[AusNOG] Assistance and Access Bill moves to PJCIS

Fri Mar 29 19:04:47 EST 2019

This came out on Wednesday...

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security
<https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Intelligence_and_Security>
has
exercised its powers to refer the *Telecommunications and Other Legislation
Amendment (Assistance and Access) Act 2018*
<https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2018A00148> to the Independent
National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) <https://www.inslm.gov.au/>,
Dr James Renwick CSC SC, for review and report.
This is the first referral to the INSLM in the Committee’s history.
In referring the review, the Committee has requested that Dr Renwick review
whether the Act contains appropriate safeguards for protecting the rights
of individuals, remains proportionate to the threat to national security
and remains necessary.
Committee Chair Mr Andrew Hastie MP
<https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=260805>
 and Deputy Chair the Hon Anthony Byrne MP
<https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Parliamentarian?MPID=008K0> made
the following statement:
*The Assistance and Access Act seeks to respond to highly technical
challenges encountered by Australian intelligence and law enforcement
agencies, and the Act has attracted significant domestic and international
attention.*
*In our view, the INSLM provides a valuable, independent perspective on the
balance between necessary security measures and the protection of civil
liberties. As such, the INSLM is an important and valued component of
Australia’s national security architecture. *
*As an eminent barrister, Dr Renwick brings a wealth of legal expertise to
the role of INSLM and has a strong understanding of national security
issues and the operation of relevant security agencies. The Committee looks
forward to the outcome and any recommendations made by the INSLM in the
review and report.*
The Committee has requested the INSLM to report to the Committee by
1 March 2020.
The Committee will consider any findings or recommendations in its own
review of the same Act, due later in 2020.
*About the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor:*
Established by legislation, the INSLM independently reviews the operation,
effectiveness and implications of national security and counter-terrorism
laws; and considers whether the laws contain appropriate protections for
individual rights, remain proportionate to terrorism or national security
threats, and remain necessary. In conducting the review the INSLM has
access to all relevant material, regardless of national security
classification, can compel answers to questions, and holds public and
private hearings.
*Media enquiries:*
Chair, Mr Andrew Hastie MP on (02) 6277 4223
Deputy Chair, Hon Anthony Byrne MP on (02) 6277 4309
*For background: *
Committee Secretariat on (02) 6277 2360 or email pjcis at aph.gov.au

