Australia’s surprising disregard for free speech

https://www.economist.com/asia/2019/06/15/australias-surprising-disregard-for-free-speech

by mastazi • 7 years ago

230 103 7 years ago

economist.com

andrewstuart• 7 years ago

I don't think there's any legal basis for the idea of free speech in Australia.

twelvechairs• 7 years ago

Yes there is though it's not in the constitution directly its been inferred by the high court

https://www.ag.gov.au/RightsAndProtections/HumanRights/Human...

cormacrelf• 7 years ago

It would be almost misleading not to mention that the implied freedom of political communication is very limited and doesn't have even close to the depth and breadth of jurisprudence that 1st Amendment arguments have in the US.

The argument at its most extreme that various unauthorised disclosure criminal provisions could be invalid for IFPC reasons is outlined here:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0067205X1804600... (Or as a blog post if you don't have access: https://auspublaw.org/2016/04/public-sector-whistleblowing/)

But it's shaky at best. Who is to say that the nature of Special Intelligence Operations and the restrictions on their existence don't justify having no public interest exceptions to disclosures about them, for example? The paper makes this point accidentally (via a Wotton v Queensland analogy, at 362). I just don't see the current applications as being strong enough, especially where the legitimate object of the legislation is national security.

cyphar3• 7 years ago

There isn't. The High Court's decision on political freedom of speech is ridiculously limited in scope and doesn't apply to the vast majority of actions most Aussies would call "free speech". I also want to point out just how much the High Court has been forced to stretch the wording of the constitution in order to grant rights which are "obviously present" in our society:

* The amount of decisions which had a basis on "on just terms" had such a massive effect that almost every piece of legislation drafted in the past 50 years has a special provision saying that it should not be interpreted to violate the "on just terms" section of the constitution.

* The freedom of political speech comes from the High Court's reading of the preamble of the constitution, and the fact that it mentions Australia as being a representative democracy. They then ruled that in order for a representative democracy to exist you must have freedom of political speech. We're very lucky that our High Court is ruling in favour of the public's freedom rather than against it, because some people might see that as reason to question the legitimacy of the High Court (which would end very badly).

cylinder• 7 years ago

There's an implied freedom of political speech. The rest can be regulated by law. By the way the way Americans view the constitution as some sort of divinely bestowed natural law document is highly unusual. For example the Australian constitution is literally an act of Parliament.

SuperNinKenDo4• 7 years ago

This comment looks like it got voted down, probably because the tone sounds a little patronising to what it characterises as the American view. But nothing it says is to my knowledge inaccurate or even a twisting of facts.

The constitution of America is explicitly stated to be a statement of natural law.

This view is highly unusual.

The Australian constitution IS literally an act of parliament to my understanding.

Freedom of speech IS only intimated by the courts and is not explicitly stated in any part of the Australian constitution.

sonnyblarney4• 7 years ago

"By the way the way Americans view the constitution as some sort of divinely bestowed natural law document is highly unusual."

In addition to the US:

Canadians have constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression.

Article 10 of the EU's convention on human rights guaranteEs freedom of expression.

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights has a section of freedom of expression.

Freedom of speech is guaranteed by Chapter III, Article 21 of the Japanese constitution.

Seems it's more common than not in modern countries.

cyphar3• 7 years ago

For example the Australian constitution is literally an act of Parliament.

While that is historically accurate (you could even say it's an act of the UK Parliament too) -- it is unlike any other act in Australia. Parliament cannot amend it by themselves, and Parliament's legislative power is derived solely from the Constitution.

Every country with a codified constitution considers their constitution to be the supreme law in their country and has special rules for amending it -- that's simply what a constitution is! Yes, Americans do love to fetishise their constitution but that's a social distinction not a legal one.

If you look at countries without codified constitutions (New Zealand or the UK for instance), then there is a much stronger argument that their entire concept of their law is just a series of acts of Parliament and there is no supreme law. But Australia does have a codified constitution.

There's an implied freedom of political speech.

Which is incredibly limited in scope.

The rest can be regulated by law.

Which could be trivially amended by later governments. And newsflash -- we don't have laws for freedom of speech in this country. We're the only developed nation in the world that is in this situation.

threeseed• 7 years ago

Free speech is a very different subject than the rights of journalists.

