Model Forum / General / Rockets / January 2006

Well I see misinformaion is alive and well, and I might as well throw
my a new light on it.  Everyone hates Bush ... ok, I am conservative,
and I personally don't like him either.  I voted for Ronald Regan, and
God Bliss him, I miss that anti-soviet STATESMAN!

With that said, there was ease-dropping on American phone, fax, and
internet communications LOOOOOONG before 9/11.  Please lets all stand
and give a round of applause for PROJECT ECHELON!

Now this progam, KNEW it was breaking constitutional law.  So in order
to circumvent those nasty things we call rights, RAW data was first
collected, then sent to a foreign entity for data reduction.  Once
done, it was then sent back to the United States for evaluation/action.
NSA, OSI, and some that we don't even know about had a hand in this.
Yes yes, its the easy dumb a.s way to just say X-Files, but for those
of us who REALLY understand the Washington "Star Chambers", know that
this stuff is not to be taken lighty.

Well I am about to lead some of you to water, and some of you will die
of thirst.  But for those of you who enjoy learning, no matter the
ending emotional result, I will paste documented proceedings of the
Austrailian Parliment concerning Echelon, and its legalities (enjoy):

Senator BROWN  (Tasmania) (6.47 p.m.) --I congratulate Senator Cooney
for that speech and particularly for his concern that there is a
tendency for legislative creep in this act and his concern that we have
to be very vigilant about legislation like this, which is the reason I
do not support it. The first parts of it which are to do with being
able to more effectively tap in on criminals does not concern me, but
the proposal from the second reading speech of the minister does
concern me. He said:

The foreign communications warrant will enable the interception of
particular communications which cannot be identified by reference to
specific services or named individuals--

  and he goes on to say:

This is a characteristic of the sophisticated digital technologies
which are increasingly dominant in modern telecommunication systems.

The bill limits the powers to issue this category of warrants to
interception for the purpose of collecting foreign intelligence. To
reduce the possibility of inadvertently intercepting communications
between Australians, these warrants may be issued only in relation to
foreign communications.

  What it does not say is that this opens up the whole arena of spying
for commercial purposes and to the spying on all Australian
telecommunications going overseas. We know from the remarkable Sunday
program on Channel 9 called Big Brother is Listening on 23 May last
year that there is enormous facility these days, particularly through
the installations at Geraldton and Waihopai in New Zealand with massive
computers and dictionaries to pick out calls from amongst the millions
of faxes, emails and phone calls and to scan these so that every
conversation going out of this country is being listened into--and,
moreover, the information and the scanning of those calls can go direct
to Washington without any Australian intervention.

  I will be asking the minister tomorrow to give more information
about this process, this tearaway modern communication which is not
dealt with under this legislation. In fact, I am very concerned that
this legislation gives some legitimacy to this process of comprehensive
spying which is not confined to Australia or the United States--it is
carried on around the world. I believe that citizens should know about
it and be aware of the enormous potential damage that can accrue from
it, and tomorrow I will give the Senate some specific cases where this
form of intelligence has been abused in the political arena, in the
economic arena and used against the interests of ordinary citizens
speaking on mobile phones in the street. (Time expired)

Debate interrupted

Senator BROWN  (Tasmania) (9.31 a.m.) --I was saying before the debate
on the Telecommunications (Interception) Legislation Amendment Bill
2000 was adjourned yesterday that there is more to this legislation
than meets the eye, or at least there is more to the change to modern
communications than this legislation can deal with. At the outset I
might just say that if there are some senators missing from the chamber
this morning it may well be due to the traffic jams which have been
caused by the V8 car racing being imposed on Canberra at the moment. I
believe the delay is up to 40 minutes for some people making the
approach outside Parliament House at the moment. That aside, I refer to
Channel 9's Sunday program in May last year when reporter Ross
Coulthart interviewed New Zealand author and researcher Nicky Hager. Mr
Hager talked about the giant computer systems which use dictionary
systems to track down selected phone calls, faxes and Internet
communications coming in and out of Australia and indeed going between
other countries. One of these facilities is at Geraldton in Western
Australia, and most Australians know very little about it. Mr Hager
said:

One of the defining features of the Echelon system--

  that is, this giant computer tracking system on everybody's phone
calls--

is that it is a move away from what is the most effective way to spy on
our enemies to a system which is the most effective way of spying on
everyone.

  That is the reality of the modern world. While this bill points us
towards intervention in phone calls for criminals, drug handlers and
spies, in effect what it is not doing is saying that our whole spying
system is being moved to an international system which spies on
everybody's phone calls. Most Australians are not aware of that.

