Australian Police Spying On Web, Phone Usage With No Warrants

[Bob Hubbard]

[h=2]Australian Police Spying On Web, Phone Usage With No Warrants[/h] Posted by Soulskill on Saturday February 18, @10:13AM
from the can-we-get-paul-hogan-to-fix-this dept.

New submitter i-reek writes "Australian police, along with government agencies, are accessing phone and internet account information, outward and inward call details, phone and internet access location data, and details of IP addresses visited of Australian citizens, all without judicial warrants . In the last two years, some states have shown an increase of more than 50 per cent in these surveillance authorizations, which can be granted by senior police officers and officials instead of a magistrate or judge."

 

[K-man]

Although some of the civil libertarian groups are asking for more controls, they haven't asked for the practice to be stopped.

In actual fact the situation is very similar to the current situation in the US where the "Patriot Act" introduced by the Bush administration and preserved by Obama allows similar powers of electonic surveillance.

It doesn't concern me as the police require similar authorisation to that which they would need for a search warrant. If it reduces the risk of terrorist activity or helps put away some of the baddies, great. In the words of that great US company ... "Just Do It"!