On Thu, 28 Mar 2019 at 12:33, Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The silence on the Assistance and Access Act since it passed in December
> has been deafening. It was firmly understood, on representations by the
> Liberal Government, that the bill passed was passed as an expedient, yet
> now we have the third report from PJCIS due 3rd April, and yet another
> round of submissions from corporations large and small, industry luminaries
> and human rights and legal experts, all saying that basically we're where
> we were back in September 2018, when Dutton rather disingenuously reported
> to the House that:
>
> "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."
>
> Yet no matter how many submissions are made to how many parliamentary
> committees, we now seem stuck with a deeply flawed Act, the Liberals are
> walking backwards on the Labor amendements, while the country's police
> forces now operate with sweeping interception powers well beyond what's
> necessary and proportional.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Paul Wilkins
>
>
> On Thu, 14 Feb 2019 at 12:03, Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> ACIC in their submission seem to be making the case, that as police now
>> have EA powers under the Act to surveil targets, so too should the ACIC
>> have EA powers to surveil the police.
>>
>> https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=989cabd1-5e9f-4fc3-a961-9a8b94683e7b&subId=666446
>>
>> I think however this too is wrong, and that two wrongs don't make a
>> right. The police should never have been given EA powers to break
>> encryption when all they need is legal intercept. And then ACIC too could
>> have LI powers.
>>
>> As I point out in my latest PJCIS submission,
>>
>> https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=4d150922-3809-4487-aa2f-f8976f2b3789&subId=666483
>> there's a basic difference between Legal Intercept and Exceptional
>> Access, where EA you need read/modify/write/delete rights, whereas LI is
>> read only.
>>
>> If you restrict access by the police to read only, a very large chunk of
>> the ensuant vulnerabilities go away. Further, the amount of damage the
>> police can do on a magical mystery tour of your data centre is contained.
>>
>> Kind regards
>>
>> Paul Wilkins
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 at 13:27, Robert Hudson <hudrob at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The government said they'd consider them, not that they'd implement them.
>>>
>>> I have very little faith at all that without significant pressure being
>>> brought to bear, that the government response would be anything more than
>>> "we consider them, and decided no, we're happy as we are".
>>>
>>> On Thu, 24 Jan 2019 at 13:03, Paul Wilkins <paulwilkins369 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Labor's amendments haven't been forgotten, and will have to be dealt
>>>> with eventually, when the time comes for the PJCIS to table their April
>>>> recommendations.
>>>>
>>>> Noone is forgetting that the Act was passed as an interim measure, to
>>>> allow law enforcement to deal with the Christmas break with new powers. It
>>>> would be a serious breach of faith for the government to renege on the
>>>> outstanding amendments.
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards
>>>>
>>>> Paul Wilkins
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, 23 Jan 2019 at 13:24, Michelle Sullivan <michelle at sorbs.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Paul Wilkins wrote:
>>>>> > Obviously this has been in limbo over the Christmas break. There's 2
>>>>> > really important issues, on hold because of this.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 1 - When or if the PJCIS will call for public comment on the Act as
>>>>> > passed.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > 2 - The appearance of the Labor amendments.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > So we probably won't see any developments until Parliament resumes
>>>>> > 12th February.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'll lay money there will be no amendments (passed), there will be an
>>>>> attempt to force Apple etc to write in a weakness which will be
>>>>> challenged.  There will be many people that will not update their
>>>>> iOS/Andriod anytime soon.  Personally I stopped updating the moment
>>>>> this
>>>>> bill was passed - particularly as there is at least one Apple update
>>>>> that stated, "No bug/security fixes"...
>>>>>
>>>>> What you will most likely find (and the idiots over in the ACT
>>>>> haven;'t
>>>>> worked it out yet) is that the terrorists have some very smart people
>>>>> "working" for them and they probably already jailbreak their phones
>>>>> and
>>>>> install their own messaging software on it.. (not that you need to
>>>>> jailbreak when you can use the 'team' functionality in xcode to
>>>>> install
>>>>> non apple approved apps on your phone.)
>>>>>
>>>>> Of course the highly amusing part is how easy it is to plugin to
>>>>> online
>>>>> services and how easy it is to run your own asymmetric cryptography...
>>>>> I
>>>>> suspect it would be trivial to put your own encryption over the top of
>>>>> any of those services/apps that allow such (and some already do -
>>>>> recently came across a plugin to the mailapp that has a custom
>>>>> encryption/decryption mechanism which is used by a bank for secure
>>>>> messaging.  This means as posted elsewhere any interception would have
>>>>> to be by screen capture and keyboard interception on the device, which
>>>>> I
>>>>> personally would immediately class as a systemic weakness because if I
>>>>> were doing it i'd be cut/pasting messages into my own non-internet
>>>>> connected app for encryption/decryption so you can capture what you
>>>>> want
>>>>> off imessage, facebook messenger etc... you'd still be getting
>>>>> encrypted
>>>>> blocks of data.. and if you capture everything you have online banking
>>>>> passwords and everything else that goes with that and there one thinks
>>>>> about who else can see the captures....
>>>>>
>>>>> This is what you get when you have people in charge that have interest
>>>>> in obtaining data they are not entitled to.
>>>>>
>>>>> At least the Queensland police will not get voice recorded giving out
>>>>> new locations to abusive ex-husbands, now they can protect themselves
>>>>> by
>>>>> just accessing the phone of the wife in hiding..
>>>>>
>>>>> ... anyone seen my foil hat today I seem to have misplaced it....? :P
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> Michelle Sullivan
>>>>> http://www.mhix.org/
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> AusNOG mailing list
>>>>> AusNOG at lists.ausnog.net
>>>>> http://lists.ausnog.net/mailman/listinfo/ausnog
>>>>>
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