| http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2001/05/31/FFX2WMREDNC.html
Call to scrap Echelon legislation By SIMON JOHANSON AGE ONLINE Thursday 31 May 2001 Australian legislation condoning use of the Echelon surveillance system should be revoked, Greens Senator Bob Brown said yesterday. The Telecommunication Interception Act passed last year supported Echelon-type spying, legalising inteception of individual and business communications with broad-based search "warrants," Senator Brown said in a statement. A European parliament working document last week concluded the Echelon global surveillance system exists and was used to monitor telephone, fax and e-mail communications. A draft report said spying by Echelon member countries - which include the United States, Great Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand - depends on intercepting satellite data, but is not "nearly as extensive" as media reports claim. Senator Brown said the government should launch and inquiry into Australia's involvement in gathering data for the Echelon network. Echelon is designed to intercept private and commercial communications, not military data, and is supported by a network of listening stations in English-speaking countries, including a post near Geraldton in Western Australia. "Clause 11 C of the Act establishes a new type of foreign communication warrant which will authorise the interception of communications which relate to a specified issue that is important to the Commonwealth's defence of foreign affairs," Senator Brown said. But the legislation failed to define what was a "specified issue" and had no provisions to prevent information being passed onto spy agencies, he said. |
