YOU ARE BEING WATCHED - Garry Barker, The Age, 2 June 2001

No matter where you go or what you do, someone can see.

Technically speaking, you now stand naked in the world.  People you have never met may know more about you than you can remember yourself It's all down to advancing technology and our continuing love-hate relationship with computers, networking, automatic processing and customer relations management. Tougher laws protecting individual privacy rights come into force in September but, says Federal Privacy Commissioner Malcolm Crompton, few Australian companies are truly ready with privacy policies to cover the information they collect as by-products of their enterprise.  Yet breaches will be rigorously prosecuted and restitution exacted for failure to protect private rights, he says. The risk to individual privacy has arisen almost unnoticed.  Video surveillance, telephonic tracking, data mining and a host of other technologies, collecting, collating and hoarding every detail of yourself and your life are now proliferating faster Mallee rabbits.

Big Brother is bigger in some countries than others but, wherever there are computers, Eftpos, electronic banking, closed circuit cameras, c-mail, electronic tollway billing and the Internet you're being watched.  Britain, which now has more than 1.5 million closed-circuit television cameras in its streets, parks and buildings is the most watched country on Earth, although German and the US are catching up fast.  So, for that matter, is Australia.

Here are some of, the snoops you may encounter on an average day around town:

• Eftpos, credit cards and loyalty schemes: Loyalty cards, such as Fly Buys, are not there to. get you to Sydney.  They are aimed mostly at keeping your custom at member companies' shops, but they can be linked to what you bought, and where and when, and used to either push products to you (since they also know your mail and e-mail addresses, your phone number and often much else, perhaps even your income bracket.  Similarly, whatever you bought is, or can be, linked to your credit card, which can then give a picture of your spending habits, tastes, weaknesses and financial strength.

• e-tags:    Cars moving along the City Link tollways are all logged, which means someone knows they are there and in which direction they are headed.  The e-tag on the windscreen links with the computer system operated by the private company that owns the highways.  Cars without e-tags are photographed and that image is stored.  It might, therefore, be possible to identify someone in the car, though probably the angle of view would preclude that.

• Mobile phones: Whenever a handset is turned on the radio transceiver inside it immediately begins to search for and connect to the nearest antenna.  Each antenna inhabits, and is identified by, a cell covering a certain area.  As you move across the landscape, the phone in your hand switches from one cell to the next, thus effectively charting your movements.  This information has been used in court cases in many countries.

• Closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras on streets: VicRoads operates an extensive network of video cameras used to manage traffic flow on our highways, mainly by giving controllers in the Hawthorn operations centre a view of traffic density that allows them to change the on-off patterns of traffic lights.

• Such cameras are all over the metropolitan area.  One of the most prominent is at the intersection of Victoria and Hoddle Streets.   It sits up high above the traffic, peering down upon the passing parade.  Others hide under dark plastic domes on street corners in the CBD.

• CCTV cameras in buildings: Hundreds of shops, supermarkets and buildings all over Melbourne use closed-circuit video technology to watch their customers and staff.  All of these images can be, and usually are, recorded by videotape recorders.  Use of such images in, identifying criminals in incidents such as hold ups in banks is now standard practice.  But they also record. everyone.

• Face Precognition systems: In Crown Casino, Colonial Stadium and, increasingly, even shops and business premises, there is increasing use of face recognition technology.  Images taken by CCTV cameras scanning an area are sent to computers where software compares every face with photographs stored on a database.  Thus, not only can individuals' whereabouts be established by time and place, but also the company they are keeping.

• Cookies on the Web: Almost every website into which you log will, generally without your knowledge, insert a tiny piece of software into your computer that identifies you to the site's owners.  That's how e-mail spammers, those pesky people who keep sending you mail, get your address.

• Computer operating systems:

• lntel and Microsoft, among a few others, have been criticised several times for hiding identification codes in their microprocessors, operating systems and applications.   The codes allow individual computers to be identified when they go online, making it possible to track their progress around the Internet.

• Echelon: Echelon is said to be operated by the military and intelligence agencies of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.  No government will talk about it.  It is believed to monitor e-mails, telephone calls and other communications flowing over the world's cable and satellite systems looking for words that might alert intelligence organisations, police, customs, immigration officers, military and security services to pending crimes.  The concern is not that someone is watching for terrorists but that innocent people might get caught in the net.