Australians by and large don't want American style, unfettered free speech. And are quite happy with "say whatever you want so long as you don't libel or slander someone or some group of people" approach. It's what keeps our very multicultural society together.

What happened with the recent investigation of journalists is about the Australian government's right to see the drafts and sources for articles that involve investigating national security matters. And in general harass and intimidate journalists to discourage such articles in the future.

You can fix the second problem by enshrining the rights of journalists in legislation without having to make it a freedom of speech issue.

howiroll• 7 years ago

Yeah, let’s let the government decide whether a speech is a libel or slander. It’s still a freedom of speech, isn’t it?

wolco2• 7 years ago

Without freedom of speech you lose freedom of thought. Unkniwn journalists will be affected by removing press credentials.

emn132• 7 years ago

That sounds like a slogan, not something founded in reason.

No country has freedom of speech; it is heavily regulated... everywhere. The world hasn't collapsed yet.

How it's regulated probably matters; granted! But let's not get too apocalyptic about the issue. Not every regulation will turn everyone into mindless drones overnight.

And for the flipside: speech is only worth protecting because it's powerful; it's influential. You can insert the cheesy line about power and responsibility yourself...

It's a natural and good use of regulation to turn consequences for others into consequences (both good and bad!) for the person triggering them. Communication is not, and should not be, an exception.

stareatgoats• 7 years ago

Freedom of expression and the right of government to retaliate against whistle-blowers do not seem such different subjects to me. They are at least highly interconnected, in what seems to me a fundamental aspect of democracy: that it allows for an informed public to make their decision through the ballot.

That doesn't mean that those freedoms need to be absolutely unfettered, but limits on them need to be transparent and well motivated.

sonnyblarney4• 7 years ago

They are obviously overlapping, but they are definitely different due to the nature of disclosure:

The press will be able to disclose otherwise 'privileged/private' information that one wouldn't be able to otherwise publish in terms of 'free speech', if for example it's evidence of a crime.

i.e. 'classified material' doesn't fall under 'free speech'. You can't just publish that stuff willy nilly.

But if some of that material betrays evidence of a crime, then it's 'fair game' in most modern jurisdictions it seems.

The difference between the 'press' and 'everyone else' is, in 2019 still super vague, specifically in the relevant area of being compelled to testify about sources etc. at least in the US, there's no clarity in the law, and some conflicting rulings.

stevenjohns3• 7 years ago

You're casting a very wide net there.

Australians by and large don't want American style, unfettered free speech

I'd argue that Australians, by and large, don't know that they don't have a legislated right to free speech similar to what they have in the US. This is evident by the shock surprise and outrage from Australians every time there is an action that stifles free speech.

And are quite happy with "say whatever you want so long as you don't libel or slander someone or some group of people" approach

Neither libel nor slander is protected under the American first amendment.

It's what keeps our very multicultural society together.

Australia has a very mono-cultural society. The "multi-cultural society" meme attempts to liken having a kebab shop on the corner to having conflicting cultures in the same area, which to me (as a non-Anglo Australian) doesn't make sense. Australian values and culture is quite evidently very specific (freedom of religion, freedom of dress, freedom of expression, etc) and we - both legally and as a society - reject any culture that conflict with this.

Perhaps the only other culture that is allowed in Australia is traditional Aboriginal culture, where we quite literally have a second set of laws to accommodate it.

That said, freedom of speech doesn't have any impact on this at all. I'm not sure where the link you're supposing comes from.

---

In general, what happened[0] was intentionally misreported by the ABC.

1. The AFP obtained a search warrant for the ABC offices.

2. The AFP notified the ABC that they were coming to investigate in advance, however the ABC reported it to be a "raid."

3. The ABC dedicated a five camera film crew to follow the AFP around throughout the process.

4. The AFP had the explicit goal of finding out who the source was for revealing classified security information.

That's it.

It wasn't a free speech issue -- and it wasn't a journalistic rights issue.

