G’day romingfree

Yes I agree. State electronic surveillance (and datamining/profiling by companies) is very difficult to get a handle on. Sheer state secrecy barriers and technical complexity don’t help this understanding.

Edward hanging out in China’s Hong Kong nicely symbolises Australia’s choices of how close we want to get (or are) to China and America. They are both across the “spy on us game” but one is sort of a friend and the other distrusted. China’s rising political and economic power will make China an intelligence ally of Australia (eg. on counter-terrorism) no matter how repugnant its one party system.

Thanks pelican

For the info. Yes certainly DIGO and DSD are under the Defence Minister and http://www.spatialsource.com.au/2013/05/14/dsd-and-digo-to-be-renamed/ indicates: “the Government has decided to rename these agencies the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) and the Australian Geospatial-Intelligence Organisation (AGO), to more accurately reflect their national roles. [This] will see no change to the current functions, powers or accountability responsibilities of the agencies under the Intelligence Services Act 2001. Both agencies remain in the Department of Defence.”

Presumably DSD's domestic functions (particularly in its InfoSec role http://www.dsd.gov.au/publications/csocprotect/home_computer_security.htm ) are fairly close and constant.

Hi Godless

Speaking as a fellow atheist :) my “uncharacteristic credulity” is by tempered by “Optimis[m] (hopefully not misplaced)”. This is an example of push praising - meaning I hope our security establishment has not been blinded by American science and political pressure. Alternatives like “America and security are plain evil” would be easy lines.

Regards

Pete

Should Australians be worried? of course we should, it seems of late that what ever Barack O does over in the great US of A we have to follow suit, not only with the lets spy on people, for our own good and safety B/S

Where does this newest political party sit with agenda 21.

What are your views on sending (losing) our manufacturing jobs overseas.

What are your views on the dwindling rights of the Australian people, should Government stick to doing what their supposed to do Govern.

What are your views on Governments paying farmers to get off the land, when in reality food production should be a number one priority in a world where food shortage is discussed as a potential megga problem in the not so distant future

Libertypost I agree. Food production should be our number one priority. When people realise the long term effects of Fukushima and the total increase in long term radiation on the planet, clean food will become a premium.

Our Govts over the decades have sold us out to The Globalists who want drastic reductions in the pop of the planet so they can have absolute over control everyone.

Does anybody have any idea what the NSA would do with my emails, which are largely either work-related (boringly so, I'm not in a position of authority and I work for a private firm) or correspondence with one of the sites which sometimes publish my inestimably valuable (but not private) thoughts or other mundane correspondence.

In other words, why do I care whether they look? After all, they're a big anonymous organisation and I'm a small anonymous individual. To use a term from accoustics, there's an impedance mismatch

I'm somewhat committed to a libertarian ideal, but I'm not sure that privacy is a libertarian necessity. being able to act at will is not of necessity reliant on privacy, although it may be if the intent is to gain a commercial or other advantage through surprise, which is a separate issue.

If the loss of privacy also implies a loss of autonomy, I'd be interested in the reasoning as to why.

Some inconvenient statistics.

An interesting article from Glen Greenwald yesterday http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/14/nsa-partisanship-propaganda-prism . Greenwald is the journalist who Edward directly provided all the CIA details and NSA documents.

In the article Greenwald presents stats on the percentage (of US voters polled) finding the NSA surveillance programs "Acceptable" or "Unacceptable".

According to the figures:

- in January 2006 51% of US voters polled found the NSA surveillance programs Acceptable and 47% Unacceptable.

- in June 2013 56% found the programs Acceptable and 41% Unacceptable.

I don't know what this increase in Acceptability of the NSA programs suggests. Perhaps the Boston bombings have had an impact on public views and fears.

Snowden reveals Britain spying on delegates at Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, 2009, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/16/uk-intelligence-agencies-spy-commonwealth-delegates

Given the meetings are close warm, nostalgic and drawn together by trust in the British connection this Snowden revelation, supported by Top Secret UK powerpoints, is a worry.

Evidence Britain spied on Commonwealth delegates PCs and phones, then by implication sharing the intelligence produced with the US, won't improve relations in the Commonwealth.

The next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was in Perth, 2011.