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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Survey: email snoops infringe on privacy By Rachel Lebihan, ZDNet Australia News January 03, 2001 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/soa/Survey-email-snoops-infringe-on-privacy/0,139023165,120107973,00.htm
Private electronic mail should be untouchable by Australian law enforcement agencies that go snooping around individuals' inboxes searching for signs of criminal activity, according to a ZDNet reader survey. ZDNet Australia recently polled more than 750 readers about the right of law enforcement agencies, like the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), to poke around inboxes. Whilst some readers maintain that ASIO and other such agencies have the right to intercept personal emails if they have reasonable suspicions, over half of those surveyed believed such activity is a gross infringement of an individual's privacy. Organisations must have a warrant issued by the Attorney General, Mr Darryl Williams, before they can delve into an individual's inbox. However, under the ASIO Act, if a warrant is refused or not granted within three months, the Director General of ASIO can issue the required warrant. Such a warrant gives the likes of ASIO a huge amount of power and privacy advocates believe the security agency already weilds far too much power. "There needs to be a balance between individual privacy and police needs. What [the Act] is saying is 'it's ok to infringe on people's privacy on slim grounds'", Irene Graham of the civil liberties groups Electronic Frontiers Australia told ZDNet in an earlier interview. "It's allowing [ASIO] to poke around in innocent people's computers, hoping they'll find something that might lead to something else...and they don't breach the law," she said.
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