COAG met yesterday, the Prime Minister and the premiers of the states and chief ministers of the territories with Tasmanian premier, Will Hodgman, only allowed in after facial recognition technology was used as no one really knew what he looked like.
When the day came to an end, they all stood around backslapping for the cameras having agreed to everything the Prime Minister had placed on the agenda, including the creation of a national database of drivers’ licence photographs from across the country to give some muscle to photo recognition technology and continue the creeping sense of state surveillance on the citizenry.
It was a brief moment of political unity with Labor and Liberal leaders speaking as one.
How do we feel about this? The idea of a national voluntary non-binding postal survey didn’t get a look in this time, funnily enough, so we’re not quite sure about the national mood but it was one of those moments where clearly government didn’t give a damn what people thought.
Full column here.
I can’t believe we have to just roll over and accept the social & ethical ramifications of yet another removal of the democratic principles that this country was founded on. Our rights to privacy have been seriously eroded already by this scaremongering excuse for a federal government regardless of innocence. Not to mention the very real fact that a facial recognition database will be open to hacking no matter what nonsense Turncoat spruiks. The more he wants something, the more he shuts down debate & tells lies. That’s his usual pattern when he hasn’t a clue.
Australia is now about intimidating free speech, silencing dissent, data retention, anti-protest laws, association laws, vagrancy laws, etc, etc.
The fabric of our society has already changed for the worse & it’s so sad that we are letting go of a non-intrusive democracy without a fight.
Hear Hear Bella, Hear Hear
Great stuff. also shows why the big rush was on to get rid of the biker clubs, to stop the production of cheap ID?
But, Jack … “Imagine the power …”
It makes sense that Chris (over the wall) derides your column-he makes his money out of facial recognition/surveillance technology by his own admission! He is the one that is wrong. I must question Turnbull and his “obsession” with national security and ‘keeping us all safe’. Sure we need to feel safe (er from what though?) and steps have to be taken to ensure our safety but every terrorist-mass shooting seems an opportunity for Turnbull and the Liberals to link it to Australia, national security and his vital role in scaring the begeezus out of us.
Does Turnbull genuinely need counselling to relieve himself of some of his “anxiety” or is there another agenda going on here? Is the real objective to keep us in a constant state of fear so he or Tones can regularly show us how important it is to vote for the Liberals at the next election. Since the Liberals have been in, they have stripped us of our individuality, our metadata and every aspect of our privacy. And please don’t come back with ‘If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear’…it is almost as useless as the Right Wingers’ favourite slogan ‘If it ain’t broke….. blah blah blah’.
We have been deliberately frightened into giving up our precious freedoms with barely a whimper and we let them get away with it. And Shorten? An absolute cowardly disgrace for not defending our rights and civil liberties. Not a leader’s jock strap. Bill needs to just go away and stay away.
George Williams, a law professor at the University of New South Wales, says Australia’s existing terror laws could cover any terrorist threats. We don’t need any more! He calculates that Australia has enacted 62 anti-terrorism laws since September 2001 even though we have had no mass attacks. A paper by John Mueller of Ohio State University and Mark Stewart of Newcastle University in 2010 demonstrated that the chance of being killed by a terrorist act in Australia was one in 33.3 million. The chance of death by traffic accident, by comparison, was one in 15,000. More people die in Australia from falling out of bed than terrorist acts. Its a beat-up…l;ways has been. We have sufficient laws to deal with terrorism.
I’m sure that is comforting to the families of the 10 Australians who died on 9/11, and the 88 killed in Bali. And the traffic accident and bed stats are just nonsense–and you know it. Those people don’t die because of the wanton criminal act of evil people. Malice and ideology are real. You don’t like where that argument goes, so you dismiss it.
Bali?
There’s no chance the fact there has been no mass attacks is because of the work of put Police and security agencies backed by strong legislation I suppose? Jeez I wished I lived in the world of some on here instead of having to work in mine.
Also what security clearance would the good professor hold? If he doesn’t hold at least NVL2 then he wouldn’t have a clue.
Hear, Hear Bassman Hear, Hear.
Exactly, B-man. The point of law-enforcement is to protect people from actual risk with minimal infringement of liberty, and the only rational way to do that is to allocate resources in proportion to the likelihood of the risk and the potential for harm. Like shark attacks, people are understandably terrified of terrorism, but in fact the risk they pose is relatively low.
Furthermore, in terms of protecting the public, the motive for a crime is not even a relevant consideration. It is already illegal to set off bombs and mass murder people. It makes no difference if the reason is politics, greed or pure attention seeking. It is not more important to stop a terrorist attack than it is to stop the same crime committed by a gangster or a friendless psychopath.
Given those two points, it is clear that all these specific anti-terror laws are political and not rational. They also happen to be an authoritarian’s wet-dream. As JTI points out, the new powers always become entrenched and end up being routinely used for everything other than what was initially used to justify them.
Razor and Co…ever heard of a long bow?
We have compulsory id cards here in Hong Kong; they have had them for quite a while, more than ten years i think.
Makes entering and leaving HK very simple and quick and the passport stays in your bag. works like the new passports in Aus with an additional requirement to place a thumb on the reader. insert card, wait, wee glass saloon doors slide back, remove card walk inside glass box, place thumb on glass reader, beep and second doors open and off you go.
