The raid was being live tweeted by an ABC editor, the tweet that stood out the most to me was this:[0]
AFP: I’m still staggered by the power of this warrant. It allows the AFP to “add, copy, delete or alter” material in the ABC’s computers. All Australians, please think about that: as of this moment, the AFP has the power to delete material in the ABC’s computers. Australia 2019.
Yes this stood out to me too. I don't really understand why a warrant would enable alteration. Copying I can wrap my head around, but alteration without oversight seems awful. Hopefully the warrant has more fine print than the journalist implied.
Perhaps they had a ruling in the past that during accessing a computer, things got changed, like the logs. And so now they have to have that in the warrant so that they don't lose their case.
This wasn’t a forensic extraction of data from a recovered hard drive, it was a drag net across email server, file servers, content management systems, wikis, phone records, written notes … basically every form of communication that left any trace.
The ABC staff literally copied all the stuff that might be interesting (found using keyword searches) into a folder, which the ABC legal and AFP investigators went through one by one to determine what was of interest to AFP. The items of interest was then copied to a “sealed” package which the AFP pinky swears nobody will look at for two weeks while the ABC seeks an injunction.
Probably legal completeness. Think about it, log in to a windows computer there is probably an event log that gets updated. While checking browser history the history may be altered. Installing surveillance applications would modify the machine. Etc.
At one large television station I worked for, the policy was to destroy everything after two weeks. The only thing kept was the video that aired. Reporters could keep their own notes, but only on their own devices.
The news director's thinking was "they can't subpoena what we don't have."
This was in a city where the local police would subpoena at the drop of a hat, and used it as a harassment tool. The goal was to keep the subpoena storms from getting in the way of people actually reporting news.
What we saw today was a very real, very visual, and very public display of the power the AFP (Australian Federal Police) are prepared to use to intimidate journalists and their brave sources who worked to expose war crimes. They did this by walking into a building and demanding access to sensitive information held by a news organisation, which had no choice but to comply with the warrant.
But that's not what scares me the most.
What does scare me is the very real prospect of all this being done silently, without any visibility or awareness of the journalists or their employers, without any knowledge of the public, and without any accountability, via electronic spying. The recently-introduced Assistance and Access legislation [1] enables the AFP and intelligence agencies to legally compel tech companies to secretly insert backdoors into their products or services in order to spy on any target, subject to the approval of the Attorney General.
One day this law will be used to collect the same type of information the AFP collected today, without the news organisation, journalists, sources, or public even being aware of it. And anyone unfortunate to find themselves as the recipient of such a technical assistance/capability notice under this law will face jail time for telling anyone about it.
The warrant executed today included the power to "to add, copy, delete or alter other data" [2]. Why, in particular, did they have the power to "alter" data? And what "alterations" might they make in combination with [1] which we will never know about?
I'm quite sure there was a bill passed by parliament allowing federal police and/or security services to "to add, copy, delete or alter other data" when carrying out investigations (and I think this was before the Assisted Access bill was passed to my knowledge, please correct me if I'm wrong though).
This struck me as strange since this goes against the very fundamentals of how people are trained to carry out digital forensics on an individuals devices. I remember studying forensics a little and remember lecturers stating how damn careful they must be, as the data they collect must not be contaminated in any way for it to be admissible in court.
They look different to me. Australia is flexing its anti-speech authority, asserting the power to control what its subjects are allowed to talk about. My hometown cops are engaged in a much more quotidian abuse of power.
Which is not to say ransacking Carmody's place wasn't egregious - it was. Watching the circular firing squad composed of the Mayor, the police chief and the cop-union attack dog just leaves me rooting for injuries.
But ultimately it is a stupidity eruption caused by the cops' arrogant attempts to control their own (garbage) reputation. Our cops are criminals, but not part of a national strategy to shut down speech.
I spent a year working as a cop and I can assure you that cops are in fact normal people. Like any organization or group there is a tribal aspect to it and they will certainly close ranks and attempt to protect their own; however, that is organizational not individual. There is a larger cultural issue involved that drives such misguided organizational behavior.