  The bill does refer to intervention in foreign phone calls--phone
calls going out of this country--but what it does not say is that
everybody's phone calls are being listened to, that everybody's phone
calls are being scanned and, moreover, that the check on this system is
not within our national boundaries. Australia has an arrangement with
the UK, the United States, Canada and New Zealand whereby the
downloading of selected phone calls--the intercepted calls which the
Americans, in particular, want to listen to--go straight to Washington.
I will be asking the government during the committee stages of this
debate what control Australia has over this spy system based here in
Australia. I think we will find that it is close to zero; that in fact
this information is being relayed straight to Washington and to other
countries without proper intervention by the Australian authorities.
When this bill says, `Let's intervene in certain phone calls made by
criminals and people with an intent that is not in Australia's
interests,' it is really missing the point--that is, that everybody's
phone calls are being listened in to and, as far as I know, this
parliament has no control over that. This parliament is not informed
about it. This parliament is not a watchdog on behalf of citizens. This
parliament does not know what our spy systems are doing and, more
particularly, it does not know what the foreign spy systems are doing
which are getting the information out of the Australian infrastructure.

  We are not in an age where this is simply spying--or even primarily
spying--in the defence interests of this country; we are in an age
where commercial interests are at the forefront in spying. Indeed,
President Clinton has made it very clear that, as far as the United
States is concerned, the intelligence agencies are there in the
interests of America's economic supremacy, its corporate interests.
Information being taken from these spy facilities, including here in
Australia, is passed on to the corporate system--the Forbes 500 and the
big multinational corporations--because it is in the interests of those
big systems to get the drop on their competitors around the world. The
Sunday program pointed to a number of cases where an advantage had been
given to either US or Canadian countries--in one case, a wheat deal in
favour of Canada, because the Canadians had picked up a phone call
coming out of a car in the United States--a call to do with a United
States bid for a world market. There was another extraordinary case
cited in the Channel 9 Sunday program of 23 May last year. Prime
Minister Thatcher of the United Kingdom was presumably able to get
information on two of her ministers through the Canadian connection of
this spying system--that is, the UK arm of it was kept clean while the
Canadians picked up information on two UK ministers about whom the
Prime Minister of the UK of the day was not sure. Is that the intent of
a spy system in which Australia is involved? What halt does this
legislation put on that sort of activity occurring in the international
arena against the interests of Australian people in general, let alone
elected Australians? Maybe the government will be able to disclaim that
extraordinary situation, as highlighted on the Sunday program. If so, I
would like to hear how.

  legislation does not allow for overseas phone calls to be
intercepted where an Australian citizen is involved at the other end.
Tell me about it! I believe that that is already occurring all over the
world through this massive intercept system of telecommunications. I
believe that this piece of legislation is nothing more than a
diversionary titbit. It does nothing to reassure me--and will do
nothing to reassure those few Australians who know about this spying
system--that there are very clear guidelines, controlled by the elected
members of this nation, on this massive international spy system. I
reiterate: it is no longer in the nation's interest that this spy
system be contained. There are no guidelines --or, if there are, let
them be brought before this Senate--to say that this spy system is
confined to working in Australia's national interests and against the
interests of those who might engage in criminal or political activities
that are inimical to Australia's interests. Where are those guidelines?
Let the government produce them--certainly before I will give assent to
this legislation. As far as the international spying component of it is
concerned, the legislation is loosely worded, ill-considered and
certainly not transparent in the parliament laying down
regulations--laws--which confine the activity of not just the
Australian Security Intelligence Organisation but of the international
operators like the American spy facilities which are using our
facilities, as far as I know, and I will guarantee as far as any
government representative here knows, against Australia's interests,
for goodness sake.

  Is the Channel 9 program wrong? Was it factually flawed? Is its
information able to be countermanded by the government? If not, I say
to the Senate: the facility at Geraldton and the similar facility in
New Zealand--which Nicky Hagar broke into and got lists of citizens
names out of because it was unattended at night--are set up in a manner
which can have US, Canadian and UK interests working against
Australia's economic wellbeing. For example, it can give multinational
corporations the opportunity, through the interception of
telecommunications, to get the drop on their Australian competitors--to
give international markets the opportunity to beat Australia when it
comes to international sales of commodities out of this country. This
is laid down quite clearly on the public record.