The Federal Government's Privacy Commissioner supervises national legislation and handles complaints from individuals who believe their rights under the law have been infringed.  At the moment such appeals are limited to complaints about government actions. From September, however, the law will set out how private-sector organisations should collect, use, keep secure and disclose personal information.  The new law will also give individuals the right to know what information an organisation holds about them and to correct it if it is wrong. Special provisions for sensitive and health information and direct marketing are included in the legislation, though small businesses, political parties, employee records and information collected by journalists are excluded.

HOW BIG BROTHER PUTS US ALL IN THE FRAME

We’re on camera 80 times each day. Big Brother really is watching - on the train, at work, in the shops and on the street. Working  from a secret underground bunker, this small team of surveillance camera operators knows what bus or train you caught to town. They can tell what book you are reading how many pages you read. They know the route you walked into the city.  How long it took.  Where you stopped like the bank, the coffee shop, or to make phone call. Modern surveillance cameras are everywhere.  Security experts estimate city commuters are secretly caught by electronic surveillance between 60 and 80 times a day. And as Adelaide model Rachael discovered on a trip into the city, the sensation of being watched, every step of the way can be "very eerie". "It is really strange to think that from the minute you leave home a camera can watch every move," she said.

It is estimated there are more than half a million surveillance cameras in Australia. "They are everywhere,'' a top security consultant said. "There are the normal forms of surveillance, such as cameras on buses, trains, tabs, at ATMS, in shops, at service stations, in banks, in office lifts and foyers, and on the streets.” "And then we have covert surveillance, such as spy cameras in some business houses to monitor staff."

More than half of Australia's major companies admit they conduct video surveillance of employees and the public. There also is increased monitoring of the phone conversations, e-mail content and Internet use of staff. Tens of thousands of privately owned cameras are operated around the city, but the exact number is unknown, with few planning regulations. Domestic demand for surveillance cameras is rapidly on the rise, according to security and spy camera consultants. People concerned about robberies, home invasions, property damage or domestic violence are adding to the boom, they say.

Adelaide City Council, using state-of-the-art equipment, has cameras hidden at nearly 30 sites around the city. These cameras are so powerful they can zoom in over 100m to pick up lettering the size of a thumbnail. "Our operators work to a very strict code of conduct, the primary role being pedestrian safety," a council spokesman said. Hidden in the bowels of a state building, accessed only by a maze of secure lock doors, the operations centre links with surveillance run by TransAdelaide. The room is filled with dozens of flickering screen monitors, where the city's entire transport network is tracked by some 200 surveillance cameras at about 20 sites. And that does not included cameras concealed on trains and buses.

Australian Civil Liberties Union president John Bennett said it was understood there were more than half a million surveillance cameras in public places across Australia. "With that many there is a danger we are becoming a Big Brother society," he said.  "There is a mindless drift more and more to this sort. of surveillance.  But one must ask if it is being overdone, and I think it is." Deputy Federal Privacy commissioner Timothy Pilgrim, said his office often fielded cans from members of the public Complaining about the clear increase in surveillance cameras. "Privacy in a modem society cannot be an absolute," he said.  "But we need to balance the needs of the broader community with Issues of safety and security without losing focus on the right of individual privacy."

There needed to be scrutiny of the ways surveillance was used.  "Someone walking down the street does not want to turn up on Australia’s funniest video shows because footage from a surveillance camera has been mishandled," he said. "There needs to be adequate notice given to individuals with signs saying 'this street under surveillance' and then we need to ask who gets access to the footage.”

Peter Michael, Sunday Mail, 22 April 2001

AUSTRALIA: A NEW PROVINCE OF MAINLAND CHINA?

A Totalitarian Government's Disregard for Civil Liberties Spreads to Australia.

Notwithstanding frequent assurances from Beijing that 'life is just a bowl of cherries ' in mainland China the rest of the world is only to well aware that abuses of civil and human rights are as commonplace today as they have ever been.

An outstanding case in point is the now two year -old crackdown on the Falun Dafa (Falun Gong) spiritual movement.  The persecution has been unbelievable in its ferocity with over 320 practitioners having so far lost their lives as a result of torture and abuse in custody.  Moreover, for every death there are hundreds more who have been maimed or disabled from maltreatment.  There are currently up to 100,000 Falun Data practitioners in prisons, detention centres, mental hospitals and labour camps.  Only prominent members of the community such as public officials and university lecturers are afforded the luxury of a trial.  Even so, they have been denied legal representation and sentenced to terms of up to 18 years.

One of the principle weapons of the infamous Cultural Revolution was to divide families and communities against each other and also to humiliate dissidents in front of their peers.   Similar tactics are employed against Falun Data with practitioners being paraded barefoot through crowded streets or market places accompanied by placards or loudspeakers denigrating their beliefs.

