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The security of the nation is not at the ramparts alone. Security also lies in the value of our free institutions. A cantankerous press, an ubiquitous press must be suffered by those in authority in order to preserve the even greater values of freedom of expression and the right of the people to know.Judge Gurfein
United States v. New York Times 1971
as quoted in The Puzzle Palace -
Inside the National Security Agency
EFA enters a new era
EFA this year looks back proudly on five years of online activism in Australia. Thanks to the generosity of a benefactor who prefers anonymity, we will be able this year to fund a part-time Executive Director, thus taking a substantial load off the shoulders of the hard-working voluntary board.
We believe we have done a great deal to educate online users about their right to privacy and anonymity on the Net, to increase the awareness of policymakers about the dangers of over-zealous regulation, and to counter the reactionary attitude of the traditional media, particularly in the early days of the Net.
There is still a great deal to achieve. Draft legislation on Internet content regulation is expected to be released in the near future, cryptography policy remains a confused and contradictory issue for policy development, and the need for an adequate privacy policy is still not receiving proper acknowledgment by government.
Despite our achievements and an optimistic outlook for the future of the organisation, EFA needs more support from the online community by way of active membership. Finance is not a critical issue, visible support for our aims and objectives is. If you are not already a member, please consider showing us your support in a more effective way by making a decision this year to join EFA.
The fight is too important to be left to the few!
Government Turnaround on Privacy Policy
On 16 December 1998, a joint Press Release by the Minister for the Information Economy and the Attorney-General announced that the Government would legislate to support self-regulatory privacy protection in the private sector. This follows years of debate about whether privacy protection should be provided through voluntary standards or through legislation. Consumer groups and privacy advocates have worked hard to convince government and business that the best way to protect privacy is to back up industry codes with enforceable legislation. It is apparently to be "a light touch legislative regime based on the Privacy Commissioner's National Principles for the Fair Handling of Personal Information".
EFA, as a participant in the Campaign for Fair Privacy Laws has cautiously welcomed this announcement. There are still concerns that the privacy regime will largely depend on a self-regulatory scheme based on industry codes. To date, there has been no indication that privacy and consumer advocates will be consulted during the drafting process. In association with other privacy advocates, EFA will therefore be continuing the campaign to ensure that a fair regime is introduced.
In Victoria, a community consultation meeting was held
Friday 29 January with representatives of
Multimedia Victoria concerning the provisions
of the Data Protection Bill and the Electronic Commerce Framework Bill, which will
be tabled in the Autumn sitting of Parliament.
The decision has been taken that Victoria will proceed with both
pieces of legislation because it is unclear when the Commonwealth bills will
be presented, if they will satisfy the concerns that have been expressed in
Victoria's discussions, and because without the Victorian bill, public
sector agencies would still not be covered by privacy law. The meeting was
sponsored by a loose coalition of community activist groups, including EFA.
Attendees represented such areas as legal, consulting, business, health and
educational organisations. Submissions on the Victorian bills are due by
12 February.
Censored Crypto Report Liberated
EFA has obtained access to an uncensored copy of the "Review of Policy
relating to Encryption Technologies" (the Walsh Report) and this has
now been released online at:
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Crypto/Walsh/index.htm
The originally censored parts are highlighted in red.
The report was prepared in late 1996 by Gerard Walsh, former deputy director of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). The report had been commissioned by the Attorney-General's Department in an attempt to open up the cryptography debate in Australia. It was intended to be released publicly and was sent to the government printer early in 1997. However, distribution was stopped, allegedly at a very high (i.e. political) level. EFA got wind of this and applied for its release under FOI in March 1997. This was rejected for law enforcement, public safety and national security reasons. We persisted, and eventually obtained a censored copy in June 1997, with the allegedly sensitive portions whited out. The report was released on the EFA website, and in the subsequent media coverage the department claimed that the report was never intended to be made public, a claim that is clearly at odds with Gerard Walsh's understanding of the objectives, as is obvious from his foreword to the report.
It has now come to light that the Australian Government Publishing Service, which printed the report, lodged "deposit copies" with certain major libraries. This is a standard practice with all Australian government reports that are intended for public distribution. The Walsh Report is quite possibly the first instance where a report was withdrawn after printing but before any public release. It is believed that the Attorney-General's department was unaware that not all copies had been returned to them.
To this day, the report remains officially unreleased, except for the censored FOI version. Interestingly, several Australian government sites now link to the report on the EFA website.