I think the real problem here is that police, as an organization, has the power to inflict real and considerable harm on those that try to "get in the way". They're not doing sanitation or driving your bus - they can ruin your life or just kill you.
Agreed. There's an elevated responsibility to be more than just "normal people" when you have a gun and a badge. I don't think it's fair to paint in broad strokes, but I do think it's fair to hold police to a higher standard, especially when it comes to tribalism. When it becomes "us vs them" and "us" has guns and state-sanctioned authority, that's a problem.
Read Alex Kozinski and Misha Tseytlin's classic essay "You're (Probably) a Federal Criminal" – http://alex.kozinski.com/articles/Youre_Probably_a_Federal_C... - in the US, there are so many federal crimes, so expansively defined, that almost every adult has probably committed at least one, and the only thing keeping them from prison is that they aren't on some prosecutor's hitlist. And I don't think this is an exclusively American problem either, it is a problem in many other countries too.
It serves the side effect|purpose of making people actionable literally from birth. That is, if some day you become an inconvenient someone for people in power, it's just a matter of finding something you did in the past that can ruin your life Cardinal Richelieu style.
Most people are not cops either. Most cultures (aside from some sometimes vocal subcultures) do appear to consider their abuses unwanted anomalous behaviour.
As it turns out, “normal people in a group with a tribal aspect that closes ranks to defend itself” is ... often very easy to make act in illegal ways.
“Civvies are The Out Group” is a terrible worldview for law enforcement, though a very common one.
> they will certainly close ranks and attempt to protect their own
AKA obstruction of justice. By cops. At an institutional level.
In every other industry, if you are caught breaking the law by a co-worker, you will be thrown under the bus (unless you are an executive or a top-quartile salesperson, because sometimes the money is more important than the justice).
Not all of them are actively abusing citizens or running protection, but the thin blue line means even the "honest" ones tolerate it.
If I were to look the other way while my coworkers abused or stole from people, I would at the very least expect to be fired and not trusted with similar responsibility again. That is what a normal citizen looks like, and I don't think a normal citizen attitude could survive in a cop shop.
There is the additional problem that your criminal cops (and we both know there are plenty of them) don't exactly wear identifying tags, so I have no way of knowing which are which. That means my only strategy is to minimize contact with and distrust all of them.
This is simple: if you want people to respect and work with the police, stop protecting the bad ones.
It seems obvious to me that senior officials should actively lead the organization into not being hostile to the public interest - which this heavy handedness certainly is.
They are meant to serve us, not themselves or the current political party.
"Australia is flexing its anti-speech authority, asserting the power to control what its subjects are allowed to talk about."
The state absolutely has that responsibility, and there isn't even a debate about that in general.
You cannot publish pictures of your naked girlfriend, or private medical records, or private e-mails of some employee of ABC corp, or of some bureaucrat, or of some military technology etc..
There's no debate there.
So then the question becomes - "What information that is nominally protected by law (say for example, classified material), rises to the level of evidence of criminal activity and therefore newsworthy, by law"
That's a razor's edge, and that has to be sorted out if we want to live in a world where our privacy is protected but the at the same time legit crimes are called out.
Wow. How is this not bigger news? I'm on the East Coast and it's the first I'm hearing of it but perhaps someone nearer to SF can comment on whether it's being widely discussed?
Australia has recently had an election that was won (quite unexpectedly due to bad polling) by the incumbent political party (actually a semi-permanent coalition but that’s irrelevant in this case).
Before the election, which the opposition was widely expected to win, there talk of “land mines” being set for the expected new government, intended to destabilise them early on.
In the past week:
* asylum seeker boats from Sri Lanka were intercepted. Boat arrivals are a big issue in Australian politics, and the timing would have placed a new government in a bind
* a flotilla of Chinese warships sailed into Sydney Harbour on a friendly visit catching the public and media by surprise. The visit was approved post-election by the Prime Minister, but was said to be in the works for a while. Again, this would have been a very difficult issue for a new government to deal with.
