Người Mỹ, đang khốn đốn với bạo lực an ninh cảnh sát. Giờ đây Anh và Úc đang vận động thông qua luật an ninh truy tố ký giả báo chí nào dám đăng tải những thông tin KHÔNG ĐƯỢC NHÀ NƯỚC CHÍNH PHỦ QUI ĐỊNH...
Riêng Úc, an ninh cảnh sát có thêm quyền thẩm tra không cần trát tòa và buộc người dân phải trả lời tất cả các câu hỏi không được quyền giữ im lặng hay có luật sư bên cạnh như trước đây nữa.
Lời nhận định của Jefferson đúng hơn bao giờ hết vào thời điểm này:
"Khi quần chúng nhân dân không còn lưu tâm đến việc xã hội, thì tất cả chính trị gia, dân biểu, chánh án v.v sẽ trở thành chó sói"...
Nền Tự Do Báo Chí Âu Mỹ Úc coi như Cáo Chung .. và quần chúng tê liệt không phản ứng!
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Journalists and whistleblowers will go to jail under new national security laws
There was no concerted campaign, no unified push by the media to stop this bill, which dramatically expands the powers of intelligence agencies while creating new offences for disclosing information about their operations
Journalists will be jailed. It might take a year, or two, or even longer. But journalists and whistleblowers will face prison as a result of the first tranche of national security legislation that was passed in the Senate late on Thursday.
And they laughed as they did it. As the Coalition, Labor and the Palmer United party voted in favour of this bill, which dramatically expands the powers of intelligence agencies while creating new offences for disclosing information about the operations they will undertake with these new powers, there was a jovial air in the chamber.
It’s a bill that makes many broad changes to our intelligence gathering apparatus. It introduces a class of “special intelligence operation” for Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) missions where intelligence officers can gain immunity from using force or committing other offences.
Reporting of these operations, which could foreseeably lead to situations where a public disclosure would be in the public interest, could land journalists and whistleblowers in jail. And not just journalists, but any person who shares or republishes this material. In addition, harsher penalties are put in place for intelligence whistleblowers who take documents or records and disclose them, partly as a response to the disclosures made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
So how would these laws work? We have many examples of intelligence reporting that could be caught within the scope of such an offence. Say, for instance, the bugging of East Timorese leaders during their negotiations with Australians were to happen today. If it were declared a ‘special intelligence operation’ – a process which only involves approval from the attorney general – reporting of the fact this bugging occurred, the details around it, the nature of the surveillance, could be caught within the scope of this offence. The same could equally apply for reporting the Indonesian president’s phone was targeted by Australian intelligence agencies, if it were declared a special operation.
Among Asio’s other new powers is the ability to obtain massive warrants for effectively the whole of the internet. They also create new powers for Asio to conduct “optical surveillance” without a warrant. There are many other small expansions that lead to a general widening of the powers of our intelligence agencies.
These are serious changes and they warrant serious scrutiny. But the passage of the bill has been all too easy. After it was initially introduced into the Senate it was quickly referred to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security. This committee is dominated by Coalition and Labor senators – the Greens senator Scott Ludlam and independent MP Andrew Wilkie lost their places after the last election.
As a result of this, the committee’s recommendations were weak. It made just 17 recommendations – remarkably, only seven of these actually suggest changes to the bill itself. Four were changes to the explanatory memorandum, while the remainder were suggestions surrounding oversight by the inspector general of intelligence and security – oh, and one was a helpful reminder that the government should re-appoint an independent national security legislation monitor, an office they initially planned to scrap.
The catch-all disclosure offence for special intelligence operations remained, with some minor suggestions for change. There was a recommendation to clarify that “recklessness” is the mental element required to commit the offence. A note was also suggested in the explanatory memorandum that the public prosecutor needed to consider the public interest before commencing a prosecution. This should be little comfort to any of us, when the options existed to have a real public interest defence, or simply not have the offence at all.
Earlier this week the Senate began debating the bill. The government’s amendments sailed through. Labor capitulated almost entirely on these enhanced powers – and, disappointingly, on the disclosure offence as well. Despite the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, initially saying the government would “need to make changes to remove that consequence” if journalists could face prosecution, the fact is the consequence still potentially exists.