Quite possibly, this situation would have remained unchanged, except for an alert university student, Nick Ellsmore, who recently stumbled across an unexpurgated copy of the report, gathering dust in the State Library in Hobart. The uncensored version has now replaced the censored report at the original URL.
The irony of this tale is that the allegedly sensitive parts of
the report, which were meant to be hidden from public gaze, are
now dramatically highlighted. The censored sections provide a
unique insight into the bureaucratic and political paranoia
about cryptography, such that censorship was deemed to be an
appropriate response. The official case for strict crypto
controls is now greatly weakened, because much of the censored
material consists of unpalatable truths that the administration
would prefer to be covered up, even though the information
may already be known, or at least strongly suspected, in the crypto
community.
Changes to the Wassenaar Arrangement
On the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in December 1998, 33 nations, including Australia, bowed to US demands to restrict the export of cryptography software, tools which are often used by human rights organisations such as Amnesty to inform the world of atrocities committed by repressive governments.
The Wassenaar Arrangement, which was originally established in 1996 to control the export of strategic military weapons, has now extended its scope to include mass market encryption tools, in a move that has been greeted with widespread disapproval.
The main changes in respect of cryptography are:
The full control list is available on the Wassenaar Arrangement website. EFA has compiled an extract of the cryptography control changes.
EFA will now be stepping up its campaign to bring the matter of crypto controls to the attention of the Federal Parliament. At present there is little public debate in Australia on this important issue, and all policy decisions are made behind closed doors.
It is not yet known
what Australia's response to the Wassenaar changes will be. Early
indications are that Australia will closely follow Wassenaar, but the
Defence and Strategic Goods List (DSGL) has yet to be amended. It seems
likely that some European countries will take a more liberal approach
to export controls than Australia, which will place the Australian
security software industry at a distinct disadvantage.
Censorship Status of Court Judgements remains uncertain
EFA has been unsuccessful in its complaint to the Commonwealth Ombudsman about the OFLC's decision to decline to deal with our application for classification of the full Federal Court judgement in the Rabelais case.
The court judgement, which has been published on the Internet by the Australasian Legal Information Institute (Austlii), included the full text of the article on shoplifting published in the student newspaper Rabelais, which had previously been classified RC (Refused Classification) by the OFLC.
In July 1998, the Acting Chief Censor informed EFA that the Classification Board of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) was uncertain of its powers in relation to court judgements. This was despite that fact that the Australian Government Solicitor's office had written to a Federal Court judge saying he might have breached censorship law by publishing the banned article in the judgement.
The OFLC's attitude creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and potentially threatens the rights and freedom of Australians to access case law.
In August 1998, EFA lodged a complaint regarding the OFLC with the Commonwealth Ombudsman. The response from the Ombudsman was:
EFA considers this situation undesirable, especially in a democratic society. To date, it seems that governmental authorities would prefer that a question mark remain over whether or not citizens are entitled to readily and freely access case law, leaving them reliant on those prepared to accept a risk that their re-publication of Court judgements might infringe censorship laws.
Detailed information on the background and current status is available in EFA's report Censorship laws threaten freedom to access case law.
In the meantime, the students' application for leave to appeal the
classification to the High court has been refused. They are now subject
to prosecution in the Victorian Magistrate's court on charges of breaching
Victoria's Classifications of Films and Publications Act. Lawyers for the
accused have lodged a request with the Director of Public Prosecutions that
all charges be dropped.
Draft Electronic Transactions Bill Released
The Attorney-General's Department released an exposure draft of the proposed
Electronic Transactions Bill on 28th January. The draft Bill is at:
http://www.law.gov.au/ecommerce/
The media release is available at:
http://law.gov.au/aghome/agnews/1999newsag/515b_99.htm
EFA will release a commentary on the proposals in due course.
Big Brother Inside
Intel Corporation, announced on January 20 that it is planning to include
an ID number in each of its new Pentium 3 chips, that can be used to
track users on the Internet for electronic commerce and other reasons.
Privacy groups are calling for a boycott of Intel until it drops the plan.
In response to the outcry, Intel announced on January 25 that they would
offer a software patch to turn off the serial number at boot up.
However, this has failed to alleviate concerns. See the
Big Brother Inside page for more info:
http://www.privacy.org/bigbrotherinside/
France Removes Restrictions on Encryption
In an abrupt reversal of previous policy, French officials this week
announced dramatic liberalization of its cryptography laws.
Until now, France has had restrictive encryption laws, criminalizing any
unauthorized use of crypto-products and only permitting use of weak
products without government authorization with only 40 bit strength.