We have to use thumb print technology rather than facial recognition because the Chinese all look the same.
I remember when they bought in photo ids for licenses that said licenses were never to be used as a de facto identity card.
Now we have passport photos digitized, licenses digitized and I guess to make it all work we will end up with a CCTV on every corner as per England.
The only thing that will save us is the NBN – it will not be able to handle the huge volume of data :).
I wonder if the Mission Impossible type masks will render this type of surveillance useless?
Combine this intrusion into privacy with the attitudes of the children who run the companies in Silicon Valley and we have a real problem.
Facebook regularly nags me to upload a photo “so that my friends can recognize me”.
The NAB is going to use Google Talk to allow people to have voice input for their accounts etc. Now that is tremendous stuff. Google already knows more about you than your spouse and regularly targets you with specific ads. Once they know how much you have in your bank account and presumably your bank account number as well as the password to get into it, the skies the limit.
I can imagine the message – “Listen you miserly little sod, why are you playing around pricing a Toyota Echo when you can afford a Ferrari. Tick the box and one will be delivered to you tomorrow. ”
1984 and “Big Brother” is here.
There again, if the education system does not inculcate the young with the value of privacy, the advantages of democracy and study the methods of how all the tinpot dictatorships past and present suppressed all opposition and cowered their citizens, we are on a slippery slope to nowhere.
apologies for straying OT so early but while i have this on my screen i think it is something well worth a read,
“Another consequence of identity politics is that it has made the distance between making an argument and causing offense terrifyingly short. Any argument that can be cast as insensitive or offensive to a given group of people isn’t treated as being merely wrong. Instead it is seen as immoral, and therefore unworthy of discussion or rebuttal.
The result is that the disagreements we need to have—and to have vigorously—are banished from the public square before they’re settled. People who might otherwise join a conversation to see where it might lead them choose instead to shrink from it, lest they say the “wrong” thing and be accused of some kind of political –ism or -phobia. For fear of causing offence, they forego the opportunity to be persuaded.”
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/dying-art-disagreement
i was sent an example this week, a piece in Crikey pondering just what sort of psychological disorder opponents of the conventional view of climate change must have.
not, some people disagree with me, but these people disagree with me so they must be nuts.
this sort of nonsense seems to come from both sides of most debates these days.
the risk is that if we banish ideas from the public square they don’t go away they just simmer beneath the surface until someone comes along to appeal to voters who support the banished idea.
That’s why certain people read websites like crikey, swallow the bait hook line and sinker and start acting/thinking exactly the same way. Only the names have been omitted to protect the guilty. It’s the disease of the 21st century.
Yes free thoughts and seeking out information rather than opinion pieces is called a “disease” by those sheeple who are scared of losing relevance.
What it’s done to the social sciences is of real concern. Peer review isn’t working as a lot of articles saying “my political opponents are nuts” get published. Bad science, using dodgy methodology.
Spot on Jack
People are also adopting a number of personas with varying views depending on what company they are in.
I’ll see your left brain and raise with the right brain to allow future generations to have an opportunity to enjoy what your generation have squandered. I also attached an article a couple of blogs ago that also delved into the numerous research items into the climate deniers and it said some very interesting things about older white males fearing the loss of the hierarchical structure they have enjoyed sitting atop for many moons now. Of course was abused by those folk who continually claim to be victimised just further proving my point. Most of the idea’s you are supporting should have been banished when you were a boy.
http://www.theage.com.au/comment/in-the-adani-debate-one-side-of-the-brain-is-outshouting-the-other-20171005-gyuzxo.html
Great read, Mr Insider, and funny too. However I say what about “Disguises” when a terrorist disguises their face and becomes unrecognisable from when they may have obtained a Drivers Licence? Can this all seeing monster see through disguises? A great old Movie comes to mind “The Day of the Jackal” starring Edward Fox. Facial Recognition would have been of no use whatsoever detecting the Jackal at all. Has Dutton, Turnbull and Co thought of this?
Burka?
I note this article had Jack labelled a ‘typical leftist’ – go figure. Facial recognition is just part of our problems.
And personally I look nothing like my drivers licence pic.
oops – that comment was on the other side. They’re mad there!
They are Milton, frighteningly mad…..except for Jason and we all know who he is. He does his best to try and lighten things up over there.
I know the Bowmeister, Penny and agree. But below my post is Lou whom I think has had too much vermouth .I’m jealous. Not sure if that’s the thing in Barca but it was in a busy place we went to in Madrid.
Bring us back one of those sexy hams they have hanging up over there please Lou.
and ps the ehl is being played in barca this weekend. go amd have a look old mate
Hey Milton, I have an old drivers licence issued by VicRoads when I still had a mo and Elton John glasses, with a summer tan. The nasty woman taking the photo took a long time to get the worst pose possible, the result being a fairly good impression of a middle eastern terrorist. I still get a laugh when I show it to anyone.
Meanwhile here in Valencia, I swear all the good looking young girls (and there are many of them) are staring at me and I’m convinced it is some form of facial recognition. My wife doesn’t agree of course.