The Search and Surveillance Bill currently under consideration by Parliament is an attempt to create a unified law for all government agencies. These powers are currently defined, differently, in over 70 different acts ranging from the Crimes Act to the Meat Board Act.
The stated intention of the bill is to “reform the law to provide a coherent, consistent and certain approach in balancing the complementary values of law enforcement and human rights” while “[providing] for the appropriate legislative powers to enable law enforcement and regulatory agencies to extract electronic information and use surveillance devices in order to investigate and combat criminal activity”. Continue reading Search and Surveillance Act Threatens Privacy→
The government believes it has the power to intercept, search and block our communications – if they’re done over the Internet.
The media companies want to ignore the right to a fair trial and skip straight to the punishment phase – if you download music files instead of copying a CD.
Border agencies and the Police believe they have a right to unlimited access to your private data – but only if it’s on computer, not on paper.
The government wants to be able to punish others by disconnecting them from the Internet – but we wouldn’t ban people from using paper and pen.
There are those who think that they can ignore our existing rights and freedoms because new technology has made them obsolete.