You're Being Spied On For Your Own Good  

The new Australian government has continued the previous, unmissed administrations obsession with spying on the citiznry, with a new bill to allow employers to monitor employee's emails on behalf of the government drawing the ire of all right-thinking people - "Cyber snooping plan under attack".

One of the reasons proferred by the government was to help interdict attacks on critical infrastructure - I wonder if this reason is piggy-backing on last week's announcement of a white-hat penetration test successfully breaching the SCADA network of a US power company ?

While no one in their right mind would want to see a successful attack on critical infrastructure, you'd have to wonder how many potential terrorists would be stupid enough plot such a thing using the company email system - even if they are apparently all idiots.

Seems like more scope creep and empire building by the securocrats to me - they won't be happy until the Panopticon is complete...

Civil libertarians say employers could become quasi spies under proposed laws giving companies the right to monitor workers' emails in a bid to protect Australia from cyber terrorism. The federal opposition has also questioned the need for the law changes, saying employers should not be burdened with the job of watching over Australia's national security. The new counter-terrorism measures being developed by the federal government, including changes to the Telecommunications Act, would allow companies to monitor the emails and internet communications of employees without their consent. The act currently only allows security agencies to monitor their employees' internet activities.

Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the new laws, which would only apply to businesses critical to the economy such as the stock exchange or electricity grid, would help protect Australia's critical infrastructure from cyber attack. He said a cyber attack on such businesses had the potential to reap a greater economic impact than a physical terrorist attack.

Civil liberties groups are outraged over the proposed law changes, which the government hopes to have in place by the middle of next year, saying there is a heavy onus on the attorney-general to make out his argument that the powers are needed. "Individual employers under this proposal become effectively an arm of the intelligence services and the police, and the consequences of that are just enormous," Australian Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman said.

"It's extremely Orwellian," he said.

Mr O'Gorman said the balance between giving the intelligence services and the police sufficient powers to fight terrorism while maintaining basic civil liberties was perilously at risk of being completely and utterly skewed. "It would not only create a climate of fear in the workplace, it is clearly likely to lead to significant industrial disputes. We say that there is a significant case that has to be made out by those who would propose these changes because they have huge (implications for) privacy (and) civil liberty."

Deputy Opposition Leader Julie Bishop questioned the need for the law changes, saying Australia's national security agencies, including ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, already had broad-ranging powers with respect to terrorism-related activities.

Its not just us copping newer, larger doses of Big Brother's hairy eyeball of course - The Washington Post reports that the Bush Administration is set to use a new spy program in the US - watching all the potential domestic terrorists from above.

The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps. Sophisticated overhead sensor data will be used for law enforcement once privacy and civil rights concerns are resolved, he said. The department has previously said the program will not intercept communications. ...

Democrats say Chertoff has not spelled out what federal laws govern the NAO, whose funding and size are classified. Congress barred Homeland Security from funding the office until its investigators could review the office's operating procedures and safeguards. The department submitted answers on Thursday, but some lawmakers promptly said the response was inadequate. "I have had a firsthand experience with the trust-me theory of law from this administration," said Harman, citing the 2005 disclosure of the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, which included warrantless eavesdropping on calls and e-mails between people in the United States and overseas. "I won't make the same mistake. . . . I want to see the legal underpinnings for the whole program."

And if we're going to talk about Orwellianism, we can't leave out the UK - here's one of the latest horror stories - "Anti-terror laws used to track school catchment family".

Poole Borough Council has admitted it spied on a family using laws passed to track criminals and terrorists to find out if they were lying about living in a school catchment area. The couple and their three children were put under surveillance without their knowledge for more than two weeks using powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. The family only found out about the spying when a school admissions manager told them.

The authority said it used the legislation to watch the family at home and in their daily movements because it wanted to know if they lived in the catchment area for a school which their three-year-old daughter wanted to attend.

Human rights pressure group Liberty called the spying "disproportionate" and "intrusive". James Welch, legal director for Liberty said: "It's one thing to use covert surveillance in operations investigating terrorism and other serious crimes, but it has come to a pretty pass when this kind of intrusive activity is used to police school catchment areas. "This is a ridiculously disproportionate use of RIPA and will undermine public trust in necessary and lawful surveillance."