Hot on the heels of the wild accustion by Stephen Conroy that Google had committed the “single biggest breach of privacy in history”, and in the spirit of “anything you can do, we can do better”, comes the revelation that the same government that he is a part of, via the Department of the Attorney-General, wishes to push the invasion of privacy far beyond the levels they accuse Google of doing:
| Government Wants ISPs to Record Browsing History |
Yes, that’s right, the government wants to be able to record – (and therefore track) – every single web page that every single person views on an Australian internet connection. This may also extend to email traffic.
They claim that this will be for the support of law enforcement activities – that of course would remain to be seen. At this time, law enforcement agencies need to gain warrants to be able to monitor this information, against someone they suspect of being involved in a criminal act.
Under this proposal, this would go by the wayside – and all users would have their connections tracked/logged regardless.
Will this government use the information to “research” which people are searching the internet for ways to get around their proposed draconian internet filter? Will they use the information to discover more and more material to add to the ACMA blacklist?
This government has the nerve to accuse Google of committing the “biggest single breach of privacy in history”? Spare me. Eleven years ago, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems was right – privacy is history. He famously told people to “get over it.”
Right now, I think the best way to “get over it” is to make so much noise about this latest attack on the Australian community, and let the wider population of this country see what a rogue bunch of scum this government is made up of!