The decade after the 9/11 strikes unleashed such a frantic response in Australia that 54 new anti-terror laws were passed federally, according to a study that suggests their reach surpassed measures even taken in the US.

Most activity occurred under the prime ministerial watch of John Howard - on average a new anti-terror statute passed nearly every seven weeks until he was defeated.

Labor in opposition supported most of the statutes, commonly running to hundreds of pages, but on returning to government, the pace slowed. In the Rudd-Gillard era, from November 2007 to September 11, 2011, only six anti-terror laws were enacted.

University of New South Wales' Professor George Williams, who conducted the first count undertaken of national anti-terror laws, said the scope exceeded measures in countries facing more severe threats.

''It would be unthinkable, if not constitutionally impossible, in nations such as the US and Canada to restrict freedom of speech in the manner achieved by Australia's 2005 sedition laws,'' he writes.

He also cited power given to the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation to be able to detain and question ''non-suspect citizens'' for up to a week as unique among comparable legal systems.

Australia has also copied many anti-terror measures from Britain without replicating equivalent safeguards such as a national human rights law.

The legacy was an ''extraordinary bout of lawmaking'' in the post-9/11 decade, with many measures challenging long understood assumptions of criminal and other law, he said.

The problem it presented was not just a legal one but had a social dimension.

''The disproportionality of the laws can also lead to grievance and alienation - so this is not just a problem of overbearing laws having an undue impact upon human rights.''

Key aspects of anti-terror laws had been ''almost exclusively'' applied to members of the Muslim community and their organisations, Professor Williams said.

''Despite terrorism being a phenomenon that applies across a large range of political ideologies and religions, 16 of the 17 organisations currently proscribed by the Australian government are in some ways associated with Islamic goals or ideology.''

Professor Williams said anti-terror laws, however, had a role to play in the prevention of terrorist attacks.

Since 2000, there have been four major plots disrupted in Australia and 38 people charged with terrorism offences. Of these, 23 have been convicted.

Meanwhile, in a federal government push for a renewed burst of activity on national security, Parliament's joint committee on intelligence and security is assessing more than 40 proposals expanding intelligence-gathering powers. It may be the most significant expansion of national security powers since the Howard reforms of 2005.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon expressed doubt at the weekend about the most controversial of the proposals - a plan to force internet providers to store the web history of all Australians for up to two years.

Australia's Terror Laws 'Surpass The US'

from Crikey …..

Hypothetical: news from a national security future

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

ASIO, JOINT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY, NATIONAL SECURITY, SURVEILLANCE, TERRORISM, WAR ON THE INTERNET

Let's engage in some hypotheticals about what might arise from implementation of the proposals for greater surveillance and intelligence-gathering powers currently being considered by the Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. Let's speculate about what might happen if the proposals were adopted.

When the National Security (Intelligence and Interception) Amendment Act 2013 passes, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon declares the act "strikes the right balance between the legitimate needs of our law enforcement and intelligence community, and the privacy concerns of Australian citizens." "Rights are important," Roxon says, "but security is a prerequisite for those very important rights."

Shadow Attorney-General George Brandis, who inherits the portfolio just four months later, agrees, after three minor amendments he had developed in the Senate committee inquiry process are accepted by the government.

"Our liberal democratic values will never be served by compromising those values in the face of the terrorism that threatens them," Brandis argues. "But this act strikes a sensible balance between those values and the needs of the intelligence community in a rapidly changing technological environment."

Only the Greens vote against the act. "Once again the Greens are giving succour to terrorists," says one Labor senator during the debate.

In the following five years, however, several flaws in the act become apparent, leading to concerns that "balance" is wholly absent from the new surveillance and intelligence-gathering framework.

- After a leak to The Australian of Department of Health and Ageing briefing papers contradicts government assurances that it had not been warned of problems with a new vaccine, an AFP investigation leads to the prosecution, conviction and jailing for three years of a 43-year-old Canberra bureaucrat. The AFP had used the journalist’s telecommunications call and location data, retained under data retention laws for 18 months (one of Brandis’ "compromises") to identify the leaker and where and when he provided documents to the journalist.

- A 19-year-old Melbourne man is convicted and fined for the new offence of "refusing to assist in decryption" following an incident at a Melbourne protest. After his girlfriend is dragged from the protest by two men, he follows them and uses his phone to film their highly aggressive interrogation of her. On discovering he is recording them, the men approach him and demand his phone. "It’s illegal to reveal the identity of an ASIO agent," one of the men says. "You can't film me." The man refuses and his phone is seized and handed to police. When the man’s lawyer eventually secures the return of the phone, it has been hacked and its contents erased. "We obtained a warrant and we’re permitted to delete data," his lawyer is told. "Your client will be charged with refusing to assist in decryption."

