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

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Wed Sep 18 2002 - 22:50:22 PDT

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    Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 02:01:59 +0800
    To: declanat_private
    From: robert clark <rclarkat_private>
    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)" <twisterat_private>
    Subject: Australia: Court bans racist website
    Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 19:21:07 +0200
    To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private>
    
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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: bwongat_private
    Web: http://dfn.org
    
    _______________________________________________
    GILC-plan mailing list
    GILC-planat_private
    https://mailman.gilc.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gilc-plan
    
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