Colleges and universities have inevitably been hit hard by the persecution.  Intellectuals are often freethinkers and always targets of suspicion for totalitarian governments.  Students and lecturers have been dismissed in large numbers.  Ms. Zhao Xin aged 32, a lecturer at Beijing University of Industry and Commerce died in agony six months after having three vertebra smashed while in police custody.

We therefore come to the part of this story which is likely to be especially disturbing for our readers here in Australia.  Regardless of the fact that Falun Dafa is a legally registered association in this country as well as an Active Australia provider, The Chinese Embassy in Canberra and Consulates in Sydney and Melbourne have been attempting to extend the persecution to these shores.

Highly misleading and defamatory literature is being circulated, some of these being left in public libraries without permission.  Salacious articles are constantly fed to the Chinese language newspapers, apparently accompanied by significant pressure to publish.  The 21st Century Chinese newspaper on 14th March 2001 carried a report of a meeting held on 9 March to set up an Anti-Falun Gong organisation with the express purpose of preventing the spread of the practice through a campaign of vilification.  The paper confirmed that the article was not written by a staff reporter but sent to them by an outside agency.

Letters have been sent to local councils 'advising' them not to allow Falun Dafa to use public parks for practising the exercises or participate in civic events as well as adding a large helping of negative propaganda.  Phone calls have been made to Festival organisers exhorting them not to invite Falun Data to participate.  Magazines that have previously published factual articles on the practice have been similarly approached.

In Melbourne the Chinese Consulate has traditionally supplied a particular Chinese ethnic school with textbooks: but on discovering that the Principal is a Falun Dafa practitioner they refused to continue.  They were given the option of dealing through other members of staff who had no links to Falun Dafa but still refused.  Here as at home they seem determined to apply the erroneous principle of 'guilt by association'.

Australian citizens and residents of Chinese origin have been particularly singled out for harassment with property mysteriously damaged, phones tapped, and computer operations interfered with.  The Beijing Government has openly stated that any Chinese living in a foreign country, who is not yet a citizen of that country, is still subject to the dictates of the Communist Party.  Visas to visit China are routinely refused to Australian practitioners of Falun Data regardless of the fact that it is their country of birth and they have relatives there.  Article 13, Section 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulates that: "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country." Since China is currently refusing to allow known practitioners leave the mainland they are totally in breach of Article 13, not to mention at least a further dozen articles of the above Charter to which they are a signatory.  It is highly regrettable that despite the best efforts of former UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson during her term of office China has still not ratified the agreements they have signed.

There was a disturbing incident outside the Chinese Consulate in Sydney on 12th August 2001.  A number of practitioners had gathered to peacefully meditate when a man came out of the Consulate with a video camera and started to film everyone from extremely close quarters (i.e. a few centimetres from the face).  A lady with a camera tried to photograph the man and he became verbally and physically abusive, knocking her to the ground.  The lady in question is of Chinese extraction but grew up in Australia and speaks without a trace of Chinese accent.  The man said to her: "Look at your face.  You are Chinese".  Because of her ethnic origin he expected her to obey the Chinese Government. (See previous para).

On Friday afternoon, 5 h October 2001 a man came out of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra to collect a sign left behind from a festival held there some nights before.   After picking up the sign, he walked across the road to where some female practitioners were holding a peaceful vigil to appeal for an end to the persecution.  He pointed his finger aggressively close to their faces shouting that they shouldn't be allowed to stay there.  The practitioners explained: "This is Australia, we are Australian citizens and we have the right to peacefully appeal here." The man retorted: "Australia, what is Australia? 1 don't care about your... (derogatory words omitted) Australia.  He was extremely angry and abusive.  When a practitioner took a photograph of him he tried to wrench the camera away from her and slapped her face.  She passed the camera to someone else and the man grabbed the second lady roughly by the wrist.  At that point some Embassy personnel came out and dragged him back inside.

A full report of this incident was made to the Police.  The practitioners made several visits to the police station over a six week period and were finally informed on 22 d November that the police had been prevented from taking action by the Department of Foreign Affairs because the Chinese Embassy had applied for diplomatic immunity.  They were told that Foreign Affairs had given the man a warning that future misdemeanours would result in his deportation.  The following day the practitioners contacted an official from Foreign Affairs who admitted that in fact no warning had been given at all, although the Chinese Embassy had been asked for their cooperation to ensure that no such incidents happened in the future.  The official refused to supply any written evidence of the Department's request or the Embassy's response.

