Australian spookhaus busted for warrantless tap of own phones Australia's Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (AIGIS) has found that the nation's Australian Security and Intelligence Agency (ASIO) spied on itself in contravention of local laws. The Inspector-General's Annual Report [PDF] lists breaches of Australia's Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Act (TIA). The …
And the biggest laugh is that if an Australian publication had written this article the writer could go to jail for up to ten years for bringing these bungling fools into self inflicted disrepute
See http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-10-14/journalists-face-jail-for-exposing-security-agency-bungles/5776504
"And the biggest laugh is that if an Australian publication had written this article the writer could go to jail for up to ten years for bringing these bungling fools into self inflicted disrepute"
Apparently not. Fairfax reports this:
>>"And the biggest laugh is that if an Australian publication had written this article the writer could go to jail for up to ten years for bringing these bungling fools into self inflicted disrepute"
>Apparently not. Fairfax reports this
You don't think they'd use the stupid law as soon as it's passed do you? That would look bad.
Apparently not. Fairfax reports this:
Yes, but Fairfax is a big corporation that the laws of the land don't apply to. The ten-years-in-prison clause is only for the little guys like you and me. If one of us had published this bungle on our little Wordpress blogs, WE'D be looking at 10 years' chokey, but Fairfax and Murdoch's minions have effective carte blanche.
Always remember the Prime Directive of 21st century lawmaking: one law for us, and another for them.
... If they swapped the entry for the tapped number with their contact number. If this was the case, I wonder what the target of the tap made of the data dump. That they did this to themselves twice and didn't have alarm bells go off around a lack of data speaks volumes. A very high volume of taps or a low volume of competence.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Edit: At least AIGIS is doing their job. The NSA has no counterpart. Nor does the DoJ do their due diligence here.
It is data.
Calling it metadata is a way to divert our attention from the fact they are collecting bloody data.
If they spy on you and know you met Dick on Wednesday at 12, that's data, even if they don't know what you said.
If they spy on you and know you called Dick on Wednesday at 12, that's also data, even if they don't know what you said.
Metadata my arse.
Agreed.
Or if you want to call it metadata, remember that Metadata (in this context) = Surveillance.
"... imagine that you asked that same private detective to put a subject under constant surveillance. You would get a different report, one that included things like where he went, what he did, who he spoke to -- and for how long -- who he wrote to, what he read, and what he purchased. This is all metadata, data we know the NSA is collecting. So when the president says that it's only metadata, what you should really hear is that we're all under constant and ubiquitous surveillance."
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/03/metadata_survei.html
It occurs to me this could be them actually so paranoid in the wake of whistle-blowers like Snowden that they were genuinely spying on their own department. The stroke of genius is to admit it as a 'technical error' rather than trying to bury it.
This way the headlines are more 'HAR HAR SPIES ARE MUPPETS' and less 'Warrantless Wiretapping Scandal Continues'.
Look, everybody knows when ASIO makes a phone call because they have to move the wombat off the phone. In order for the other bloke to not listen in, he has to hold a koala on either side of his head to muffle out the sound.
At least they're better off than the Tasmanian office, where they haven't ever made a phone call because there's a Tasmanian Devil on top of it.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
