If this report from the active snooping going in Australia is even half right, just imagine what is happening in the USA, the UK and elsewhere. Scary and something the general populace should simply not tolerate let alone countenance.
"It happens all the time – roughly 800 times a day, on last year’s records.
Somewhere in Australia, a government bureaucrat – no-one especially senior; say, a Centrelink agent – fills in a form, gets a signature from someone else in the department, and becomes authorised to check out a member of the public’s phone records (which numbers that person has called, how long they spoke, and where they were when they placed the call), and then their email history (who they’ve emailed, and when, and the IP addresses used). No warrant required, no notice given.
It’s all legal – and has been happening since 2007.
In fact it happened more than 300,000 times in 2011-12. It may have happened to you – and in most cases, you wouldn’t know.
Australia’s welfare agency, Centrelink, has accessed nearly 8,000 telecommunication records over five years up to June 2012.
Is the law allowing this aimed at preventing terrorist acts? Ensuring public safety? Not necessarily. While most of these records are accessed for purposes of criminal law enforcement, tens of thousands of applications in recent years have been made for a rather more mercenary reason: that is, ‘for the protection of public revenue’."
"It happens all the time – roughly 800 times a day, on last year’s records.
Somewhere in Australia, a government bureaucrat – no-one especially senior; say, a Centrelink agent – fills in a form, gets a signature from someone else in the department, and becomes authorised to check out a member of the public’s phone records (which numbers that person has called, how long they spoke, and where they were when they placed the call), and then their email history (who they’ve emailed, and when, and the IP addresses used). No warrant required, no notice given.
It’s all legal – and has been happening since 2007.
In fact it happened more than 300,000 times in 2011-12. It may have happened to you – and in most cases, you wouldn’t know.
Australia’s welfare agency, Centrelink, has accessed nearly 8,000 telecommunication records over five years up to June 2012.
Is the law allowing this aimed at preventing terrorist acts? Ensuring public safety? Not necessarily. While most of these records are accessed for purposes of criminal law enforcement, tens of thousands of applications in recent years have been made for a rather more mercenary reason: that is, ‘for the protection of public revenue’."
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