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‘Dangerous’ mass surveillance bill could endanger whistleblowers, HRLC says
Without more appropriate safeguards in place, human rights lawyers are concerned that proposed amendments to surveillance legislation may leave whistleblowers and journalists open to widespread and “dangerous” mass monitoring.
Naomi Neilson
Earlier this month, the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security (PJCIS) published its final report on the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify and Disrupt) Bill 2020 that included recommendations to pass three new warrant powers to assist law enforcement agencies to combat online crime.
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Committee chair senator James Paterson said it “is no exaggeration” to state online crime has reached a record high, with recent evidence identifying a “worrying rise in traffic to the dark web”. It includes 168 per cent more child abuse material identified during the first quarter of 2020 compared to the same time in 2019.
As part of the three new law enforcement powers, PJCIS also recommended “increased oversight, more prescription in the offences that warrants are able to target and a more robust authorisation process for the warrants to give the community confidence that they will only be used for their intended purpose”.
This recommendation has been welcomed by the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC), which are now calling on the Morrison government to amend the bill in line with the committee’s recommendations. In its submission, HRLC warned that without any amendments and if the extraordinary powers are permitted to continue, it could impact journalists and whistleblowers and “go beyond what is necessary”.
“Mass surveillance, in the absence of robust safeguards, is dangerous to our democracy,” senior lawyer Kieran Pender said. “Any expansion of the government’s ability to spy on everyday Australians must be strictly necessary and proportionate. As the PJCIS has identified, the bill in its current form is neither.”
In its submission, HRLC further identified that definitions used under the proposed network activity warrant scheme, “which were so dangerously overbroad”, could potentially enable widespread surveillance across social media platforms.
“Given the democratic cost of surveillance powers, any new surveillance laws should be drafted carefully and narrowly, and with airtight checks and balances. The Morrison government should never have introduced a bill containing such dangerously over-broad language on such a consequential issue,” Mr Pender said.