* These raids on journalists. The first raid, before the ABC was raided was actually on a journalist for News Corp Australia, which had been hostile to the opposition during the election. The optics would have looked terrible if they had won the election, and then their foes raided...it would have been portrayed as payback.
If these raids are really “just” post-electoral land mines firing, they’ll stop soon enough, and won’t represent a fundamental shift in Australia’s freedom of the press. If not, then there is real trouble ahead
The point was not the method of destruction but that they were forced to do it at all, on a questionable legal basis, on computers they were still using (not disposing of).
I'd like to underline this. The Guardian co-workers were forced to perform the entire deletion _themselves_ (!!!)
It is almost like a combination of some kind of forced, unpaid employment (akin to "slavery"), shifting the blame ("you did it yourself"), or retribution ("you abused it, you take care of it"). Very twisted.
> The book, published next week, describes how the Guardian took the decision to destroy its own Macbooks after the government explicitly threatened the paper with an injunction.
They were “forced” but not in that sense. The Graun offered to do this instead, and so GCHQ came along to watch. There is a problem but not with forced labour.
I think the point in the Guardian drive-drilling episode is that they weren't destroying the data. The data was already in numerous copies in other places, and everyone involved knew it, including the people doing the drilling and the people who had ordered it.
I was hired to re-write the internal ERP as well as adding new features plus bring everything up to date as well as run the servers and all the other stuff, I'm an army of one basically, varied job, nice people and 9-5 - can't fault it.
Implying that one illegal example in San Francisco by local police, means that it is a common procedure in the US that is being applied "within our own borders," is absurd.
A given unit of police can do any given illegal thing, that doesn't make it common or mean that it's going to become common.
It's important to note that Australia does not have a bill of rights. Victora (Melbourne) has a Charter of Human Rights. Although Australian courts have held freedoms of protest and press in the past, technically the Crown does have the legal power to control and censor communications.
Why are the BBC quoting the BBC's opinion on this? Are the BBC making a political opinion statement about the police in another country?
The BBC have always loved to report about themselves and often literally interview themselves. It's not unusual for them to report about their own report of an interview between themselves and one of their own executives. But this is become really bizarre now.
Because the BBC News operation try and maintain an editorial firewall between itself and the rest of the corporation. In this case BBC News reporting that a UK broadcaster (the BBC) feels the attack on ABC is worrying is relevant to the story.
The ABC was modelled after the BBC and still has a lot of similarities with the BBC [1]. It makes sense that the BBC has an opinion on this and is quoted.
No, it’s totally non-obvious to me that this would be the case. It seems frankly ridiculous that you would think they shouldn’t - particularly when there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest partiality in this case.
The BBC news organisation often reports on statements or events affecting themselves or other parts of the organisation. Most high-quality news sources do the same. If anything, I’d actually expect them to be taking even more care than normal to avoid bias when they do so.
An opinion is not an article. A news organization may report an opinion, factually, as part of an article, if it is relevant, even if the source of the opinion is themselves. It makes perfect sense to me.
I don't think the BBC should give any political opinion on any news story, ever.
But if they want to, why don't they report the story and include their opinion straightforwardly? Why do they resort to the mental gymnastics of issuing an opinion and then reporting on that opinion as a new story as if it's a separate thing? Makes me think they know it's wrong so they contort themselves like this to do it.
The BBC (organisation) is giving the opinion. BBC News (an independent division within the organisation) is reporting on it, likely in the interests of full transparency.
The BBC has certain obligations, one of which is "sustaining citizenship and civil society"[1], of which freedom of the press falls under. So in this case, I'd argue they're obligated to defend it by giving their opinion, especially when it's happening to a fellow public broadcaster (the ABC).
Their charter also requires them to a reflect a diversity of opinion. Literally quoting your own opinion first is the worst approach to diversity of opinion I can imagine.
That's because you don't understand what "opinions" are (at least, in this context).
News stories should be brief and answer "5W" questions (who, what, when, where, why). As such, they're supposed to be based on the facts alone, and others should draw their own conclusions from them.
Opinions, on the other hand, are used to put the news stories into context. Journalists are supposed to have more background to the stories than you could learn from just reading the facts (since they're the ones that wrote them). That background can be used to help you interpret those facts.
