[AusNOG] Assistance and Access Bill moves to PJCIS

[Paul Wilkins]

The Bill was introduced into Parliament by Peter Dutton. His speech to the
House makes for interesting reading.

For instance:

"The AFP advise that encrypted communications have directly impacted around
200 operations conducted by the AFP in the last 12 months, all of which
related to the investigation of serious criminal offences carrying a
penalty of seven years imprisonment or more."

The Bill imposes penalties of 10 years imprisonment for non compliance with
TANs/TCNs (and remember, Law Enforcement decide what constitutes non
compliance. If you disagree with a TAN/TCN, earliest you get to make your
case is in your criminal defense), but the crimes that are pursued are
"serious crimes" per the Crimes Act, which attach a penalty of only 2
years. Meaning, obstruction of an investigation, attaches a sentence FIVE
times the sentence of the crime they're pursuing.

Furthermore, if the case for police concern attaches to operations with 7
year penalties, why again are 2 year penalties the threshold for TCN/TANs?

If the police have 200 cases with 7 year penalties, then the cases with 2
year penalties and hence use of TAN/TCN will clearly run to the thousands
per year. But the government won't admit this.

"The bill requires that any obligations within a technical assistance
notice and technical capability notice are reasonable, proportionate,
practicable and technically feasible. We are not in the business of asking
industry to do the impossible."

So there's your answer Peter, anything not impossible is on the table. Or
maybe it just takes a little longer. Also, it's very early days to be
making representations to the House that TANs/TCNs are "reasonable,
proportionate, practicable, and technically feasible". It's clearly too
early to tell, and there's little in the Bill to ensure that TANs/TCNs in
practice will in fact be "reasonable, proportionate, practicable and
technically feasible."

The conclusion states:

"The government has consulted extensively with industry and the public on
these measures and has made amendments to reflect the feedback in the
legislation now before the parliament."

I think we're entitled to ask, what exactly constituted this extensive
industry & public consultation, because people in the industry don't seem
to know anyone who's been consulted. As to amendments, there has been the
removal of "protecting the public revenue" as an objective of the Bill,
which was probably illegal anyway..

The Bill's not ready to pass. Has Dutton tabled a hurried Bill only to
change the conversation in the House? Responsibility for what eventually
may pass will lie with PJCIS now.

Kind regards

Paul Wilkins


On Mon, 24 Sep 2018 at 19:06, Peter Tonoli <peter at metaverse.org> wrote:

> Hi Narelle,
>
> I’m interested to know how this analysis can even be attempted? There are
> no parameters or limitations with what can be requested under the
> unprecedented voluntary notice provisions: how long is a ball of string?
>
> Cheers,
> Peter
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 22 Sep 2018, at 11:08 am, Narelle Clark <narellec at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> Folks
> I'd like to do some analysis on the cost of compliance of this.
>
> Anyone want to share and discuss? Think in tangible, practical terms.
>
> I'll start putting together a model next week with a view to submitting on
> the topic.
>
>
> Narelle
>
> On Sat, 22 Sep. 2018, 10:31 am Paul Wilkins, <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> The Assistance and Access Bill has been referred to the Parliamentary
>> Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS).
>>
>> They are conducting public consultation. Submissions should be received
>> by 12:00pm Friday 12 October 2018.
>>
>> <http://goog_101104176>
>>
>> https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence_and_Security/TelcoAmendmentBill2018
>>
>> Kind regards
>> Paul Wilkins
>> _______________________________________________
>> AusNOG mailing list
>> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
>> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>>
> _______________________________________________
> AusNOG mailing list
> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ausnog.net/pipermail/ausnog/attachments/20180925/945b6611/attachment.html>