So where do we go from here?  Certainly, isolating China and pushing the leadership into a corner is only likely to make them dig in their heels even harder, and also give them the opportunity to whip up nationalistic fervour against 'hostile' and 'anti-China' forces.  Regrettably their entry into the World Trade Organisation and winning the right to host the 2008 Olympics has boosted the confidence of the leadership and resulted in a further deterioration of human rights and civil liberties.  Since September 11th they have even seized the opportunity to ludicrously brand a whole host of dissident groups, including Falun Gong, as 'terrorist organisations'.   It goes without saying that all attempts to extend their unwarranted crackdown on Falun Data to countries outside of mainland China, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and of course Australia, must cease forthwith.

With regard to the western nations; it will be unacceptable if they see fit to consider economic and financial liberalisation to be sufficient, and allow social justice and human rights to be subordinated to material greed as has happened so often before throughout history.  Never has there been a better time for a change and for all concerned citizens to stand up and be counted.

SOURCES.

Amnesty International index.  ASA 17/12/2000, 12/2/2001, 17/4/2001.
The Age (Melbourne)
Sydney Morning Herald.
Compassion Magazine Issue 2, First Quarter,2001, New York.
Epoch Times.
Far Eastern Economic Review.
First hand reports from Falun Data practitioners

CONFISCATION OF ASSETS

The Government has accused your company (falsely) of "money laundering." So the Government has confiscated all of your assets. Impossible in a “free” country? Yet that’s what John Howard’s “Proceeds of Crime Bill 2001” would allow government to do to you and your family. (You may view the bill at www.aph.gov.au/bills/index/htm)(Old bills.) And there are dozens more “indictable” and “serious” offences. If the Federal Government were to simply ACCUSE you of having committed any one of these offences, you could be stripped instantly of everything you own. They wouldn’t have to convict you, prosecute you, or even charge you. Government agents would be authorized to confiscate all of your assets - your home, car, bank account, jewellery, everything - at any time. And you and your family would be in the street, without funds to even hire a lawyer to defend yourself against false accusations.

Similar blatantly unconstitutional “asset confiscation” laws have existed in the USA for more than twenty years. Thousands of innocent middle-class Americans have been instantly stripped of billions of dollars in cash and property, at the flash of a badge. For horrific victim abuse details, visit www.fear.org

Politicians and the compliant media will tell you “We’re only going to use this law to get those nasty drug dealers, and terrorists, and money launderers, and people smugglers who are now slipping through the cracks.” We suggest that - if draconian enforcement methods such as this could achieve their goal - American streets would NOT now be awash with more and stronger illegal drugs - at lower prices - than ever before. (As well as constant “terrorist” scares and an estimated eight million illegal immigrants.)

The “Proceeds of Crime Bill 2001” literally overturns the Magna Carta of 1215- the ultimate source of our basic Australian freedoms. You can help stop this outrage in its tracks. Make copies of this letter. Share with your family, friends, neighbours, co­workers. Tell John Howard, Simon Crean, your local MP and the media what YOU think!

Ronald Bradley

RECENT PRESS RELEASES

NEWS ITEM THREAT TO WHISTLEBLOWERS 6/2/02

The Australian Civil Liberties union has called on the Government to redraft the Criminal Code Amendment Bill to ensure that the bill Is confined to people committing espionage, and does not punish whistleblowers in the public service, The Union’s President, John Bennett said that under the Bill, which aims to increase penalties for spying, public servants who leak information which could embarrass the government could be jailed.

Unless the Bill is redrafted, public servants who leaked information such as the use of the telecard of the former defence minister Peter Reith would face stiff penalties and the publics’ right to know about significant political matters would be thwarted.  Journalists would also be affected in view of a penalty of up to 7 years for receiving information.

Mr Bennett said that a distinction should be made between spies who are a threat to the security of Australia and public servants who drew attention to Government incompetence or malpractice. Ministers seldom admit to their own corruption and maladministration, and the public relies on leaks from public servants, and a free press prepared to publish the leaks to “keep the bastards honest.”

Mr Bennett said that the attempt to punish whistleblowers and journalists, as with the proposal to give ASlO greater powers to detain people, is part or a general overreaction to the events of September 11.

John Bennett, President, Australian Civil Liberties Union, P0 Box 1137, Carlton, Vic, 3053 phone (03) 9348671; fax (03) 93478617; email: johntusonbennett@hotmail.com

DSD AND TAMPA - PRESS RELEASE 1 P.M. WEDNESDAY, 13 FEB.  2002

The Australian Civil Liberties Union has written to the Defence Minister Robert Hill stating that the Defence Signals Directorate has exceeded its functions by passing on transcripts of phone conversations between the Maritime Union of Australia and the Tampa, to the government.

