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Edward Snowden's revelations included the detail that back in 2008, the then-DSD sought to /give away/ bulk data on australian citizens to foreign spy agencies.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/business-spectator...

In response to the revelations of this attack on Australian democracy, launched by an agency tasked to defend it, australia's attorney general focused on declaring Mr Snowden a traitor.



Australia has been blatantly violating the privacy of its citizens increasingly over the last 2 decades. Its surveillance legislation is unrivaled in developed countries except for perhaps the UK.


Weird, that's about the same amount of time it's been since they steamrolled all of their guns in the street.


Sigh, I see this pop up so I should really just copy and paste one of my other answers, but.

Australians supported handing in our guns after Port Arthur, Australians that want to engage in firearm use for sport, hunting, antique collection or pest control can all still do so within appropriate circumstances that the public overwhelmingly support.

Low hanging fruit, moronic, pro-gun sentiment only shows how little you understand about the country you are talking about.

(Not an endorsement for the Aus 3-Letters spying, which is a different issue.)


To back you up:

I visited Australia while on deployment and the process to go hunting, including the temporary firearms permit and training required, was rather more simple than I’d been led to believe. Getting permission through my CO was harder.


Weird, somehow the United States is mysteriously lacking in armed protest and pushback of their corporation's and government's surveillance, even post-Snowden's reveals of that exact thing against their own citizens.


That’s right, because if I had a gun I’d be taking it to parliament to demand that they stop [something]! And [something] would surely be different as a result!


They did no such thing. Australians own more guns than ever. They had a buyback program, and people used it to turn old guns into new ones.


> They did no such thing

You folks aren't actually going to make me dig up and link video of the guns being steamrolled, are you?


You can pull it up. It doesn't change that it was an empty political stunt, that most guns were not in the buyback, that people simply took the buyback money to buy new guns (which you can check at the time by massive gun profits selling guns to Australians), or, as I pointed out above, that there are more guns now than before Port Authur [1].

So go ahead and post the video. Then read the rest of the story.

[1] https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/australia-more-guns-n...


If this is how they treat their own citizens, I'm honestly scared what they think is okay to do to a foreigner.


Simply look up the indefinite detention of refugees here to get an idea.


It's amazing how such sickening conduct can just fly in modern democratic societies.




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