Australia's NSW Council for Civil Liberties has described the government's endorsement this week of legislation that will allow ASIO to access unread e-mails as reminiscent of the Soviet Secret Police, the KGB.

Although yet to be passed by Parliament, -Cabinet's endorsement is the government's intention to give these powers," NSW Council for Civil Liberties president Cameron Murphy told ZDNet Australia. -When the legislation is passed should apply retrospectively from [Tuesday's] Cabinet meeting," he added.

The raft of proposals, which include amendments to the Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Act 1979, will give ASIO -- Australia's internal security organisation which focuses on groups who play an important part in looking out for public interests such as Trade Union and civil liberties group Electronic Frontiers of Australia - additional powers to intercept unread e-mails, something that hasn't been allowed before.

"Literally thousands of people are going to have their rights infringed," Murphy said. -This is like the KGB, but it's the KGB in the Internet age...Businesses and individuals should be highly concerned about these moves, it's an invasion of their privacy."

Murphy identified several scenarios which he says haven't been taken into consideration under the Government's proposed new measures, the first being lawyer/client privilege in e-mail communication and commercial in confidence business documents sent electronically.

Of concern is the fact that ASIO officers are protected under law and can't be identified, therefore they can't be prosecuted if any confidential information is leaked, according to Murphy.

-If they did leak information there is very little an individual or an organisation could do about it," Murphy said.

The Office for the Attorney General Darryl Williams declined to comment on specific cases such as those pointed out by Murphy but the Attorney-General said in a press conference earlier this week that there are a number of safeguards in place that will prevent public rights from being abused.

"My expectation is that they would only be used in very serious cases where there is a very serious threat to life or property and there is a reasonable suspicion that a person may be able to assist by providing information that would hinder or prevent the activity occurring," the Attorney-General said.

"The safeguards are numerous. The Director-General of Security personally signs the warrant. It has to be approved by a Minister, namely the Attorney-General, and it has to be approved by an independent judicial officer, either a federal magistrate or legal member of the Administrative Affairs Tribunal," he added. The Attorney-General played down the move to intercept unread e-mails. - This is just a small point in relation to telecommunications interception," he said. -We have the capacity to intercept telephone exchanges and other telecommunications, including inspecting computers and recorded messages. But there is, I am advised, a small gap in the legislation that does not properly, or doubtfully authorise the reading of unread e-mails. It's only a small drafting issue," he added.

Of concerns over privacy, the Attorney-General said: -The exercise of protecting privacy is an important one...Now, what we seek to do is to balance the interests of keeping personal information private - that's something that most people in the community strongly desire - with the other public interest of ensuring that people can go about their lives safe and secure from malicious acts by others, in particular terrorists. The balancing process that we've undergone in working out the ASIO powers, I believe is a fair one and I believe that the public will strongly support it."

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