Australia, along with the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand has been revealed as an integral part of the “Five Eyes” alliance, a group which – according to a report on The Intercept today – actively sought to “hijack” Google‘s and Samsung‘s App Store.
Into the bin it goes.
As much as we’d like to be shocked by such a revelation, today’s news is depressingly not without precedent. In March, a bipartisan agreement saw new data retention laws pass in parliament without virtually any hitches; earlier this month, Edward Snowden foreshadowed the reveal by speaking via telecast to a Melbourne conference, condemning metadata laws and warning Australians of widespread surveillance. Snowden said:
“What this means is they [the government] are watching everybody all the time. They’re collecting information and they’re just putting it in buckets that they can then search through not only locally, not only in Australia, but they can then share this with foreign intelligences services.”
Meanwhile, Australia’s Signal Directorate told The Intercept that not disclosing or commenting on intelligence measures was a “long-standing practice”, and thus provided no comment.
Also meanwhile, here’s a portrait of you, and a portrait of the government.
Happy Friday 
via The Intercept, Herald Sun.
