back to article Feds ponder jamming journo comms in Australian Parliament

Canberra's appetite for security theatre could soon see comms blackouts in Parliament House as a response to terrorist threats. The proposal emerged by way of a briefing with the president of the press gallery, David Speers, who told Fairfax Media it's part of a plan to ramp up parliamentary security. As well as armed …

  1. LaeMing

    Any chance...

    ...they could just lock themselves in, completely dis-connected from the outside, and never come out?

    1. MrDamage Silver badge

      Re: Any chance...

      I'm assuming you are referring to the politicians, and not the journo's themselves.

      Once they do that, we can get the journo's to broadcast a fake gas attack story, hoping the politicians will then seal up parliament house completely, thus saving oxygen for those who truly deserve it.

  2. GrumpyOldBloke

    Mental Illness

    What we are seeing in Canberra is evidence of a serious mental illness. It is not just the data retention and the intimidatory tactics of placing armed guards behind the journalists but also Abbott’s fence around the hill and now talk of fitting the place with bullet proof windows at great expense. What is the man so afraid of? Is it a rational, irrational or medication induced fear? Perhaps the journalists will grow a pair and start holding the federal aviary to account now that they have been dumped in with the general population as the enemy.

  3. Winkypop Silver badge
    Go

    No phone access in Parliament for journos

    It's the 1950's again!

    Install a single public phone box outside Parliament House and the journo who is fastest can lodge their story first.

    While we are at it, make them all wear hats with a PRESS card in the rim.

    I'm off to the pub before the 6 o'clock swill deadline!

    Six o'clock swill

  4. frank ly

    Reality

    "... a Liberal MP's ill-judged and since-deleted Tweet humorously threatening a trawl of a gallery hack's metadata."

    That is what politicians (and others) see as the real value of storing metatdata. It's a tool/weapon to be used against your 'enemies'.

  5. dan1980

    Who are they trying to make feel better? Themselves, presumably.

    1. anonymousI

      Yes, that, plus all their ever-so-generous political donors from the film and music industries.

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