[0] https://www.afp.gov.au/news-media/media-releases/afp-stateme...

roenxi• 7 years ago

I'd just like to put it out there that I very much agree with everything you said, and would have tried to write a similar post had you not already said everything better than I would have. Particularly the idea that Australia has a very multicultural society; we don't. We have lots of immigrants, but very limited cultural clashing such as is seen in, eg, the US where they actually have to manage all the different cultures they keep incubated. Ironically the fact nearly everyone is first- or second - generation immigrant promotes somewhat homogeneous culture although that is a gross generalisation as all generalisations are.

That said, there is one other point that deserves to be kept in focus - why exactly does the Australian government need to classify the fact that they are killing unarmed men and children. That shouldn't be classified information; if someone is killing unarmed children on my behalf I'd like to know about it tyvm.

yxhuvud• 7 years ago

Right to unconditional source confidentiality is very much a journalistic rights issue.

avinium• 7 years ago

I don't follow - why do you think this is not a journalistic rights issue?

sjy5• 7 years ago

Why do you say that the ABC intentionally misreported the situation? An ABC journalist live-tweeted the execution of the search warrant and claimed that he was the first to live-tweet an AFP 'raid' [1], which I think is valuable public interest journalism. I thought the reporting was accurate, although the journalist's commentary does presume that the media deserves special treatment, because of its role in our democracy and the potential chilling effect of the law as written on whistleblowers. This is a fair assumption and it's obviously popular with journalists, but I think the ABC would publish a contrary view if a credible writer wanted to put it forward.

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/about/backstory/investigative-jo...

tnolet• 7 years ago

Many, many western / European countries would find a “raid” on a journalistic organization to reveal a source a massive, massive journalistic rights issue. It would cause mass protests here in Germany...

TomMckenny• 7 years ago

Neither libel nor slander is protected under the American first amendment.

No but...

Valid defenses include: the statement is true. The statement is the speaker's opinion. And even if those fail, it must proven that it was spoken with malice. So defamation in the US is close to unenforceable.

A1kmm• 7 years ago

The problem is the misuse of classifications to keep the public from finding out things which are in the public interest but embarrasing to the government.

The raids are the furtherance of the suppression of public interest material being made public through the media, so that is absolutely a free speech and journalistic rights issue.

Vibrelli• 7 years ago

Australia has a very mono-cultural society.

I have to disagree with you here... Sydney & Melbourne have the world's 3rd and 4th largest foreign born populations.

45% of people living in Sydney weren't born in Australia... Melbourne 41%.

Agree that outside Syd & Melb though, it's very mono cultural.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_born#Metropolitan_and_...

docdeek• 7 years ago

There's a chance of running into problems when you try and define 'journalist', though. If a journalist is someone employed by a major news corporation then you are going to disadvantage the independent journalists with not much more than a website, a good number of contacts in their address book, and a sizable Twitter following. If different rights and responsibilities are allocated to government-approved journalists than to independent journalists or regular citizens, then someone in that government is going to have to hand out the 'officially a journalist' card.

I might like the government in power today and I might really like them to deny the official journalist protections you envisage to the journalists from the outlets I think are biased and lean the wrong way. However, because there is a pretty good chance that, in a democracy, the other guy is going to win, I wouldn't look forward to those same restrictions being placed on the journalists I like to read. Hence, the best thing is to protect everyone's freedom to write and publish, to question authority, and to speak.

jddj3• 7 years ago

We could probably look to the rest of the West for inspiration, they've been navigating these grey areas in the interest of accountability for a while now.

It's still a developing science though, see the conflict over "was Assange acting as a journalist?", and the different decisions taken by different US administrations on that particular case, but it will still be kneeded out in the courts which is where we usually decide things like this which are open to interpretation.

StreamBright• 7 years ago

This is essentially saying that the issue depends on the definition of slander.

mc32• 7 years ago

Why should journalists have more freedom than ordinary people?

This can lead to elitism as well as lack of accountability if they know no one can challenge them if they take on agendas.

dboreham• 7 years ago

I think the idea is that they're special in that they're performing actions in the public interest, and perhaps also some notion that it's a two-way deal: journalists for example aren't expected to dox in-field security services agents, under-cover operatives etc.