- An Australian ISP loses over 30 gigabytes of data stored under data retention laws in a hacking attack that appears to have originated in China. There is speculation the attack was done using a "back door" in Chinese-manufactured equipment, but more likely poor IT security was to blame. The ISP advises its customers to be vigilant of scams and malware and to tighten their security measures.

- A mysterious bombing of a Sydney store selling furs causes $6 million worth of damage, but is revealed two years later to be the work of an ASIO agent seeking to establish his bona fides with a group of "animal rights extremists". The officer was never charged, having obtained an authorisation for the bombing from ASIO's Director-General.

- There is outrage when US company Twitter reveals that Australian authorities have demanded access to the accounts of all 8000+ followers of an Australian online activist via a surveillance warrant. The followers include a number of journalists and several politicians, all of whose Twitter accounts, including DMs, would have been been subject to the warrant. Online activists suspect a similar warrant issued to Facebook is being implemented by the social media giant without telling account holders. The Attorney-General criticises Twitter for revealing the warrant and "endangering ongoing operations".

- Electronic Frontiers Australia announces it has obtained and analysed malware developed by a private firm for federal government agencies, designed to be planted on computers of individuals and third-party computers targeted in surveillance warrants. The malware allows keystroke logging, remote control of computer cameras and microphones and back-door functionality. However, due to poor design and encryption from the software company (which according to the Austender.gov.au site was paid $100,000), the malware can be exploited by any unauthorised third party, not just the federal agencies using the program, and may even allow third parties access to agencies’ IT infrastructure. The malware also routes information through a server located in the US, to avoid identification of the source of external commands, thereby exposing the data to US Patriot Act control. Several men prosecuted for terrorism claim either government agencies or third parties have used the software to plant incriminating data on their computers.

- A female activist working in an anti-coal group learns via a series of media articles that the father of her two-year-old daughter was probably an ASIO agent working undercover. The man, a colleague in the group, disappeared shortly after her daughter's birth; efforts to locate him and obtain child support payments are stonewalled by federal authorities on the basis that it is illegal to reveal the identity of an ASIO officer. "I am not persuaded that it would be appropriate to issue specific guidance about s-xual relationships," says the Director-General of ASIO in response to media queries. "To ban such actions would provide a ready-made test for the targeted criminal group to find out whether an undercover officer was deployed among them."

All of these incidents are of course hypothetical. Could never happen? Each of the above events is taken from incidents that have already occurred overseas.

Submissions to the JCIS inquiry close on August 20, after the committee extended its deadline by two weeks in response to numerous stakeholder requests.

New laws will allow authorities to collect and monitor Australians' internet records, including their web-browsing history, social media activity and emails.

But the laws, which will specifically target suspected cyber criminals, do not go as far as separate proposed laws designed to retain every Australian internet user's internet history for two years in the name of national security.

Under the laws passed yesterday, Australian state and federal police will have the power to compel telcos and internet service providers to retain the internet records of people suspected of cyber-based crimes, including fraud and child pornography. Only those records made after the request will be retained, but law enforcement agencies will be prevented from seeing the information until they have secured a warrant.

It is believed that while some telcos and internet service providers keep data for up to a week, others routinely delete users' data daily, frustrating the ability of authorities to gather evidence against suspects.

Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the laws would help police track cyber criminals globally and give authorities the power to find people engaged in forgery, fraud, child pornography and infringement of copyright and intellectual property. They also will allow Australia to join the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime, which has 34 members.

''Cyber crime is a growing threat that touches all aspects of modern life,'' Ms Roxon said. ''It poses complex policy and law enforcement challenges, partly due to the transnational nature of the internet.''

But Greens communications spokesman Scott Ludlam said the laws went further than the European convention, and that the government had failed to explain why the far-reaching powers were necessary.

The European convention states that the treaty is not focused on data retention but on targeting law enforcement.

Australia's new laws mean information can be kept at least until police get a warrant.

Senator Ludlam was particularly concerned the laws would allow data that implicates Australians in crimes that carry penalties of three years or more - including the death penalty - to be collected and analysed.

''The European Treaty doesn't require ongoing collection and retention of communications, but the Australian bill does,'' he said in a statement. ''It also leaves the door open for Australia to assist in prosecutions, which could lead to the death penalty overseas.''

The deadline for submissions to a parliamentary inquiry into the separate proposed national security laws closed on Monday and a parliamentary committee will report on the issue at a date to be decided.

Those proposals would allow the telephone and internet data of every Australian to be retained for up to two years and intelligence agencies would be given increased access to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

New Law To Control Cyber Data