSs and other “stored
communications”. This power extends to so-called “B-Parties”—innocent
people who have, even if unwittingly, communicated with someone suspected
of a crime or of being a threat to “national security”.
Intimate or confidential
conversations that “B-Parties” have with other people, including
family members, friends, work colleagues, lawyers and doctors, can be
bugged. This includes discussions with a lawyer under legal professional
privilege. The authorities can use the information collected for many
purposes, including to initiate prosecutions, even if it is irrelevant
to the original suspect.
To obtain an interception
warrant, ASIO need only show that it is “likely to assist”
in obtaining intelligence “related to security”. These vague
terms leave vast room for arbitrary or political use. There is no protection
against the government eavesdropping on conversations involving Members
of Parliament and journalists, who rely on confidential sources.
By intercepting calls to
mobile phones, the authorities can also trace a person’s movements.
Federal and state police and other law enforcement agencies can have
a tap in place for up to 45 days, while ASIO warrants last for three
months.
Claiming that it was “urgent”
to do so, Attorney-General Philip Ruddock bulldozed the bill through
in a matter of days, brushing aside a Senate report in which MPs, including
government backbenchers, appealed for a series of modifications to soften
the Bill’s obvious “Big Brother” connotations.
These amendments included
confining interceptions to people “suspected of engaging in the
planning of, or other involvement in, terrorist acts or murder”.
The defeat of that amendment only serves to confirm that these measures,
like the more than 30 other pieces of “anti-terrorism” legislation
already passed since 2002, are not about protecting ordinary people
from terrorism. Rather, their purpose is to hand draconian powers to
the security and intelligence agencies to spy on and move against ordinary
people.
The “war on terror”
has already been used as a cover for a rapid expansion of tapping. According
to the latest official statistics released by Ruddock, 3,028 intercept
warrants were granted in 2003-2004, a 41 percent rise since 2000-2001.
In the early 1990s, less than 250 warrants were authorised annually.
These figures provide only
a partial picture, however, because they exclude ASIO warrants, the
numbers of which are kept secret from the public. Moreover, the legislation
requires the major telecommunications providers, such as Telstra, to
provide ASIO with intercept data which they have obtained, ostensibly
for the purpose of maintaining network integrity.
In addition, there are now
powers to plant surveillance and tracking devices on people, vehicles
and premises, whether or not the subjects are alleged to be involved
in any crime. During the first half of 2005, 257 warrants were issued
under the newly-introduced Surveillance Devices Act 2004.
On March 29, Ruddock tabled
amendments to strengthen and continue, until 2016 at least, ASIO’s
interrogation and detention powers, which were first introduced in 2003
with a three-year sunset clause. Under this regime, ASIO can interrogate
someone for up to 48 hours, if an interpreter is required, or detain
them for up to a week for questioning, simply because it alleges they
may have information relating to terrorism. This is an addition to the
measures introduced late last year, which allow for secret “preventative”
detention for up to 14 days and for house arrest for as long as a year
at a time.
Ruddock’s move followed
a bipartisan review by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence
and Security, in which Labor MPs joined their government counterparts
in backing the powers as a “useful tool”. Although the committee
recommended a new five-year sunset clause, Ruddock said a decade-long
extension would match the 10-year period agreed by the state Labor governments
for last year’s laws.
Ruddock claimed the amendments
enhanced “rights and safeguards” for people under questioning
or detention. He did not mention the lengthening of questioning periods
by discounting time spent on procedural matters, handling complaints,
legal advice, medical attention, religious observances and recuperation
breaks.
A handful of minor concessions
only underscore the far-reaching character of the powers. Subjects will
have an explicit right to contact a lawyer—but ASIO can still
vet the lawyer; the monitoring of subject-lawyer communications will
be banned under questioning warrants—yet, will still be allowed
in detention; and the authorities may permit subjects to inform their
families or employers of their detention—but only as a matter
of discretion in some circumstances.
The parliamentary report
gave a censored glimpse of the use of the powers between mid-2003, when
they were introduced, and mid-2005. It said questioning had occurred
14 times, while no one had been formally detained. The questioning,
described as “polite and dispassionate, if persistent,”
lasted for as long as 43 hours spread over nine days. Apparently little
evidence was produced, because only four people were charged with any
offence as a result.
Predictably, none of the
25 former judges handpicked to serve as “issuing authorities”
to authorise and monitor the interrogations had rejected a request by
the attorney-general for a questioning warrant. Yet, lawyers who testified
before the committee expressed outrage that the warrants gave them and
their clients no information whatsoever about the alleged reasons for
the questioning.
ASIO has probably carried
out many more interrogations without warrants, or parliamentary knowledge,
by threatening its targets with detention if they did not cooperate.
ASIO’s and the government’s contempt for democratic scrutiny
was underlined by the fact that passages were deleted from the report
“at the request of ASIO,” even though the committee “did
not accept that the content ... constituted a national security concern”.
In one day, Ruddock also
introduced a range of Bills to strengthen the powers of intelligence
and law enforcement agencies relating to “border compliance”,
“aviation transport security”, “maritime transport
and offshore facilities” and “powers of intervention at
sea”.
All of this has happened
with barely a mention, let alone a criticism, in the mainstream media.
Once again, there is no real opposition within the media and political
establishment to the tearing up of fundamental democratic rights and
complete acceptance of the Howard government’s bogus “war
on terrorism”.