  I was amazed that that program, which went to air on 23 May last
year, drew such little comment from the Australian political and
business community. I am concerned as a democrat that this parliament
is not in control; is not laying down guidelines as to what our
intelligence operatives are allowed and not allowed to do. You look
superficially at this piece of legislation and there is one sentence
that says, `You can't spy on Australian citizens overseas,' but the
evidence on the face of it is that every Australian citizen's phone
calls are being spied upon. Moreover, Australia is allowing its
facilities to be used so that foreign countries can download from this
massive computerised selection of phone calls, can take that
information for their own use and can pass it on to their own corporate
sectors without Australians knowing about it, without the Australian
security intelligence network intervening and without Australia's
government or elected politicians knowing what is going on. This
demands an explanation.

  The government has only one representative in this chamber at the
moment. It is time for them to get up and explain what is happening at
Geraldton, Pine Gap and the facility in Darwin with respect to the
downloading of information out of the satellite systems and the
conveying of Australians' phone calls, Internet communications and
faxes--everything as far as international communications are
concerned--all of which are being spied upon. One of the answers will
be that in reaction to what is called the Anglo system--this massive
Echelon computerised spying system--the French have responded with the
same, and you could not blame the Chinese and the Indonesians for
responding likewise. Everybody is into it, one presumes.

  Let us have some light thrown on this system. In this democratically
elected chamber, let us have an account of where we stand in the modern
world of spying. Let us be clear about the fact that, post Cold War,
the focus of spying has become commercial and that there is great
opportunity--in fact, I think it is going on worldwide--for commercial
interests to gain or to lose by what that spy system is doing. In fact,
on the Sunday program there was an inherent complaint that the
information going out of the Australian and New Zealand facilities to
corporations overseas gives them the drop on their Australian
counterparts and there was an inherent request that, if this is going
to continue, ASIO should be put at the service of the Australian
corporate sector. I am not calling for that; I am calling for an
explanation from the government as to what is the state of play in this
system. What are the safeguards at Geraldton, Pine Gap, Darwin and the
New Zealand facility? What communications are occurring between
Australia and New Zealand to safeguard our national interests against
the much bigger players in this field who are using our facilities? I
cannot give assent to this legislation, even though all other parties
in the Senate have done so, because I am very concerned that we as
parliamentarians are not up to speed on this issue that affects every
Australian citizen.

[Another Senator then spoke on the bill, but didn't address Echelon to
much extent]

Senator VANSTONE  (South Australia--Minister for Justice and Customs)
(10.05 a.m.) --I have just a few things to say in response. I thank
senators for their contributions to the debate on the
Telecommunications (Interception) Legislation Amendment Bill 2000.
Senator Ludwig's contribution acknowledged the work the committee did.
As to Senator Brown's contribution: Senator Brown, you might be lucky,
it might be a slow news day and there might be a journalist who has not
read the bill, who is happy to take your remarks at face value, and you
will get a bit of a run. It is the easiest and oldest trick in the book
to make all sorts of allegations in relation to a country's
intelligence network knowing that they cannot be responded to and
therefore hoping that what you say gets a run, because it cannot be
answered. Can I put it in short form for you, though: as I understand
it, what you are suggesting is that all calls can be listened to all of
the time. What needs to be emphasised is quite simply that calls can be
intercepted only under a warrant and that warrants can only be obtained
by ASIO for foreign intelligence purposes. If you do not accept that,
Senator, there is nothing more I can add other than to refer you back
to the provisions of the bill.

[Edited out here: Senator Vanstone's comments about the review period
of the bill and admissibility of evidence.]

  In conclusion, I want to highlight that this bill is critically
important for law enforcement. Unfortunately, law enforcement and
national security agencies have fallen behind in terms of technology
development. When criminals are using more sophisticated technology, we
need to make sure that our law enforcement agencies and our national
security agencies have the most sophisticated and effective
investigative tools available. It is, as Senator Ludwig said in his
remarks, something that requires a balance between the needs of the
agencies and the need for privacy, and we think we have achieved that
balance. The already well-established procedural and accountability
provisions of the interception act will apply to these new named
warrants. I thank senators for their support of the bill.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill read a second time.

Senator BROWN  (Tasmania) (10.10 a.m.) --I ask the minister whether she
could elaborate on the functions of the Geraldton facility and the
Waihopai facility near Blenheim in New Zealand--what they do and who
has access to their information. Could she also tell us whether
information that is gathered at those facilities, in Pine Gap and in
Darwin does indeed, as I said earlier, go to foreign intelligence
networks?

