As the author says, asking ISPs to log everything is asking for denial of service attacks. It will also encourage offshore ISPs and habitual encryption which will make law enforcement even harder.
I reckon if the government wants to do this they should ask the US for the Echelon project files: After all they have been collecting internet traffic for some time now.
Imagine if they wanted to tap all phone calls and keep conversations for 10 years! I reckon we should identify and prosecute (or at least vilify) anyone who thinks this sort of invasion of rights is a good idea. Power corrupts...

Surely by now the stupid facade of Labor being a moderate center-left party has disappeared by now?

I explained to some other people that internet monitoring and logging "just in case" we might catch someone nabbing some child porn is like forcing everyone to undergo random cavity searches on the street just in case they might be smuggling heroin 'in there'.

In the past a government or police force could ONLY monitor someone's internet activity with a judge-issued warrant- which was fine (a grounded child porn suspicion should hopefully grant a warrant- not to mention it is easy (and more likely) for a pedophile to use a proxy).

This implies they want to work outside the law at their own discretion, which does nothing but open the system up to abuse and blackmail by privileged organisations.

Meanwhile, the person who downloads videos of cheerleaders being whipped by midgets has his privacy violated despite committing no crime.

This along with many other breaches of our common law rights, troubles me intensely. We live in a society governed by a Constitution, in which there is a presumed requirement that we be governed by the Rule of Law. To what extent can ANY Government legislate away our common law rights, is an issue of concern.

When do we revert to what is and is not legally permissable in a lawless state (or Hobbes' "Natural State of Man", or Locke's "End of Commonwealth" and "of Tyranny"). The fact that we now have so many laws that no-one can comply with them all, making all outlaws. Democracy is the best of the bad options (to paraphrase Churchill), but what is democracy? What are the basic requirements of a democratic society and at what point is the balance tipped? It is time people began to think about it, for the patience of some within our community is wearing awfully thin (with our supposed democratic principles, and the freedoms inherent upon that, being usurped by the executive "wagging the dog" as it were).

I often wonder, at what point would the Commonwealth be Constitutionally prevented (due to the fact that the 'assumption of the Rule of Law' is inherent to the Constitutional validity of the Commonwealth's actions) from providing Commonwealth military assistance to put down a rebellion within a State (or Territory), by the people of that State/Territory?

That would leave any of our States/Territories in a parlous position, without assistance from the Commonwealth, what chance would they have to maintain their hold over the populace, when a chunk of that populace is actively engaged in subverting/overthrowing the State/Territory Government, by any means at their disposal, in order to UPHOLD the Constitutional Requirement?

Of course, this is merely idle speculation... There is no group within Australia that "might" consider changing the current status quo by force, but what if there were? Could they take out an injunction against Commonwealth intervention, until the State Government "proved" it was acting lawfully. Democratic institutions could be remade, the rot removed and we could proceed...

The government is proposing to log all your Internet activities taking invasion of privacy to a whole new level. [Chris Abood]

This activity has occurred for at least 5 years by Government, in addition to Companies; in particular, the Telecommunications industry [ie internet provider I.T. staff both here and overseas]!

Ozandy raises a very interesting point with his suggestion that:

"I reckon if the government wants to do this
they should ask the US for the Echelon project
files: After all they have been collecting
internet traffic for some time now."

Could it be that that will be exactly what in reality will happen behind the mask of this proposal?

If something like that is what was always intended, the point of making it an Australian government initiative would be solely to enable extraditions of persons to face US courts for offences that are such perhaps only in the US, but with the allegedly recorded internet traffic purporting to constitute the evidence as to the commission of some offence, or participation in some conspiracy to commit such offence, able to masquerade as evidence collected in Australia by Australian law-enforcement authorities, and thus attain credibility it may in no way deserve.

The long-term stand-off over the US extradition request for Brian Howes, a UK citizen, for the alleged supply of chemicals capable of being used as pre-cursor chemicals for methamphetamine (the illicit drug 'ice') manufacture to US importers, when supply of such chemicals is not an offence in the UK, is a case in point of the sort of 'problem' with regard to the (dis)respecting of the judicial process of countries like the UK, or Australia, that US authorities are perhaps seeking to avoid.

The thing being that with internet 'traffic' constituting prima facie evidence for extradition, the whole case in question can be utterly a fabricated one. In the Howes' case, there are overtones of copyright enforcement, and/or pursuit over claimed sexual improprieties, lying behind the extradition request, but none of this has figured in any charge sheet in Britain or the US.

All in all, a most dangerous proposal.

Have a good look at this one, Chris Abood. It'll be interesting to see how many brick walls or wet blankets you encounter, even within your own Party, should you explore this aspect of things.