back to article Australian bureaucrats to journalist: 'Give us back our bits'

Australia's Department of Immigration and Border Protection has written to a journalist requesting the return of documents downloaded from the Internet. The request stems from the freelance journalist, Asher Wolf, discovering that the department's publication of asylum seeker statistics contained fields, not visible to a …

COMMENTS

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  1. dwrjones87
    FAIL

    Maybe these people should *insert search engine of choice* the Streisand effect...

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    How do they know they got the same bits back?

    Surely they'd be yet another copy?

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Don't forget digital photographs

    Always destroy the negatives.

  4. Gray Ham Bronze badge
    Coat

    Operation Sovereign Website

    This is easily fixed ... put some ADFA cadet in charge of the website, then refuse to publish any information on the grounds it would compromise military operations.

  5. unwarranted triumphalism

    What if he sends them...

    A picture of a spider?

    http://www.27bslash6.com/overdue.html

    1. RobHib
      Thumb Up

      @ unwarranted triumphalism -- Re: What if he sends them...

      Wonderful stuff!

      Now if we citizens could just need to double the number of people in the world who work/think like that, then we'd have government bureaucracies eating out out laps--the tables would be turned.

  6. Morrie Wyatt
    Joke

    Too easy

    Returning the data?

    Everyone should know the answer to this one.

    Just reverse the polarity.

    (After all, it always works in the movies!)

    1. dan1980

      Re: Too easy

      The door swings both ways?

  7. Denarius
    Joke

    Be kind

    this is not a stupid request for bits to be returned in the IT sense. That poor clerk is a victim of decades of efficiency dividends. # AKA salami slicing to the yank managerial/HR droids. What is being asked for is a few USB sticks as DIMIA/DIAC/whatever its called this government is so broke they can't buy office supplies. Look for suits stealing biros in cafes, hotels and conferences. Oh, they do that anyway ?

  8. frank ly

    Would it be acceptable ....

    ... if the documents were returned as an email attachment; or would they require hard copy printouts via the postal service?

    1. Sorry that handle is already taken. Silver badge

      Re: Would it be acceptable ....

      If you "returned" one hard copy through the mail every day, at what point would they ask you to stop, I wonder?

  9. Mike Lewis

    It's like déjà vu all over again

    If that doesn't work, they could send someone over to destroy the hard drives.

    1. cortland

      Re: It's like déjà vu all over again

      SOME hard drives, certainly.

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