Senator VANSTONE  (South Australia--Minister for Justice and Customs)
(10.11 a.m.) --Senator, I would just refer you to what I said in my
concluding remarks about inquiries into these matters. They cannot be
responded to. I am sure you understand that.

Senator BROWN --No, I don't.

Senator VANSTONE --Well, I am sorry.

Senator BROWN  (Tasmania) (10.11 a.m.) --I do not accept that in this
democratically elected parliament we cannot get assurances from the
Attorney-General or the Minister for Justice and Customs that our
intelligence facilities are used only for the purposes of defending the
national interest and for catching up with criminals and that they are
not being abused. Spying for commercial purposes, for example, is way
outside what the Australian public or business community believes are
the intelligence agencies' permitted functions. I would remind the
committee that I was not the origin of this very startling concern that
we have moved into an age of telecommunications where all citizens'
phone calls are already being spied upon and that the information war
between intelligence agencies is now for commercial advantage. I am
asking the minister whether this is the case. Is the American
intelligence network and their facility near Fort Meade, which has
20,000 people working in it, using information from the Geraldton
facility or other facilities in Australia, including information which
is of a commercial nature and which is not vetted by the Australian
intelligence network?

  It is a pretty important matter. All we need is for the minister to
stand up and say, `I give you an assurance that the claims made on the
Sunday program last year are wrong. I give you an assurance that all
phone calls are not being scanned by dictionary computers looking for
words which will download specific phone calls, Internet communications
and faxes for viewing by not just the Australian intelligence network
but the intelligence networks of other countries, including the UK and
the US.' I would like the minister to give an assurance, because that
is what this parliament expects: that the US or anyone else is
prohibited from using our facilities to download commercially
interesting information which could be used against Australia's
interests. We are in the extraordinary situation--if this program is
correct, and I believe it is--where the facilities in this country and
in New Zealand can be used against the national interest.

  The minister has withdrawn at the outset to the totally unwarranted
defence of `I can't discuss this matter because it is top secret'. I do
not accept that. This is a democracy, and it is important that in a
democracy the parliament knows what is going on. The Senate committee
was not privy to this information. I do not know of any other committee
that is privy to this information. As far as the public knows, there
are no guidelines set down by government, by cabinet, by the Prime
Minister or by anyone else on these modern spying facilities to protect
our nation's interest. The charge here is one of great concern. This is
not a frivolous matter, and I dismiss the minister's trivialisation of
it. The minister should get up in this chamber and reassure Australians
that this very serious development in the international use of our
facilities against the national interest is not occurring, cannot
occur, will not happen and has not happened.

  On the face of it, it is happening and will happen. If the Canadian
arm of this system can intercept phone calls to give Canadian wheat
growers the drop on the US wheat growers, what does that say about the
future position of Australian wheat growers, who use international
communications to ensure that they get the most advantaged position on
the world market? Is the Geraldton facility available for the US spying
facilities to intercept those phone calls simply by inserting the word
`wheat' into the dictionary which downloads all international
communications with this country, and transfer them to Fort Meade,
where under President Clinton's direction commercial interests are now
part of the American intelligence job? Are we in the position where
Geraldton, for goodness sake, can be used against the interests of our
wheat industry, our wool industry or our manufacturing industries? The
program said that this information does flow to the big corporate
sector in the US from Fort Meade. The program also said that the
Americans have free access to Geraldton and Waihopai in New Zealand and
they download their own stuff, which goes straight to Washington, with
no intervention by Australia's intelligence network. Sure, Australia
downloads its own stuff, but, at least in New Zealand, the list of
interests that the US has is longer than that of the New Zealand spy
network itself. And that information goes straight to Washington, as I
said. Unless we hear otherwise from the government, Australians are
being invited to believe that the same situation occurs in this
country.

  I am as concerned about the national interest as anyone else and
know that there are matters that the government is not going to want to
discuss openly in this chamber because they are mega-critical and
sensitive to the national interest and might draw Australia into an
embarrassing situation vis-a-vis, for example, spying on embassies,
spying on diplomats or spying on members of parliament elsewhere in the
world. That is not what this debate is about, or at least it is not
what my interest in this debate is. We have gone far beyond that. This
is about spying on the whole of the telecommunications network, on
everybody's phone calls, and about the use of our facilities by other
countries against our own nation's interests. We have gone from the use
of intelligence facilities in the national interest to this situation,
with the globalisation of world trade interests in particular, of our
own spying facilities being used against us. All I want to hear from
this minister is that that is not happening, that cannot happen and
that will not happen, and that there are measures in place which
prevent that from happening.