In this case, an incident happened. BBC put out an opinion piece to tell you why you should care about that incident before they had enough facts to answer all five of those questions. A news story links to that opinion so that they could help you with placing those answers into context.
Bottom line for me is - I know the BBC have already made up their mind that this is an attack on press freedoms rather than a legitimate investigation, so I’m now not going to be holding my breath for them to report any developments that are contrary to that view.
"I came up with this strawman that people close to the situation didn't think of (probably because it isn't even close to being true), so I'm going to hold on my own strawman argument even though I have absolutely nothing to base it on."
There, fixed that for you.
Could it be that you're misinterpreting facts? No, it must be that those who have access to first- and second-hand accounts that are wrong. Not you, a person pulling out a hypothesis based off of less info nor any contact with any of the parties in the story.
I don’t know why people think it’s extreme to say that I don’t want my public broadcaster quoting their own opinions in the news reports. The article would have been complete without a quote from themselves, or could have used a quote from someone else qualified. Really easy solutions.
The ABC is funded mainly by the Australian government and appointments to the ABC Board made by the government [1]. The funding is currently around $1 billion a year [2].
Just for any international friends. The ABC is a cesspit of communist propaganda and leftist journalism unresearched or based in any science. Also they are owned by the government, so the government can effectively do what they want in this regard, they own it.
Neither part of the above comment is accurate. I’m on mobile at work but feel it’s important to clarify that not only is the ABC independently rated as highly factual, the government does not have direct editorial control. The comment or above is also stating that the ABC is a communist cesspit at the behest of a conservative government - i.e. nonsense.
I'm getting a bit sick of journalists acting like they should be above the law. This comes across as though it's an audacious abuse of authority for any law enforcement official to even think about stepping foot into a media companies office. No, you are subject to criminal investigation just like anyone else is.
I'm always amazed how qickly the media closes ranks when one of their own is perceived to be under attack. The outcry is always from other journalists.
Australia does not have any constitutional protections of press freedom (or freedom of speech for that matter). So draconian laws limiting press freedom can be passed without any recourse for the public.
Being able to forcefully disclose a journalists sources would not be permitted anywhere else in the world. We need reforms, not cow-towing to these disgusting authoritarian tactics.
Not to mention that this is clearly political. This comes on the eve of an election, and is related to articles published ~2 years ago. Not to mention the most recent article in question described alleged war crimes by the Australian military. But there's no legal investigation into that law breaking, all that matters is that the whistleblower is arrested and made an example of.
I hope we one day see an anti-corruption commission and pass laws protecting whistleblowers and a free press. But it's going to be a long road.
I don't necessarily disagree with your larger point, but there are at least two important factual errors here:
* Australia does have an implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_constitutional_law#...
* The federal election was on May 18, this search was on June 4th, well after the election. If anything, the AFP may have waited long enough to ensure this did not affect the election.
> Australia does have an implied constitutional right to freedom of political communication
Yes, I am aware of that but it's simply not sufficient. While there are the 1992 interpretations, there has been significant evidence that the High Court is handcuffed by the lack of language in the constitution about individual freedom. There are also many subsequent cases where the protection was not granted.
But lets not forget that "freedom of political communication" comes from the fact that any Australian has the right to run as a political candidate and discuss political ideas. It's already an incredibly stretched usage of the intentuon of the preamble of the constitution.
Lets also not forget that the Liberal government tried to make it a crime (punishable with 5 years imprisonment) to post YouTube videos that have government logos in them -- unless they constituted "genuine satire". The fact that "freedom of political communication" didn't kill the idea from the outset tells you how weak the protection really is.
> The federal election was on May 18, this search was on June 4th, well after the election. If anything, the AFP may have waited long enough to ensure this did not affect the election.
I didn't say that their actions affect the election, I said it was political. If they really thought this was purely about justice they would've conducted the raids last year, but they conducted them ~2 weeks after the election now that the Liberal government is back in power again with a majority. Dutton and Morrison claim that they have nothing to do with it, but that's complete bullshit -- the AFP are now being run by Home Affairs (Dutton's turf). Police generally don't start prosecuting whistleblowers without government pressure.