But...interesting question.

cromulent• 7 years ago

I read the comment as referring to the fourth estate in general, rather than people who are journalists in particular.

rayiner2• 7 years ago

Australia is over 90% Caucasian, and almost all of that is English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry. Due to Australia’s strict immigration controls, the large proportion of foreign born is disproportionately of European ancestry compared to the foreign born in the US. Likewise, because the US has a longer history of immigration, many people who aren’t immigrants nonetheless are members of a visible minority group. Thus, while Sydney has more than 40% of its population born abroad, versus under 20% for Chicago, to American eyes Sydney looks very white and homogenous by comparison to Chicago.

cyphar3• 7 years ago

Australians by and large don't want American style, unfettered free speech.

Most Australians don't know that there is no legislative or constitutional protections for everyday free speech rights they exercise. The High Court has had to stretch the constitution's wording to breaking point in order to rule in favour of more freedom on the side of the public.

Maybe we don't want American-style free speech, but maybe we want some other variant of free speech protections such as in any other developed country (we are the only developed country which doesn't have any free speech or privacy laws on the books). The entire argument of not having constitutional language for free speech was that English common law was sufficient. I think that view has been shown to be incorrect.

And are quite happy with "say whatever you want so long as you don't libel or slander someone or some group of people" approach.

There are no legal protections for this kind of speech in Australia -- so if they're quite happy with it then they do want free speech laws. Also, America has libel laws restricting freedom of speech in specific ways (as does every other country which has free speech laws).

ThrowXAwaux2• 7 years ago

The United States drone-killed Anwar al Awlaki, an American citizen, because of his speech. I don't disagree with that action, but it does illustrate that there are limits, even in the United States, despite claims to the contrary.

sambal• 7 years ago

There are no claims to the contrary in this thread, or this article.

ThrowXAwaux2• 7 years ago

Unfortunately, people, particularly those who subscribe to a certain ideology that is (was?) popular in tech circles do tend to lecture others about free speech, using the United States as a gold standard.

looeee• 7 years ago

even in the United States

The United States has become an oligarchy over the last few decades. It's basically the worst Western country that you could use as an example of freedom right now.

sampo• 7 years ago

The United States drone-killed Anwar al Awlaki, an American citizen, because of his speech.

The Wikipedia article gives a different picture. According to US government, "he was centrally involved in planning terrorist operations" and "Yemeni government tried him in absentia in November 2010, for plotting to kill foreigners and being a member of al-Qaeda".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki

suspectdoubloon• 7 years ago

I have once concern with this article. The ABC isn't a state broadcaster its a public broadcaster.

kube-system• 7 years ago

Edit: nevermind, it seems that “state broadcaster” implies more than I thought.

DanBC• 7 years ago

State broadcaster implies the state controls the content, in particular has editorial control, over the content, and that's not the case with ABC.

The wikipedia page says this, which highlights that ABC isn't a state broadcaster.

but is expressly independent of government

te_chris• 7 years ago

A state broadcaster implies state control. Public broadcasters such as PBS, BBC, ABC, RNZ, CBC, RTE etc are state owned but independently run

kchoudhu2• 7 years ago

Australia is usually a canary in the coal mine for the effectiveness of resistance to repressive speech laws in the Five-Eyes countries.

The Spycatcher affair in the late 80s is the first one I can remember, although I am sure there are other, earlier instances that the commentariat can point to.

Creationer3• 7 years ago

Teens watch Youtube more than TV. Youtube has been far more censorious and disregarding of Free Speech than anything the Australian Government has done.

x3ro• 7 years ago

Are you suggesting that having your video taken down from YouTube and going to jail are equally problematic?

codedokode2• 7 years ago

At Youtube you can at least upload your video. Try uploading your video on TV. TV is much more easier to control and censor.

ajdlinux• 7 years ago

The Spycatcher affair was primarily British, not Australian.

kchoudhu2• 7 years ago

Yes, but it was ultimately turned back in Australia.

mehdix• 7 years ago

Not directly related but here is my story.

Some years ago I was still a student in Iran. I was watching a satellite tv show as an Australian military officer appeared on screen and looked into our eyes and in an intimidating way told in Persian "Australia will not be your homeland" apparently to discourage seeking asylum there.

