FC: Australia: Tap-crazed spooks; court orders website deleted

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 02:01:59 +0800
To: declan () well com
From: robert clark <rclark () telecomasia net>
Subject: Aussie spooks lead US in phonetaps

Declan

Not sure if the US figures are accurate, but this suggests a judge is much 
more prudent in approving phonetaps than a civil service board.


From Sydney Morning Herald:


Australian authorities use telephone taps at 20 times the rate of their 
counterparts in the United States, figures that the Opposition says raise 
concerns about privacy and oversight of call tapping.

With legislation before Parliament to give ASIO greater policing powers, 
Labor says the phone-tap figures call into question whether law enforcement 
agencies need their powers bolstered.

Figures released by the Federal Opposition, and taken from annual reports 
of the United States and Australian governments, show that in the financial 
year ending in June 2001, more than 2150 warrants were issued for phone 
taps in Australia, but only 1490 in the US. Taking into account the 
population difference - 284 million compared to just over 19 million - 
Australia's rate of phone interception was 20 times that of the US.

....
 The data also reveals that the number of phone taps used in Australia has 
increased threefold in four years, and ninefold in just over a decade.
...
Labor has blamed the proliferation in phone tapping on a decision which 
took effect in 1999, giving members of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal 
the power to issue warrants. Previously, they had to be approved by a 
judge, which is still the case in the US.

....

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/16/1032054714938.html

Robert Clark
Telecom Asia
www.telecomasia.net


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From: "Bettina Jodda (Twister)" <twister () stop1984 com>
Subject: Australia: Court bans racist website
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 19:21:07 +0200
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>

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Hi, Declan

I thought this would be interesting ...


Court bans racist website
Ian Gerard
Australian IT, September 18, 2002
http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,7208,5119879%5E16123%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html

AN Adelaide website has been ordered to remove material that casts doubt on
whether the Holocaust occurred, in a landmark Federal Court decision. It is
the first time an Australian court has upheld a complaint about racial
vilification on the internet, enforces an October 2000 Human Rights and
Equal Opportunity Commission decision.

Adelaide Institute director Fredrick Toben was ordered yesterday to remove
all offending material from the site within a week, and banned from
publishing similar material.

Judge Catherine Branson ruled that Dr Toben vilified Jewish Australians
when he published documents on the Adelaide Institute site that cast doubt
over the Holocaust.

The Adelaide Institute claims the Auschwitz concentration camp had no
homicidal gas chambers and states that the number of Jews killed during
World War II was exaggerated.

"The director of the Adelaide Institute has published material on the world
wide web which is reasonably likely, in all of the circumstances, to
offend, insult, humiliate and intimidate Jewish Australians or a group of
Jewish Australians," Judge Branson ruled.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Jeremy Jones said the
decision struck a blow against organised racism in Australia.

"This case won't end hate material on the internet but does indicate that
if you have been vilified on the net, and thought it was too complex to
deal with, you now have some legal precedent to assist you to maintain your
human rights."

Dr Toben, who has spent seven months in a German jail for inciting racial
hatred and defaming the memory of the dead, said the decision marked the
end of free speech in Australia, and he would appeal.

"It's terrible for our moral and intellectual integrity not being able to
question the Holocaust," Dr Toben said.

Australian Council of Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman criticised
the ruling, saying it would interfere with a person's fundamental right of
freedom of speech.

"No matter how stupid and misguided Toben's views are, freedom of speech
means the right to be stupid," Mr O'Gorman said.

- --
Bobson Wong
Executive Director
Digital Freedom Network
1372 Broadway, 20th Floor
New York, NY 10018
U.S.A.
Phone: +(1-646) 223-1282
Fax: +(1-646) 223-1290
E-mail: bwong () dfn org
Web: http://dfn.org

_______________________________________________
GILC-plan mailing list
GILC-plan () mailman gilc org
https://mailman.gilc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gilc-plan

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