The ACLU does not accept the Minister’s statement that the breach of the rules by the DSD was merely an inadvertent error in DSD reporting and believes that the actions of the DSD in listening in to Australians during the Tampa crisis and forwarding transcripts which could be used for political purposes, was a serious threat to free speech and the political process which could not be justified by vague references to “national security.”

The DSD is a significant threat to freedom of communication and to privacy. The DSD seems to set its own agenda, is not subject to any adequate external control, does not require phone tap warrants from the Attorney General, and can monitor any phone conversations by satellite.

SECURITY BILL FOR AUSTRALIA IS TOO BROAD, CRITICS SAY

SYDNEY, Australia, Feb. 9 - Australia wants firmer penalties and longer jail sentences for convicted spies and traitors, but broad legislation proposed after Sept. 11 for that purpose could also imprison public sector whistle-blowers and journalists who expose scandals, not state secrets, civil Libertarians and legal experts contend. Press freedom in this country, which has no constitutional right to free speech, has been decreasing for years critics say, as court suppression orders rise and the release of documents under freedom of information statutes slows. The main culprit is the government-sanctioned growth of official secrecy, said Warren Beeby, chairman of the Australian section of the Commonwealth Press Union, a group concerned with press freedom.  He is also an executive with the News Corporation.

Mr. Beeby points to the espionage- related legislation proposed by the government as one of the most recent examples. The bill was introduced in late September, before Prime Minister John Howard won a third term partly by taking a tough stand on issues of national security. Yet the proposal, which Attorney Genera! Daryl Williams has said will be reintroduced this month, has provisions that could stretch far beyond the scope of national security, critics contend. People who pass on “official information” could be sent to prison for two years, arid those who receive it could also get prison sentences of seven years. Yet the definition of official information is so broad in the bill that it could include routine data available to nearly any government worker, some legal experts said.

“It’s a nightmare,’ said Michael Chesterman, a law professor at the University of New South Wales. Government officials defend the proposed crackdown, insisting that laws intended to protect national security need to be toughened. Spying, they say, would carry penalties of 25 years in jail, up from 7, if the bill becomes law as it is now structured. “Claims that the government intends to use its espionage legislation to plug leaks are wrong,’ Mr. Williams said recently. Part of the concern is that portions of the bill could be interpreted very broadly because some provisions deal only with unauthorized disclosures of information. But, Mr. Williams said, "these are simply intended to restate the existing provisions under the Crimes Act in more modern language."

Peter Robinson, a journalist for more than 50 years in Australia, Japan, the United States and Britain, and the former editor in chief of the daily Australian Financial Review, is skeptical. He contends that governments are pushing through measures that limit their responsibility to be open about their actions. The trend is causing the most serious assault on Australia’s democratic base since World War II, he said. ‘The idea that a journalist could be imprisoned for accepting a leaked document seems, to me, evil, he said. John Bennett, president of the Australian Civil Liberties Union, agrees, saying that the country ought to distinguish between spies and public servants exposing government incompetence or malpractice. A decade ago, a criminal law review panel here recommended that prison sentences for the unauthorized disclosure of official information be limited to certain restricted categories and “no more widely stated than is required for the effective functioning of government,’ said the final report, released by the department that Mr. Williams now runs.

That approach was not taken, however. The proposed legislation does not carve out exceptions based on the source or content of information. Even some within the government have expressed concern that the proposed restrictions are too broad. The attorney general of the state of Victoria, Rob Hulls, is one of them. The legislation “would criminalize genuine whistle-blowers who try to expose corrupt and inappropriate activities,” a spokesman for Mr. Hulls said on Friday. “In a true democracy, bona fide whistle-blowers are protected, not punished,” the spokesman added. Mr. Hulls plans to urge the federal government to adopt protections for whistle-blowers. Brian Greig, the law and justice spokesman for the Australian Democrats, a minority party, said he would oppose any law that would send public servants or journalists to jail for passing on or receiving information that was merely embarrassing to the government. For its part, the government does not seem ready to change its stance. Mr. Williams says safeguards will ensure that legitimate transfers of information can continue. that has not placated critics, including Mr. Beeby. “You’ve got the attorney general holding out his arms and saying, ‘Trust me,’ ” he said. “And we don’t.”

Becky Gaylord, The New York Times, 10 February 2002

Contents of Your Rights

Australian Civil Liberties Union