Details at:
http://www.premier-ministre.gouv.fr/PM/D190199.HTM
Injunction Hearing Held Last Week in ACLU v. Reno II
A three-day hearing was held last week before a federal court in Philadelphia in which
GILC members, including the American Civil Liberties
Union (ACLU) are opposing a second Congressional attempt at
unconstitutional Internet censorship. A ruling is now expected by February 1.
Complete information about the case,
including the latest legal documents and the ACLU and government witness
lists, are available on the ACLU website:
http://www.aclu.org
RSA Code-Breaking Contest Won by EFF and Distributed.Net
Distributed.Net and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), together won a
competition to crack information coded with the US government's Data
Encryption Standard (DES) in a record-breaking 22 hours and 15 minutes.
Distributed.Net is a worldwide coalition of computer enthusiasts who run a
network of nearly 100,000 PCs on the Internet. The network included
EFF's "Deep Crack", a specially designed supercomputer, otherwise known as the "DES
Cracker". More details available on the
EFF website.
The EFF publication Cracking DES - Secrets of Encryption
Research, Wiretap Politics & Chip Design, which contains details of
the development of Deep Crack, is published online at:
http://jya.com/cracking-des.htm
India May Prohibit Purchases of Weak U.S. Encryption Products
India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DADO) has warned
against the purchase of encryption software made in the US
because the products are too weak, the Economic Times reports (January 12,
1999). More details:
http://www.economictimes.com/120199/lead2.htm
Computers, Freedom and Privacy 1999 (CFP99)
CFP99,sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), will be
held this year in Washington DC from 6-8 April.
CFP is the leading Internet policy conference. For almost a decade, CFP has
shaped the public debate on the future of privacy and freedom in the
online world. The theme of the 1999 CFP conference is "The Global Internet."
For more information:
http://www.cfp99.org/
Report On Implementation of Data Privacy Directive Available Online
A report prepared over the course of a year by four privacy experts,
including Australia's Nigel Waters, for the
European Commission on the implementation of Articles 25 and 26 of the EU
Data Protection Directive, is now available online. The report contains 30 empirical case studies of the international transfer
of personal data from Europe to 6 jurisdictions and is available at:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/dg15/en/public/index.htm#5
NOIE Strategy Document Released
In December 1998, Senator Alston released
A Strategic Framework for the Information Economy.
This document "articulates the Government's vision for Australia, and sets
a national framework to achieve it." A preliminary strategy document was
released in July 1998 for public consultation. EFA's response to the
preliminary paper is available at:
http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/noie98.html
Why you should become a member of EFA
How to join
Membership of EFA costs just $20 per year and for that you get to belong to the premier online civil liberties organisation in Australia; you get issues of the Newsletter on line or in the mail if you have no electronic address, you have the opportunity to contribute to the growth of Electronic Frontiers Australia and volunteer your time and talents in this endeavour. Please consider joining us.
Membership fees are payable each September and part fees apply to those joining during the year:
Group Membership is open to associations and groups on the basis of an annual fee of $300 or $0.10 per member, whichever is the greater.
The form to complete is available online at http://www.efa.org.au/JoinEFA/Welcome.html. The membership form is also mailed automatically to anyone who sends email to efa-info@efa.org.au.
ELECTRONIC FRONTIERS AUSTRALIA INC. is a non-profit national organisation formed in 1994 to promote and defend the civil liberties of users and operators of networked systems. EFA's members are Net and BBS users and other people with a common interest in the digital community, computer mediated communication and online information services. EFA is associated with a number of online civil liberties organisations around the world.
EFA's objectives are:
| (a) | To protect and promote the civil liberties of users of computer based communications systems and of those affected by their use. |
| (b) | To advocate the amendment of laws and regulations in Australia and elsewhere which restrict free speech and unfettered access to information. |
| (c) | To educate the community at large about the social, political, and civil liberties issues involved in the use of computer based communications systems. |
| (d) | To support, encourage and advise on the development and use of computer based communication systems, and related innovations. |
| (e) | To research and advise on the application of the law (both current and proposed) to computer based communication systems and related technologies. |
Policymakers and media representatives are encouraged to contact EFA for input and comment where relevant.
On the Internet, you can find more information about EFA at our World
Wide Web site, http://www.efa.org.au/,
or by sending email to efa-info@efa.org.au.
Submissions to this newsletter are welcome. Ideas and brief articles for future issues should be sent to editor@efa.org.au.
© Copyright 1999 Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc.
Permission is given for redistribution on networks, but distribution via other media is subject to the written permission of the EFA Board.
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