Scott Ludlam fought hard to keep the debate going, and moved a series of amendments that would have protected journalists and whistleblowers, wind back some of the broad new computer warrant powers and increase oversight of Asio.
“I simply do not believe and cannot in good conscience vote, particularly in the climate that we’re in, for continued and relentless expansion of powers for these agencies at a time when the only person who the Australian government had established … to investigate whether the laws that we already have are necessary and proportionate has said in many cases they are not,” he said.
Ludlam spent considerable time questioning how the laws would work and whether they were appropriately crafted – what the limits of the computer warrant powers were, how the disclosure offences would apply – and he was accused of filibustering by the attorney general. Independent senator Nick Xenophon and Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm also raised many serious questions about the scope of the powers being granted.
But in the end the bill passed. Only the Greens, Leyonhjelm, John Madigan and Xenophon refused to support the amended laws.
Brandis, in a late night third-reading speech, said: “What we have achieved tonight is to ensure that those who protect us, particularly in a newly danger age, have the strong powers and capabilities that they need.”
Really, we can only blame ourselves. Could all journalists, collectively, have done more than throw together a handful of submissions? Most major news organisations in Australia raised concerns about the bill and the new offences. But there was no concerted campaign, no unified push to stop these disclosure offences succeeding. We’re now stuck with these laws, probably until someone is made an example of to spur journalists into action.
There is a small comfort in all of this and that is that the laws simply won’t work as a deterrent. They won’t discourage whistleblowers. And they won’t discourage fearless journalists from reporting on our intelligence agencies when it is in the public interest to do so. The disclosures by whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning – and the reporters who told these stories – have shown us that people are willing to take extraordinary actions, at great personal risk, when they believe it is necessary to do so.
It will just mean that some of them will go to jail.
====And they laughed as they did it. As the Coalition, Labor and the Palmer United party voted in favour of this bill, which dramatically expands the powers of intelligence agencies while creating new offences for disclosing information about the operations they will undertake with these new powers, there was a jovial air in the chamber.
It’s a bill that makes many broad changes to our intelligence gathering apparatus. It introduces a class of “special intelligence operation” for Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) missions where intelligence officers can gain immunity from using force or committing other offences.
Reporting of these operations, which could foreseeably lead to situations where a public disclosure would be in the public interest, could land journalists and whistleblowers in jail. And not just journalists, but any person who shares or republishes this material. In addition, harsher penalties are put in place for intelligence whistleblowers who take documents or records and disclose them, partly as a response to the disclosures made by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
So how would these laws work? We have many examples of intelligence reporting that could be caught within the scope of such an offence. Say, for instance, the bugging of East Timorese leaders during their negotiations with Australians were to happen today. If it were declared a ‘special intelligence operation’ – a process which only involves approval from the attorney general – reporting of the fact this bugging occurred, the details around it, the nature of the surveillance, could be caught within the scope of this offence. The same could equally apply for reporting the Indonesian president’s phone was targeted by Australian intelligence agencies, if it were declared a special operation.
Among Asio’s other new powers is the ability to obtain massive warrants for effectively the whole of the internet. They also create new powers for Asio to conduct “optical surveillance” without a warrant. There are many other small expansions that lead to a general widening of the powers of our intelligence agencies.
These are serious changes and they warrant serious scrutiny. But the passage of the bill has been all too easy. After it was initially introduced into the Senate it was quickly referred to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security. This committee is dominated by Coalition and Labor senators – the Greens senator Scott Ludlam and independent MP Andrew Wilkie lost their places after the last election.
As a result of this, the committee’s recommendations were weak. It made just 17 recommendations – remarkably, only seven of these actually suggest changes to the bill itself. Four were changes to the explanatory memorandum, while the remainder were suggestions surrounding oversight by the inspector general of intelligence and security – oh, and one was a helpful reminder that the government should re-appoint an independent national security legislation monitor, an office they initially planned to scrap.
The catch-all disclosure offence for special intelligence operations remained, with some minor suggestions for change. There was a recommendation to clarify that “recklessness” is the mental element required to commit the offence. A note was also suggested in the explanatory memorandum that the public prosecutor needed to consider the public interest before commencing a prosecution. This should be little comfort to any of us, when the options existed to have a real public interest defence, or simply not have the offence at all.