"Being able to forcefully disclose a journalists sources would not be permitted anywhere else in the world." -- China would like to have a word with you, prehaps..
Right, Australia has no bill of rights. The State of Victoria (Melbourne) has a charter of human rights, but I don't think it's binding. Australia courts have held up freedoms of protest and press in the past, but technically the Crown does control all communication. New Zealand has an official office of censor.
The High Court (of Australia) has made a fair few great decisions that are related to implied rights within the constitution, but it's pretty clear that they've already stretched the wording very considerably. They can't just enshrine rights which we take for granted in our everyday lives as being constitutional, because that would invalidate their authority as being the final source of truth for constitutional questions.
There is a research paper published in 1998 by the Australian Parliament which outlines the many arguments why we need stronger constitutional rights[1]. Unfortunately, we have had a referendum on this topic before and it was categorically refused[2] (though the constitutional amendment being proposed was incredibly weak and that might've been the reason it was refused).
In the US at least, press freedom is greater than simply freedom of speech (according to case law), and this is by design. Information of significant public interest shouldn't be censored.
And I'm getting a bit sick of my country committing war crimes and trying to cover them up (which was the subject of the story the raids related to).
I think it's more important for those responsible for the cold-blooded murder of innocent civilians to be publicly held to account than for the government's "right" to keep those killings secret, even if the law favors the latter.
Australia, one of the most open, free and fair places in the world, into which millions are trying to migrate because of this ... is now a 'right wing authoritarian state'?
I think we need to look at the specific information in question.
FYI here's a summary of Australia shield laws [1] (sorry, it's not very good)
> Australia, one of the most open, free and fair places in the world
I'm not sure what Australia you live in.
We are currently torturing asylum seekers, with unlimited detention periods (the only nation on earth who allows this). A recent whistleblower that showed corruption within the ATO (to Americans: the IRS) is facing charges that would land him with 160 years in prison. We've neglected and abused the native population to the point that Aboriginal teenager suicide rates are among the highest in the world. Our education system is failing to the point where our education system has the same standards as third world nations -- we rank lower in science and maths than Kazakhstan. In 2015, laws were passed to punish whistleblowers, journalists, AND THE PUBLIC if ASIO (Americans: the NSA) information becomes public. We are the only nation on earth to pass draconian anti-privacy laws that other nations' leaders can only dream of. We don't have any laws guaranteeing freedom of speech, privacy, or any other freedoms we take for granted -- and we are the only western democracy where this is the case.
Don't get me wrong, I hope Australia does get better -- after all, I deeply want it to because I've grown up here. But if you think that the Australia of today is in any way "one of the most open, free and fair places in the world" you're simply mistaken. Yes it's better than living in Saudi Arabia but that shouldn't be an accomplishment.
"We are currently torturing asylum seekers, with unlimited detention periods (the only nation on earth who allows this)." - China would love a word with you..
There have been numerous attempts to have independent investigations of the abuses in Nauru and Manus Island and they've been blocked many times by the government. There is also evidence of child rape by the guards of these modern-day internment camps, with no resolution that I've hear of by the government.
The government is not interested in investigating these hideous abuses and conditions at all. In fact they were trying to find the whistleblowers (probably to prosecute them) rather than investigating the allegations of rape and torture[1].
What a misguided comment. There are no "sides" here. Unless you think that any criticism of journalistic practices puts me on "the other team". Grow up!
It seems I can't reply to your other comment, so I'll address it here:
>Journalists should know that if they walk the fine line between legal and illegal then they run the risk of being investigated.
Sure, no disagreements there.
>If they're confident they're on the right side of the law then they have little to worry about.
This is not the issue, the issue here is clearly intimidation by government entities that wish to silence the media. Right side of the law doesn't matter to the law if you have the right dirt. The right dirt will get your killed.
>What I take exception to is their attitude, as if it's some great affront to decency and democracy that they should come under any kind of scrutiny.
