This disturbing bit of bureaucratic overreach was revealed last week:
ACIC believes there's no legitimate reason to use an encrypted communication platform
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission has said an encrypted communication platform is not something a law-abiding member of the community would use.
By Asha Barbaschow | May 6, 2021 -- 06:33 GMT (16:33 AEST) | Topic: Security
The Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) believes there is no legitimate reason for a law-abiding member of the community to own or use an encrypted communication platform.
"These platforms are used almost exclusively by SOC [serious and organised crime] groups and are developed specifically to obscure the identities of the involved criminal entities and enable avoidance of detection by law enforcement," the ACIC declared. "They enable the user to communicate within closed networks to facilitate highly sophisticated criminal activity".
Consistency, at least: Cops are the only ones being lawful on the dark web, AFP declares
The comments were made in a submission [PDF] to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) as part of its inquiry into the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020.
It told the committee it intends to use the powers extended to the ACIC under the Bill to focus efforts on understanding and gathering intelligence on SOC groups who are using encrypted communication platforms to conceal their criminal activities.
The Bill, if passed, would hand the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and ACIC three new computer warrants for dealing with online crime.
The first of the warrants is a data disruption one; the second is a network activity warrant; and the third is an account takeover warrant.
The ACIC said the Bill would allow it, through the collection, assessment, and dissemination of criminal intelligence and information, to inform national strategies to address transnational serious and organised crime."To deliver on this purpose, the powers and capabilities of the ACIC must keep pace with technological trends and emerging threats to ensure the agency is able to adequately tackle serious cyber-enabled crime and sophisticated criminal groups using encrypted platforms," it said.
"The agency must be enabled to support law enforcement outcomes to protect Australians against the most sophisticated and high-threat actors, who increasingly utilise advanced communications technologies to mask their criminal activities."
Lots more here:
First off the 'legitimate' reason to use encrypted communication is because I choose to not have the Government snoop on my private personal affairs among others!
Does this ACIC claim mean I can’t communicate securely with my Bank or plan my financial future with my financial advisor without allowing he Government to snoop? I don’t feel there are any circumstances when Government should have an unfettered right to snoop on me just because I might be up-to something! They should only act on ‘probable cause’.
What ever happened to ideas of ‘presumption of innocence’ and the basic rights of any law abiding citizen. How and why is the onus of proof reversed here?
Does using Proton Mail or Telegram make me a criminal? I think not!
To me we a seeing an increasingly interfering, intrusive and repressive Federal Government who are really becoming anti-democratic and moving much too much to the far-right away from the centre.
Somehow, I believe, we all need to try to move ScoMo and his henchmen and power crazed bureaucrats back to the democracy we saw even as recently as a decade ago!
You only need to look at what has happened in Hungary and Poland to see how quickly things can spiral out of control! You can be sure if we don’t value our freedoms we will lose them!
What do you think?
David.
2 comments:
"These platforms are used almost exclusively by SOC [serious and organised crime] groups and are developed specifically to obscure the identities of the involved criminal entities and enable avoidance of detection by law enforcement," the ACIC declared.
Every large enterprise I have worked for (and that includes government departments) uses a VPN to provide remote access to their systems for employees, Often using 2-factor authentication.
Any member of the public using mygov also uses an an encrypted communication platform often with 2 factor authentication. All banks do.
htpps is an encrypted platform.
The ACIC seems to be showing a disturbing ignorance of technology and its use.
Have to admit I read this article this morning believing it was written by a bot. As Bernard points out it has no foundation in reality or understanding of modern communications.
I do agree David, and not just here in Australia, legalisation of corruption is being pushed by to many in government.
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