Earlier this week the Senate began debating the bill. The government’s amendments sailed through. Labor capitulated almost entirely on these enhanced powers – and, disappointingly, on the disclosure offence as well. Despite the shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, initially saying the government would “need to make changes to remove that consequence” if journalists could face prosecution, the fact is the consequence still potentially exists.
Scott Ludlam fought hard to keep the debate going, and moved a series of amendments that would have protected journalists and whistleblowers, wind back some of the broad new computer warrant powers and increase oversight of Asio.
“I simply do not believe and cannot in good conscience vote, particularly in the climate that we’re in, for continued and relentless expansion of powers for these agencies at a time when the only person who the Australian government had established … to investigate whether the laws that we already have are necessary and proportionate has said in many cases they are not,” he said.
Ludlam spent considerable time questioning how the laws would work and whether they were appropriately crafted – what the limits of the computer warrant powers were, how the disclosure offences would apply – and he was accused of filibustering by the attorney general. Independent senator Nick Xenophon and Liberal Democratic senator David Leyonhjelm also raised many serious questions about the scope of the powers being granted.
But in the end the bill passed. Only the Greens, Leyonhjelm, John Madigan and Xenophon refused to support the amended laws.
Brandis, in a late night third-reading speech, said: “What we have achieved tonight is to ensure that those who protect us, particularly in a newly danger age, have the strong powers and capabilities that they need.”
Really, we can only blame ourselves. Could all journalists, collectively, have done more than throw together a handful of submissions? Most major news organisations in Australia raised concerns about the bill and the new offences. But there was no concerted campaign, no unified push to stop these disclosure offences succeeding. We’re now stuck with these laws, probably until someone is made an example of to spur journalists into action.
There is a small comfort in all of this and that is that the laws simply won’t work as a deterrent. They won’t discourage whistleblowers. And they won’t discourage fearless journalists from reporting on our intelligence agencies when it is in the public interest to do so. The disclosures by whistleblowers like Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning – and the reporters who told these stories – have shown us that people are willing to take extraordinary actions, at great personal risk, when they believe it is necessary to do so.
It will just mean that some of them will go to jail.
===
Asio welcomes proposal for 'coercive questioning' powers in security laws
Parliamentary inquiry submission makes case for wider powers to detain without charge and jail people for refusing to answer questions
Asio will gain broader powers to secretly detain Australians without charge and conduct “coercive questioning”, even when less intrusive measures are available, under proposed national security laws.
In a submission to the parliamentary inquiry examining the federal government’s second tranche of national security legislation, Asio welcomed the changes and noted that a previous requirement to exhaust other methods of collecting intelligence first had been softened.
The bill seeks to substantially increase the powers of the security agency and police to detain people without charge.
It would extend the controversial preventive detention order, control order and Asio questioning and detention regimes for 10 years, and lower the thresholds for obtaining the different orders.
Under the current scheme Asio may detain and question a person without charge for up to seven days, during which time refusing to answer questions may lead to imprisonment. People can essentially be held without contact with the outside world, may lose the right to silence and may be subject to coercive questioning.
The former independent national security legislation monitor Bret Walker recommended the regime be abolished as a result of concerns about its use.
Currently the extraordinary powers can be used only as a last resort, if the attorney general believes less intrusive methods of gathering intelligence will not be effective.
The new laws, if passed, would allow the attorney general to grant a warrant for the use of the orders in a much broader range of circumstances, when it is reasonable to do so.
In its submission, Asio wrote: “The new threshold will require the attorney general, in making this assessment, to have regard to whether there are other methods of collecting the intelligence sought to be collected under the warrant, and whether those other methods are likely to be as effective.
“The existence of other, less intrusive methods of obtaining the intelligence will continue to be a relevant but non-determinative consideration in decisions.”
Asio rejected Walker’s assessment that the regime was unnecessary, and wrote that there were “realistic and credible circumstances in which it may be necessary to conduct coercive questioning of a person for the purposes of gathering intelligence about a terrorism offence”.
Asio has never sought a questioning and detention warrant – questioning warrants alone have been sought only 16 times. Asio wrote that in the “current environment” the powers “will continue to play an important role in intelligence collection”.
