Interesting times for press and personal freedom:-

AFP: I’m still staggered by the power of this warrant. It allows the AFP to “add, copy, delete or alter” material in the ABC’s computers. All Australians, please think about that: as of this moment, the AFP has the power to delete material in the ABC’s computers. Australia 2019. — John Lyons (@TheLyonsDen) June 5, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ve-when-it-suits-them-critics-of-abc-raid-say

 

Unauthorised disclosure of classified Defence material.

What's the problem with that? <sarcasm>

If it had been a member of the ADF they'd be in the slammer right now.

Journoland has gone into meltdown over the raids, not understanding that "freedom of the press" doesn't mean that you can publish anything you can get your little mitts on without some subsequent actions.

 

@JimInOz … I guess the problem is when the powers that be set the rules and bend them to suit themselves....plus complete lack of transparency surrounding state (and corporate) surveillance. There seems to be a lot of it about these days :0)

The arrest of two Northern Irish journalists after they embarrassed authorities by obtaining documents relating to a mass murder “was the kind of operation more associated with a police state than with a liberal democracy”, a court has heard.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-48504287

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...democracy-police-state-loughinisland-massacre

 

We still have our democracy and this won’t change it. Watch the 75th anniversary of D-Day events to put things into correct perspective.

 

Pretty disturbing. But then lots of things are disturbing these days. Press freedom is under attack everywhere. YES we “still” have democracy but like the proverbial frog, we are slowly being boiled...Vote and get involved.

 

Germany too was a democracy that turned into a police state when things went drastically wrong!

WW-II D-Day Anniversary reminds us of the grim reality of a democratic system when it took very unfortunate bad turns in the name of national security or so-called public good.

 

Hackers and anyone can do the same. Welcome to the internet

 

We have compulsory voting, had a federal election about 3 weeks ago, the result was out on the night, and everyone then got on with life and business without riots about the result.

Press freedom is eroding? Speaking about the West, perhaps yes if the timeframe you are measuring from is post November 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down. If the point of comparison is the height of the Cold War or WW2, then definitely no. The world is now in a period of rising geopolitical tension with new weapons in the armory.

BTW: The AFP said in a press conference today the legislative change to enable the ability to (I'm quoting OPs words) "“add, copy, delete or alter” material in ... computers" was necessary in order to be able to access smartphones. They said merely accessing an iphone causes changes to metadata and without the legislative change they were legally prohibited from getting into them.

 

Seems to me the need for transparency and press freedom is more important than ever.

 

I hear you but that is a long time ago. It is a new world now and we are increasingly reliant on digitized and streamed information. Data mining and monitoring is enabling social modelling and social / behavioural control at unprecedented levels. We are increasingly vulnerable to corporate and government manipulation IMHO. This forum might be one of the last independent outposts :0)
If the Third Reich had had even 10% of this level of control and information, then we would probably all be goose stepping now. There might still be an insidious march. WW2 was over in 6 years… the war on terror officially ran 12 years but in reality, it still seems to be going strong (18 years) and necessitating ever greater levels of monitoring and data gathering to keep us safe.

 

and a picture is worth a thousand words .....

 

Satisfactory sounds like my old school reports...and that is a 2017 report...… and can soon slip into noticeable problems.... but in the Online age the unnoticeable / unnoticed might be more of an issue :0)

 

FIFY

If you don't know who the current Prime Minister is, or the Speaker of the House, or understand that the government only spends YOUR money - please stay the at home.

Voting is a right, but not without obligations.

 

Strangely enough when our president (I didn't vote for him, but he is the pres none the less) Mentioned to another head of state that we had Submarines within range to help protect his country the Press went wild with accusations that he had revealed a military secret. They didn't bother to look at the press releases on the US Navy's websites that had revealed the presence of these subs days earlier.

When he mentioned to a russian diplomat that we had evidence of a terrorist plot to down airliners the press went wild calling it treasonous to reveal that information, though the same information had been openly available from the New York times for Several days.

The Press are not the sole arbiters of truth, nor are they the ones who should have the power to decide what is sensitive information vital to national defense.

WW2 has been mentioned a lot lately. One should remember the posters stating "Loose Lips Sink Ships".
Had a journalist revealed that General Patton's Army was a sham made up of plywood aircraft and inflatable rubber tanks the D-Day landing sites would have been revealed to the Germans and the landings would likely have failed with tremendous loss of life.
Think about that the next time some "un named source close to" does a document dump.

 

@Professor I think the press, public and government typically run a merry dance together and I agree everyone should be accountable for their actions. Aside from national security the phone tapping scandals / kiss and tells etc show the press need to be controlled and it is the public who provide the demand. Ultimately the government holds the Trump cards (no pun intended) and modern technology has a strong potential to enhance this in ways it is hard to predict. Aside from Government you also have to consider the growing amount of data and psychological profiles companies like Amazon and Facebook now have. I also imagine companies of that scale must already have secret service links and they also run a merry dance with government. Long story short Police raids on bona fide investigate journalists in a country like Australia seems very heavy handed. The moves against Journalists Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey in Ireland were found to be unjustified but the data gathered can’t be ‘forgotten’. It will be interesting to see how the courts deal with the ABC raids but again the secret services already now have the data. Power does corrupt and Watergate showed the potential direction of travel when secret services are used to consolidate that power. Luckily they only had 1970s tech to play with. Loose lips do sink ships but also ‘’The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing and the true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts." Edmund Burke (1729-1797)