Last year, shortly before a federal election, the ship 'Tampa' made
Australian headlines when it rescued a boatload of about 400 refugees off
the Australian coast. A controversy followed on whether Australia would be
obliged to give the 'Tampa' harbour and accept said refugees.
It has recently been alleged that Australia's Defence Signals Directorate
(DSD) intercepted communications between the skipper of the 'Tampa' and the
Maritime Union of Australia and passed this information on to government. By
law the DSD is banned from intercepting Australian communications (with
certain exceptions not relevant here).
The Defence Minister, Robert Hill, has issued a very carefully-worded
response: there were "no significant breaches" of these rules, and
guidelines designed to protect privacy were adhered to "in the broad". While
denying that MUA communications were intercepted, Hill conceded that the DSD
had broken its rules relating to spying on Australians. Hill has given
assurances that the breach was not a major one, but without any information
on the nature of the breach confirming that is another matter...
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,3766399%255E601,00.html
http://www.abc.net.au/am/s480125.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/0202/14/national/national3.html
et al.
Since the Tampa crisis played a very major role in the resurrection of the
Howard government's political fortunes, quite likely altering the outcome of
last year's federal election, the possibility of illegally-obtained
intercepts being used for political ends is not being taken lightly by
anybody (except, perhaps, that government...)
Geoffrey Brent [Geoffrey Brent via risks-digest Volume 21, Issue 92]
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