Oversight of the regime would be limited. The inspector general of intelligence and security, Vivienne Thom, noted in her submission to the inquiry that the attorney general’s decisions were not subject to review by her office.
University of Sydney law professor Ben Saul and the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law both lodged submissions expressing serious concerns about the extension of the regime.
Saul wrote: “ASIO detention powers should be repealed, not extended. Detaining non-suspects for up to seven days, virtually incommunicado and without effective review at the time, removing the right to silence on penalty of imprisonment, and criminalising any disclosure of detention, is excessive and disproportionate in view of existing powers, the level of terrorist threat, and the absence of any declared public emergency justifying derogation from protected human rights. “
The Tobin centre also said the powers were problematic due to their “significant impact on civil liberties”.
“We believe that they should not be renewed, and certainly this should not even be considered without an appropriate opportunity to determine whether their extension is warranted,” the centre wrote.
Thom wrote: “It would be my expectation that Asio would notify me at the earliest possible time and it is my intention that I, or a senior member of my staff, would be present during any questioning under warrant.”
On Friday several members of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security also raised concerns about the justification given to continue the preventive detention orders and control regimes without charge.
The inquiry is due to report on 17 October.
In a submission to the parliamentary inquiry examining the federal government’s second tranche of national security legislation, Asio welcomed the changes and noted that a previous requirement to exhaust other methods of collecting intelligence first had been softened.
The bill seeks to substantially increase the powers of the security agency and police to detain people without charge.
It would extend the controversial preventive detention order, control order and Asio questioning and detention regimes for 10 years, and lower the thresholds for obtaining the different orders.
Under the current scheme Asio may detain and question a person without charge for up to seven days, during which time refusing to answer questions may lead to imprisonment. People can essentially be held without contact with the outside world, may lose the right to silence and may be subject to coercive questioning.
The former independent national security legislation monitor Bret Walker recommended the regime be abolished as a result of concerns about its use.
Currently the extraordinary powers can be used only as a last resort, if the attorney general believes less intrusive methods of gathering intelligence will not be effective.
The new laws, if passed, would allow the attorney general to grant a warrant for the use of the orders in a much broader range of circumstances, when it is reasonable to do so.
In its submission, Asio wrote: “The new threshold will require the attorney general, in making this assessment, to have regard to whether there are other methods of collecting the intelligence sought to be collected under the warrant, and whether those other methods are likely to be as effective.
“The existence of other, less intrusive methods of obtaining the intelligence will continue to be a relevant but non-determinative consideration in decisions.”
Asio rejected Walker’s assessment that the regime was unnecessary, and wrote that there were “realistic and credible circumstances in which it may be necessary to conduct coercive questioning of a person for the purposes of gathering intelligence about a terrorism offence”.
Asio has never sought a questioning and detention warrant – questioning warrants alone have been sought only 16 times. Asio wrote that in the “current environment” the powers “will continue to play an important role in intelligence collection”.
Oversight of the regime would be limited. The inspector general of intelligence and security, Vivienne Thom, noted in her submission to the inquiry that the attorney general’s decisions were not subject to review by her office.
University of Sydney law professor Ben Saul and the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law both lodged submissions expressing serious concerns about the extension of the regime.
Saul wrote: “ASIO detention powers should be repealed, not extended. Detaining non-suspects for up to seven days, virtually incommunicado and without effective review at the time, removing the right to silence on penalty of imprisonment, and criminalising any disclosure of detention, is excessive and disproportionate in view of existing powers, the level of terrorist threat, and the absence of any declared public emergency justifying derogation from protected human rights. “
The Tobin centre also said the powers were problematic due to their “significant impact on civil liberties”.
“We believe that they should not be renewed, and certainly this should not even be considered without an appropriate opportunity to determine whether their extension is warranted,” the centre wrote.
Thom wrote: “It would be my expectation that Asio would notify me at the earliest possible time and it is my intention that I, or a senior member of my staff, would be present during any questioning under warrant.”
On Friday several members of the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security also raised concerns about the justification given to continue the preventive detention orders and control regimes without charge.
The inquiry is due to report on 17 October.
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