Fast forward years ahead. Every year I keep hearing more bad news from them. Australia's treatment of asylum seekers in Manus Island (as if this huge land isn't made of migrants in the first place), attack on cryptography, war on whistleblowers, wierd announcements as part of five eyes alliance, and etc. Somehow those moves all point toward a dystopian mindset.

sjy5• 7 years ago

Thank you for sharing your story. It is important that Australians understand the way the messages our government sends to the outside world are perceived by the people targeted by them.

fian• 7 years ago

Was the message specifically about seeking asylum after traveling to Australia by boat?

Australia does accept Iranian refugees (and refugees from other countries) if they travel to Australia legally (ie by plane, with a visa etc).

There is a strong public dislike of refugees coming illegally by boat, largely due to political fear mongering over safety (many drownings) and potential for terrorists to enter Australia.

Have a look at the statistics section of:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asylum_in_Australia#Statistics

The steep climb in asylum seekers arriving by boat after about 2008 was the main starting point for the current political stance against "boat people".

The rest of your points re over reach of government control is alarming to many Australians. However, as these laws don't have a direct impact on most Australians (yet), there is general apathy by the public.

codedokode2• 7 years ago

I think the problem is with the wording and attitude. It would be totally OK to quote an immigration law instead.

fmajid• 7 years ago

The Australian TV series "Secret City" (available on Netflix) and featuring a plot on gross abuse of power by the security establishment, is looking increasingly like a documentary.

xfitm32• 7 years ago

Australia and New Zealand are ground zero for chinese influence:

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/02/627249909/australia-and-new-z...

cdmckay• 7 years ago

So why exactly would the Chinese care if it was revealed that Australian soldiers were committing atrocities?

It’s unclear what your connection is here.

xfitm32• 7 years ago

We're discussing free speech and journalism, not the specifics of the soldiers actions.

smartbit• 7 years ago

https://outline.com/H7dDuF

cletus• 7 years ago

Speaking as an Australian I'd put the key difference between Australians and Americans this way: Americans feel like every surface is a slippery slope. Australians don't.

It's why Americans (many anyway) resist even toothless firearm regulations, for example. "If they take away our bump stocks then before you know it they'll take all our guns and we'll have no defense against the tyranny of government!"

While I certainly don't support raiding the ABC, for example (as opposed to News Corp, which needs to burn to the ground followed by exiling every Murdoch on Earth to Tristan da Cunha), an important question to ask--which I haven't seen the answer to--is did the AFP obtain the source of the leak from the raids or not?

If no then things are pretty complicated, for David McBride at least. He himself wasn't (and isn't) a journalist. He did obtain classified material in his capacity as a lawyer for the Defense Department, which is a bit of a double-whammy. Even if you can get passed the classified part, having your lawyer make unauthorized disclosures of professional work product (essentially) is a problem.

Even in America this would be a problem. It was certainly a problem for Chelsea Manning.

SlowRobotAhead4• 7 years ago

Is there anything more stereotypical than an Australian lecturing Americans on the slippery slope of gun control?

Preface... In Australia 1997 there was a gun confiscation (buy back if you wanna call it that, but be honest) on any gun deemed suitable for defense. It coincided with an almost double number of police per capita. Crime fell! Unfortunately for that argument crime fell by a greater rate in the USA over the same time period, no gun ban, no major increase in police per capita.

We talk about the slippery slope being real, because we have so many examples of it being so:

- Capacity of magazines... No magazine limits country-wide, then in areas... 100 round drums banned, large capacity firearms regulated as destructive devices, a brief period where they tried to say “no larger than what the gun was designed for”, 30 round magazine limits, 15 in New Jersey in Colorado now, 10 in ban states like California Maryland Connecticut, New York went 7 with the mostly failed SAFE ACT, Canada has 3 and 5 on rifles depending on situation and I’ve already heard that come up in interviews in the USA. There is no number ever safe enough to satisfy people who argue for disarmament. Goal has always been to the define an arbitrary number and re-define it later. It’s the very system of getting you to accept an arbitrary number in the first place.

- Want to go again? The SKS rifle, a Soviet precursor to the AK-47... no restrictions in the USA, after an SKS is illegally converted to full auto and used in a shootout with police in California… CA decides this gun is unusually dangerous (it’s not), state wide sales of SKS rifle’s are halted, a registration program is instituted, despite assurances grandfathering will remain allowed, not long later that registry is used to door to door confiscate those rifles. Something the felt comfortable doing because of the small number of registered owners. A single crime with and illegally converted gun directly led to the confiscation of a rifle that is typically less dangerous than common alternatives.