It certainly is a great affront to decency and democracy when the work the journalists are involved in is exposing behavior unfitting for the government. We're not talking about twitter accounts being suspended for saying unsavory things, we're talking about large organizations being raided by the entities they are investigating. Clearly these are distinct situations.
>I don't see many people hurling childish insults on HN, but here you are.
I call it like I see it. People like you are the reason that so much of our world is non-transparent. You might be ok with that, I am not.
So, if journalists catch wind of the government being involved in illegal activity, they should just sit down and shut up because it's not their place to publish it. Don't see bootlickers too often on HN, but here you are.
Journalists should know that if they walk the fine line between legal and illegal then they run the risk of being investigated. If they're confident they're on the right side of the law then they have little to worry about. What I take exception to is their attitude, as if it's some great affront to decency and democracy that they should come under any kind of scrutiny.
I don't see many people hurling childish insults on HN, but here you are.
You can't go ahead and publish for example the locations of US ballistic missile sites and say 'hey, freedom of expression'.
The real problem lies where information is considered classified, but at the same time, there's a legit case to be made for whistle blowing.
I don't think Manning's leaks actually constitute whistle blowing, and while much of Snowden's data certainly did, a lot of the other data definitely did not, ergo there's possibility for real crime there.
Agree or disagree with that - it's basically going to be up to the journalist to have to decided if it's truly whistle blowing or not, which can only be found in courts at a later date.
So it's a tough one.
It's also tough to establish in 2019 who constitutes 'journalist'.
I wish there were a system we could put in place for this.
What a load of strawman arguments, whataboutery and general rubbish. Of course it's possible to have untrammelled freedom of speech. It may have downsides in many cases, but perhaps that is a price worth paying. Also, in what way does exposing the murder of innocent civilians by Manning not count as whistleblowing? Finally, why should free speech protections be restricted to journalists?
1)"Of course it's possible to have untrammelled freedom of speech. It may have downsides in many cases, but perhaps that is a price worth paying."
No, totally false. There's a considerable amount of information that you cannot publish. Both information managed by the state, and information that is private to individuals and organizations.
There's a considerable amount of information that many individuals would like to publish that definitely does not constitute 'whistle blowing'.
It's not a 'straw man argument' because the issue is relevant every day to journalists trying to make this decision.
There's considerable consternation among even major/professional media outlets about what parts of leaks they can publish, what they can't, moreover, there are entities (i.e. bloggers) who'd just publish whatever, whenever, without considering the consequences if they didn't have to.
So sorry, you can't publish pictures of your naked girlfriend, or private medical records of employees, or many state secrets.
2) Manning published gigabytes of data for which he had no knowledge of the contents - this is not 'whistle blowing', moreover, his publication of the video journalists dying in a war zone does not fit this description either.
Nobody has the right to enter into a firefight in the most dangerous location in the world, and to not inform the combatants (as per protocol) and expect that they will be treated with the normal rules of application of violence in a civilian area.
Of course, were the journalists were to have informed the US forces of their intentions, they would have been told to 'absolutely not enter because your safety will be ensured'.
The video shows the folly of individuals who think they can just walk into a war zone with cameras. There was no crime.
3) "Finally, why should free speech protections be restricted to journalists?"
Well, first consider that 'shield laws' as they exist generally only apply to journalists, so take that up with the government, but it hints at my point which is that the 'rules are vague'.
Your understanding of 'freedom of speech' as conveyed by your comment seems to be flawed: nobody ever had the right to publish 'whatever' under the guise of 'freedom of speech'.
Summary:
- There is information that cannot be published, there is no debate here.
- The rules at to what can be published is unclear.
- The 'shield laws' are vague, and especially the terms of what constitutes 'journalist' is vague, further complicating things.
So if we want the journalists to be able to 'do their jobs' we may need better, clearer regulation.
AFP: I’m still staggered by the power of this warrant. It allows the AFP to “add, copy, delete or alter” material in the ABC’s computers. All Australians, please think about that: as of this moment, the AFP has the power to delete material in the ABC’s computers. Australia 2019.
[0]https://twitter.com/TheLyonsDen/status/1136124130204442624