AFP spied on phone and internet records, over 40,000 accessed without warrant

AFP spied on phone and internet records, over 40,000 accessed without warrant

www .theaustralian.com.au

AUSTRALIAN Federal Police (AFP) accessed more than 40,000 phone and computer records last year without a warrant.

Revelations in a Senate estimates hearing in May also show efforts by the AFP to obtain Facebook and Google data, according to Fairfax media.

It comes as controversy rages over the US National Security Agency's (NSA) controversial PRISM program, details of which were leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Well, it looks like more and more governments are starting to spy on their people through phone calls, and computers. Now it looks like the Australian government is following in the footsteps of the US government.

And as more and more governments start to do this, people will just saying it's for security reasons, and let their governments slowly remove their rights.

There aren't many news articles on this as it's relatively new, so I've linked one more article, which is from a UK news website.
www.onenewspage.co.uk...

Seems to be a far-reaching problem.
What does the Aussie Constitution say about something like this?

reply to post by butcherguy


Well Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK and America were all card carrying members of the Echelon system, since Prism is the successor you've gotta assume they're involved in this all the way!

Australia is a bit oppressive when it comes to the internet as well, it's got a national firewall that blocks millions of sites (That said the UK is getting quite oppressive too, lots of the torrent sites are blocked now)

America war on terror private interest has spread like a vermin all over the world and specially with those govenrments that are in the pocket of the private interest companies supporting this behaviour.

Sad but truth.

I suspect it is not any further reaching than wherever corporate culture has engendered the paradigm for politicians to "sell" opportunities to favored commercial enterprises who are willing to offer reciprocal services to the ruling elements.

If conspiracy theorists hadn't been so successfully and consistently maligned and mis-characterized for the last few decades, perhaps people wouldn't have allowed political thespians to serve those entrenched powers dedicated to continuity of governance via "control" and "fear."

People, those folks we laughed at and call tin-foil hatters were - once again - proven not only to have been correct... but to have underestimated the gall of the abusers of power.

Even now, massive amount of effort is being dedicated to making anyone's concerns over government "broad, deep, and enduring" surveillance 'go away.'

Watch it fizz...,

((We really do need to consider a way to address this outside the words "Echelon" and "PRISM" - after all they are going to just keep changing the classified project name each time the secret lapses into public knowledge.))

It appears that we Americans have something in common with our counterparts abroad.

We are all viewed as enemies of our governments. Man, woman, and child, no matter the ethnicity or nationality.

If you aren't a member of the elite, you are a target.

It feels nice to be feared to the point where they want to monitor the spam going into my email account.

reply to post by butcherguy


Well, considering the fact that they banned pretty much everything there, I don't think their constitution says anything about spying on Australian citizens.

I'm probably stating the obvious here, but even if each country respected the privacy of their citizens, spying outside the country is just fine. So the US can spy on UK citizens, then send the US can send the intel to the UK, and vice versa.

TNO: trust no one

reply to post by gariac


I agree, and that you for the post.

I wonder what psychological (and even the psychiatric) evils are at work with all this ?

For sure we are dealing with some real wacko paranoid groups and individuals.

And they got the nerve to call people crazy when we question the motives

I think these nosy bastards belong in an asylum.