
Australia outlaws warrant canaries - r0h1n
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian-government-minister-dodge-new-data-retention-law-like-this/
======
steven2012
What happened in the last few years to allow our civil rights in the most
forward thinking countries to unravel so easily? And why do citizens not care?
How is it possible that all countries have elected such a group of corrupt,
nearsighted politicians to the point where freedom is an inconvenience over
them consolidating practically dictatorial power? And again, why does no one
care?

~~~
e40
_And why do citizens not care?_

This is the real mystery. I can't count the number of times I've had
conversations with smart people that just don't seem to care. After the
PATRIOT ACT was passed I was livid and knew it would be used for non-terrorism
things. As we know now, it's mostly used for non-terrorism. People would look
at me like I had some tin foil on my head. It couldn't even get people to talk
about it. (Lest readers think I'm sort of conversational pariah, I don't
recall any other subject that causes this effect.)

~~~
cpt1138
What does "care" mean in your mind? You say were you livid and you expressed
your lividity by talking to people? I think a lot of people "care" they are
just not given anything actionable to do. Expressing impotent rage on FB is
not really helping AFAICT.

~~~
e40
_Expressing impotent rage on FB is not really helping AFAICT._

Very nice straw man. I didn't mention FB. And these were conversations in
person.

~~~
throwaway0u43
And yet, all you did is talk. That is the parent's point. You talked. Maybe
you voted for the _other_ puppet of the elites that is ideologically 0.3%
different from the current puppet. Maybe you convinced your interlocutors to
do the same.

But participation in the farce of modern democracy is exactly what you're
intended to do. You somehow feel like your talking or voting matters. It
doesn't.

I'm no different, of course. Our lives are too comfortable. There is only one
form of political action that ever works to depose despots, and it's a form
that's not worth interrupting our comfortable lives to engage in.

At the end of the day, you need to either take _real_ action, or accept that
you're too comfortable with your affluent life to risk losing your comforts,
and enjoy these comforts without complaint. You've chosen this path, as have
I, as have we all.

Life is too good to meaningfully rock the boat.

------
tempodox
_the Australian government made the usual argument that metadata needs to be
retained for long periods in order to fight terrorism and serious crime—even
though the German experience is that, in practice, data retention does not
help_

Which only goes to show that it's not about fighting crime, but supporting it
on the highest levels. Civil rights and the rule of law are obstacles to the
coming rule of institutionalised crime, so they have to be abolished.

~~~
hahainternet
I'm embarrassed to be on the same site as nonsense like this getting posted
honestly.

~~~
abandonliberty
That's rather closed minded of you. If you don't want to be bothered by
differing perspectives, there are plenty of echo chamber outlets for you to
choose from so we can further distance and alienate ourselves from each other.

Homophobia, racism, politics - everything gets better when we share openly.

------
mnw21cam
Cool. So, if I was to publicly announce "I have never been given a warrant
demanding I hand over data by the Australian government", then I will have
committed a crime attracting a two year prison sentence, and I should never
visit the country?

~~~
nmc
Yes.

At least, that is how it reads. We will have to see how it gets enforced.

~~~
pc2g4d
How strong is Australia's right to free speech?

~~~
a_bonobo
Australia has interesting laws in that case, and they're not very good:

>Australia does not have explicit freedom of speech in any constitutional or
statutory declaration of rights, with the exception of political speech which
is protected from criminal prosecution at common law per Australian Capital
Television Pty Ltd v Commonwealth. There is however an implied freedom of
speech that was recognised in Lange v Australian Broadcasting Corporation[48]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#A...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#Australia)

------
rsync
The warrant canary is not a solution to the problem of secret legal actions.
It's merely a protest.

As we see the warrant canary idea institutionalized - with companies like
Apple and Twitter adopting them to a certain degree, and cataloguing them on
sites like canary watch[1] we are falling down a rabbit hole of speech about
speech (and speech about speech about speech, etc.).

The real issue is NSLs and other secret warrants. These are older than you
might think. Look up PRTT (pen register trap and trace, for telephones, which
can be served with a gag order) or the All Writs Act. This is what we need to
be working against, and this is what falls to the background as we find new
and better ways to run our warrant canaries.

I am guilty of this.[2]

[1] [https://canarywatch.org/](https://canarywatch.org/)

[2]
[http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt](http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt)

~~~
shit_parade
Yes, people and companies need to openly defy unjust laws. NSLs should
immediately be published upon receipt and litigated against.

------
msandford
The article linked in the article about how to dodge these new laws has some
particularly asinine advice:

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian-
govern...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/03/australian-government-
minister-dodge-new-data-retention-law-like-this/)

The guy says "just use skype" because then the telco doesn't know who you're
calling, just that you called skype.

Sure, because there's NO POSSIBLE WAY for Skype to get a subpoena, right?

~~~
nl
_Sure, because there 's NO POSSIBLE WAY for Skype to get a subpoena, right?_

But that's exactly the point!!

Subpoenas and warrants require due process and probable cause (especially in
the case of Skype, which is cross borders). The data retention regime - for
the most part - removes that and requires nothing more than a (possibly
automated) request.

