bl1nk

Today in Amnesty International Australia’s online day of protest against internet repression in China. A wonderfully long name for a silly little gag. Whoop de doo!

Except this is important.

Given that people are imprisoned, tortured or murdered for political activity on an almost daily basis in China is the freedom to do what I am currently doing all that important? Well, how do we know when other (more important?) rights are expunged, violated, swept away etc? Do we rely on Xinhua to tell us?

I was in a cab recently. The taxi driver was interested in what I do for a living and was instantly skeptical about ‘rights’ (mix rights with charity and I am immediately labelled a rabid lefty by most people I meet). My point was simple: how often do you complain about the Government? Daily? Weekly? Never - all politicians are wonderful altruistic models of humanity who do a brilliant job?

The point is, if you don’t like what pollies do you can complain. At worst maybe occasionally you will find yourself being ridiculed on today tonight. You won’t (in Australia) usually find yourself in prison or getting a bullet to the back of the head (we are discussing politicians here - police officers are a different matter).

So express yourself and make all the noise you can. Because you can. Which is a right worth fighting whining for!

I was nearly going to let this go but the threat of up to five years in jail for not telling some cloth-head one’s password is almost amusing. In the UK it is now required that encryption keys be divulged to ‘the authorities’ upon request. Telling anyone that such a request has been made is also an offence.

I had a bit of a whinge to some colleagues about EU human rights and the notional right to privacy, not to mention article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. However the real point is that once again a useless piece of legislation has come about because of a serious misunderstanding of technology. Once again, ‘those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear’ will be rolled out and once again they will be wrong because those with something to hide will be able to do so and the stupid and inept will be rolled up.

Being on the other side of the globe in the sunny antipodes (currently being rained on) does this matter? Of course it matters because whatever what the result of the forthcoming election the government will have no technical nous and will want to do the same thing. Be alert and alarmed.

And no I will not divulge my encryption keys; though I may just make them stronger and use them more. I also encourage all of you back in the UK to dust off your GPG keys, harden them and start encrypting everything just to annoy.

Oh, and before there is mention of terrorists please be aware that refusing to decrypt your stuff can lead you to spending 2 years in the slammer even if it is just the stock of bit-torrented porn you don’t want your mum to know about.

Another little known fact (I seem to be full of them of late) is that the Australian constitutional model is not based on the Westminster system, although some claim it is. However, there are still a few conventions which were upheld until the last decade or so.

The last of these to go by the board is the separation of powers. Indeed constitutionally this is far more obvious in Australia than in the UK [Attorney General]. However, it appears that current politicians have been to the Bjelke-Petersen school of political science. It seems that the executive now feel that they should overrule the judiciary whenever they disagree, even when those involved may be “more innocent than innocent”.

So I have asked Mr Andrews to explain to me the concept of the rule of law and the doctrine of the separation of powers; as I appear to be confused. I will keep you updated.