- You gave the example for bump stock ban. Ok, The 1934 National Firearms Act defines that a machine gun is a firearm that fires two or more bullets for every one press of the trigger pull. Bump stocks do not fall under this category in any way, the trigger must be activated multiple times for multiple shots. The ATF approves a product called the Atkins Accelerator; think of it as a bump stock with a spring for 22 rifle, later after approval the ATF decides because it’s spring operated it is a machine gun, they ask for registration, use the registration for confiscation (as is always the plan) - but not of the stock! Only the spring in it. Many years later bump stocks become popular the ATF examines and okays them because it meets no definition machine gun, has no spring for automated actuation, and does nothing an experienced shooter can’t do without the help of that stock. And here we are again, now the ATF has decided that despite no bump stocks being used in crimes, no spring, and despite previous approval, they are now illegal. With no registration there has been no confiscation. Last I heard the number willingly turned in is in the low hundreds, with of hundreds of thousands sold. Possession of a previously legal plastic injection molding, with no change in law, only opinion, has now made you a felon.

- More examples would include ammo shape and metal contents under the entirely arbitrary guise of “armor piercing”, the NFA itself, import restrictions, ITAR continually evolving, the “approved handgun lists” that states have adopted but intentionally failed to maintain, etc

Might have better luck arguing that the slippery slope regarding guns isn’t real, if we didn’t have so many examples of it being so.

Edit: All historical facts.

red_admiral2• 7 years ago

despite no bump stocks being used in crimes

Except for a mass shooting from a hotel window?

EDIT: ok, if you're talking about Australia then I'm not refuting your data. But I can understand why a country that sees news of a mass shooting abroad would ask itself whether that could happen to them too and whether they might want to do anything about it.

existencebox• 7 years ago

A few discrete arguments. First, I don't think it's fair to 1. paint slippery slope paranoia in such a negative light, nor 2. paint all Americans who fear downward trends as being right wing gun nuts.

Let's look at a convenient example from history. The progression of america over the last 200 years is a progression of executive power, and the results have really been a mixed bag. Wilson and Lincoln's powers during wartime, the antiquities act, the 16th amendment, the new deal, wickard v filburn. There has _definitely_ been a slope there, and I feel like a lot of the debates surrounding our current situation as a country could have been preempted many decades ago with a closer eye to this trend. (Obvious examples: Our use of torture as decided by administration lawyers, bulk surveillance, military action exceeding constitutional limits)

Second, on the differences between national sentiment.

Even putting my fears about the future aside, I can say australia has long since crossed a threshold I'd consider unacceptable _in the moment_ in terms of govt. control and censorship, even as early in the 90's with the game censorship, which, to be evenhanded, they DID address to allow MA rating, although a _decade_ later, and still followed by heavy banning of individual games. So to my eyes it's less about slippery slopes and more just an acceptance of a higher level of govt. control. As with my examples of executive power above there are certainly factions in the US pushing for similar in the same way there are Australians opposed, so there's clearly not "some uniquely american bias towards paranoia". My gut feel as well with many of those defending the 2nd amendment is that it's become a tribal thing where the rote arguments that get paraded around are just the rallying cries at this point. (And I say this as someone who would broadly falls on the "less regulation" side of things)

To be precise, Your final point about compromise of a lawyer's role seems reasonable and I don't mean to speak on that as I don't have background to comment; this was entirely to address the characterization at the front and defend the position a little.

slavik81• 7 years ago

As a Canadian, my perceptions of freedom of expression in Australia were probably first set by seeing Australians on gaming forums asking foreigners to buy them copies of Left4Dead. It was rated for ages 17+ in Canada, but by Australian law, all video games had to be suitable for children—there was no adult rating. So, the Australian release was censored.

It's a relatively minor thing, but when I was playing I would occasionally think, "this is illegal in Australia? Really?" I took it as an example of how Australia's governance really is different.

rayiner2• 7 years ago

Americans think every surface is a slippery slope because our society is deeply polarized and the slide down the slope is always a real threat. For example, out of the largest five EU countries, four (Germany, Italy, Spain, and France) have abortion laws generally limited to first trimester, with mandatory waiting periods and counseling being typical. (Germany still has them, France recently got rid of the waiting period.) On paper, those restrictions would be among the strictest in the country if they were in the US. (Alabama and Georgia currently have a 22-week limit, until the heartbeat laws take effect next year.)