~~~
msandford
There's an easy fix for that.

"We have classified your service (Skype, whatever) as 'telecommunications' and
unless you give us this stuff without a warrant we're going to start arresting
your folks in-country and work on extraditing your executives"

Due process averted.

~~~
nl
Yeah, except we (Australia) never, ever try to exert any power over a US based
company.

(Actually, Skype would be under the telecommunications act if they were
Australian anyway. See
[http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/9.%20Overview%3A%20Impac...](http://www.alrc.gov.au/publications/9.%20Overview%3A%20Impact%20of%20Developing%20Technology%20on%20Privacy/voice-
over-internet-protocol))

------
phkahler
Does anyone have a nice SVG image of a canary? Or it illegal to put that on a
website?

~~~
llamataboot
Not sure why were downvoted here. It does seem that there is some plausible
deniability about having a picture on your website that may or may not have
anything to do with warrants that could still convey information to those
looking for it.

~~~
macspoofing
Lawyers aren't idiots. Judges aren't idiots. Lawmakers aren't idiots. If a law
says you cannot disclose a government request, then trying to get around the
injunction by playing games isn't going to do anything for you.

~~~
BonsaiDen
Thing is though, this and stuff like "hand over the keys to that encrypted
data" are really easy ways of getting just about everyone into prison.

I could for example argue that you, by changing the profile picture on your
blog, have used a warrant canary too. Do you have any way of proving that you
didn't? You certainly can't argue that you don't need one (this would imply
you haven't receive a NSL which would be a warrant canary statement in
itself), you can still argue that you haven't used your profile picture as
one, but then we're back to square one, with them saying "You have!"

If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way.

~~~
phkahler
>> If the government wants you in prison, they'll find a way.

The issue isn't that they want people in prison. The issue is that they don't
want people to know what they're doing, and they're resorting to the threat of
prison to keep people quiet. It's actually perfectly reasonable to try to
prevent the "bad guys" from knowing what they're up to or what their methods
are, but that is getting to be more and more in conflict with peoples desire
for transparency and in some cases peoples explicit rights - to free speech
and privacy in US for example.

This raises an interesting question to me, as I see similarities in many other
places where conflicts of different types tend to escalate to absurd levels.
Do people just default to yelling louder, pushing harder, more of whatever?
Why does this keep happening?

------
jchrisa
Someone should make a website where you can check off a list of countries you
want to be barred from, and then it sends out an illegal tweet for each
country.

------
VonGuard
Australia is officially the only place in the world where the laws and
technological restrictions make me never want to go there. Bandwidth is
capped, porn is filtered, videogames cost a ridiculous amount. I know the
country was founded by criminals, but I didn't realize they still ran the
place.

~~~
mercurial
Enjoy your world tour of such havens of freedom as most of the Middle East,
North Korea, Cuba...

Obviously, the current Australian government is a disaster in many areas, but
there are a large number of places which are considerably worse.

~~~
papaf
Maybe the Australian tourist board could adopt the slogan, "Australia, not as
bad as North Korea".

Or maybe the Australian people could aim a little higher?

------
blueskin_
Australia seems to be leading the world in oppression in a way even the US has
yet to manage.

~~~
masmullin
Australia is entirely peopled with criminals, and criminals are used to having
people not trust them, as you are not trusted by me, so I can clearly not
choose the wine in front of you.

~~~
masmullin
Just wondering if I was downvoted because people don't get the joke (it's a
famous quote from the Princess Bride) and thought I was calling all
Australians criminals? Or because humour has no place on HN?

~~~
ScottBurson
You need to provide a reference to a peer-reviewed study proving that your
joke is funny.

------
moyix
I'm honestly surprised they had to make a law against it. It has always seemed
to me that warrant canaries would not survive their first contact with the
judicial system; it's a clear attempt to circumvent the intent of the law
through a technical loophole. Judges aren't stupid and they tend to not look
very kindly on such legal "hacks".

(Related: [http://xkcd.com/1494/](http://xkcd.com/1494/))

------
JulianMorrison
Can we just all agree that governments, all of 'em, are the damn enemy?

------
ashmud
This also puts Australia on the blacklist for hosting a VPN service, if they
were not already, I assume.

~~~
duskwuff
Prohibitive bandwidth costs already made it a very poor location for one.

~~~
sasas
Torguard has a VPN gateway to Australia.

------
lowbloodsugar
I have not been served with a warrant. In so saying, I have just committed a
crime? WTF

~~~
Veedrac
This should be meme-ified: #IHaveNotBeenServedWithAWarrant.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://boingboing.net/2015/03/26/australia-outlaws-
warrant-c...](http://boingboing.net/2015/03/26/australia-outlaws-warrant-
cana.html), which points to this.

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shit_parade
Nothing will change until people stop complying with government demands.