CHAIR --The question is that the bill stand as printed.

Senator BROWN  (Tasmania) (10.21 a.m.) --Surely this cannot happen.
Surely we cannot have a government corroborating what I said by the
minister sitting there dumbfounded. Surely what we are hearing here is
that everything I am saying is true. By her silence, Minister Vanstone
is corroborating the matters I bring forward.

  The minister said earlier that I am on my feet simply to get a line
in a newspaper, but I can tell the minister that sitting there in
silence, in response to the very important matters which I have raised,
is going to raise interest. All she has to do is stand up and say,
`Senator Brown, you are wrong because I give you these assurances.'
Instead, she has chosen to say nothing at all. That is indefensible. I
reiterate: I am not asking for her to divulge sensitive issues.

Senator VANSTONE --I rise on a point of order, Madam Chair. It is
inappropriate for Senator Brown to use an opportunity of speaking to
infer that the government response contained things which have not been
said. He knows what has been said. He has been told that intelligence
matters such as these are not discussed and he is now seeking to
misrepresent that in a most unsatisfactory way.

The CHAIRMAN --There is no point of order.

Senator BROWN --That is not a point of order, and it is no defence. I
point out that I flagged the matters I would raise this morning last
night, so that the minister could come in here well prepared to answer
my concerns. Instead, she is failing altogether to answer them and is
trying to trivialise the matter. I find that totally unsatisfactory. We
have a piece of legislation diverting our attention from matters of
surveillance of criminal or diplomatic importance. There have been
amendments proposed by the Australian office of the Privacy
Commissioner and New South Wales legal interests, but the question
remains: what about the whole other field that I have brought to the
Senate's attention? This is the time to debate it. This is not a matter
of spies, security, diplomacy and the protection of the national
interest in the way in which Australians think when the name ASIO comes
to the fore. I am talking about the interception of everybody's
overseas phone calls. I am talking about the use of our facilities
against the national interest. I am talking about foreign countries
like the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada using our
facilities against our interests. All I have asked for is an assurance
from the minister that that cannot happen, is not happening and will
not happen.

  The minister is well aware of the Channel 9 program. I would like
her to be able to say that it was fallacious, that the information
coming from ex-members of the US intelligence network, from New Zealand
and from former Australian operatives is wrong. That program
underscored that there are people now working in those networks who
feel bad about it. They no longer feel good and that they are working
in the interests of their nation. They feel that their whole modus
operandi has been diverted into a scramble for commercial interests,
which can be very much against the interests of citizens and businesses
in the countries in which it is occurring.

  Last night, I mentioned that this Echelon system was used even by
former Prime Minister Thatcher to gather information on two ministers
in her own cabinet, according to that program. What happened was that,
rather than lay open the possibility that it would come to light that
this process was under way through the UK arm of this facility being
the spying agency, the Canadian arm was brought into play to gather
information on two ministers. I guess the Australian government is not
going to comment on that. I would like to hear an assurance from our
government that no such thing can occur in this country and that no
foreign country could use our facilities to spy on citizens, let alone
parliamentarians, in such a fashion. The Channel 9 program went on to
report how the wife of Prime Minister Trudeau in Canada had been spied
on--her calls had been intercepted. The minister is not going to
comment on that, as well.

  We are linked up to this Echelon system, established by the United
States. Our facility at Geraldton is basic to it and this legislation,
if it is put in place, is going to do nothing to change the two basic
facts which concern me. All calls are being intercepted and selectively
downloaded. Every day, information is going to the United States, the
UK, Canada and New Zealand, without that information being recorded or
analysed by Australia's intelligence authorities. We know that is not
confined to matters of national interest, in the usual sense of those
words, but that commercial interests are now becoming predominant in
what is downloaded out of this facility.

  I cannot believe that the minister can sit reading the newspaper
when she ought to be preparing an answer to the charges I am making. I
cannot believe, having been given overnight warning that I would be
raising these matters, that the government not only refuses to refute
them but sits in silence on the other side. Yes, if you want to stymie
a story, say nothing about it. Yes, if you want to downplay the public
interest, then refuse to address it. But this is a matter which will
lead to a continuing deterioration in the public perception that the
parliament is here to defend the rights of Australian citizens. It is
not doing that at the moment. This government is selling out on the
rights of Australian citizens and businesses. That is a very serious
matter indeed.

Bill agreed to.

Senator BROWN --The answer is no. Chair, will you record my opposition?

The CHAIRMAN --Your comments have been noted.

Bill reported without amendment; report adopted.