But as you can see with the recent push in the US, the goal for a large contingent of people in the US really is the outright elimination of elective abortion. Liberals, correctly, recognize the slippery slope and categorically oppose restrictions, even ones that are common in Europe.

The same dynamic holds for gun control. In liberal circles it’s common to deem the second amendment “obsolete” and declare there is no reason for private gun ownership. Prior to Heller DC law banned ownership of handguns (except ones grandfathered in), and requires rifles and shotguns to be kept disassembled. Licensure procedures have been used as effective bans, with municipalities almost automatically denying applications for a license. Second Amendment advocates, quite reasonably, don’t trust “reasonable restrictions” because they know that the end goal is prohibition.

brokenmachine3• 7 years ago

important question to ask--which I haven't seen the answer to--is did the AFP obtain the source of the leak from the raids or not?

The AFP already knew who the source was!! As I understand it, he confessed before the raids even happened.

plugger• 7 years ago

And his court date is already set. That's what confused me regarding the raids; the AFP already knew who the leaker was before conducting the raid on the ABC. Given that I'm a bit confused as to why the AFP needed to raid the ABC given they already had all the info required to move for a trial and conviction. Finally, the leak happened in 2017 and yet they're only now getting around to raiding the ABC?

Bizarro• 7 years ago

Australia used to have a very good record on individual rights, but in the past 20 years has headed towards authoritarianism. I guess PC/Statist/Collectivist culture has infested Australia too.

rstuart4133• 7 years ago

As others have said it's not really about free speech. What a citizen is allowed to say in public isn't effected by this.

It's not anything particularly new either. Governments have always been pissed off by civil servants leaking things, and there have always been vindictive who rather than find the disgruntled employee and fire them, will lash out in the worst possible way and create more disgruntled employees.

What's changed is technology. Before someone had to tap explicit telephone's, someone had to listen to them. The journo's are just waking up to the fact that when the Australian government gave themselves the power to force the telco's to record the "meta data" about every phone call and web access and store it for two years, and granted themselves unlimited warrantless access to said data keeping your sources from the government became a little more difficult. Not a whole pile more difficult mind you - but you suddenly had to be computer savy. You had to know to use a mail provider out of Australia's jurisdiction. You had to use encrypted communications whose end points didn't reveal who you were talking to. It not complicated, and nothing that Wikileaks hasn't been doing for years, but it's definitely new.

Then we moved onto stage 2 - the Access and Assistance bill, in which the government gave themselves the power to force Microsoft / Google / Apple's / Facebooks of this world to silently install bugs on your phone / computer / tv. The raids being discussed by the article were covered by a warrant that specifically allowed them to delete and change data on the targets computers, which is decidedly weird when you think about it. [0] Surely they aren't planning to present data in court when there is a possibility they planted or modified it? Obviously that wasn't the intention. However replacing keyboard drivers and the like with something that does log data does require you to modify & delete data - so my guess is they were covering their arses. These seems to be little doubt they were planting bugs.

Avoiding the seeing eyes implanted by Assistance and Access bill is a damned sight harder than avoiding meta data collection. Again, not impossible - but now you have to avoid software that knows who you are. Software that is dispensed from centralised app stores that insist on identifying you and your device first is a definite no-go. Android is out, Apple is out, Microsoft is out. In fact most of the computing infrastructure they are comfortable with is out. Linux distributions are OK and open source communication apps like Signal are OK - but only those that have thought about and implemented evil maid protections.

It's all doable, and it's all cheap and once you do it you are even safer then you were pre Assistance and Access bill. But geeze you have to be really tech savy to get it right, and right now they are just waking up to the fact their lives and sources are an have been open book because they didn't do it.

As an aside, if this is the first time we've seen the Assistance and Access bill in action, it's poignant to note despite all the rhetoric of it being needed to keep Australian's safe from terrorists and paedophiles, it was in fact first use by the government against it's own citizens - public servants and journo's in this case.

[0] https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136126140882440193

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