Aussie Cops Want Powers To Search Any Computer

March 31st, 2008 00:15 am | by Ed |

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The Australian government is proposing seriously expanded search powers that would allow police to do more than just search the computers found on the premeses named in a warrant. This would also allow them to search other computers networked to those, regardless of where they are.

Frankly, I can see a whole giant sized can of worms opening up the first time some Aussie judge/cop/whatever decides he can just issue an order and expect people to turn over computers for examination regardless of where in the world they are.

This legislation sounds like the Australian govt is giving it’s law enforcement agencies jurisdiction over computers all over the world and there’s a problem with that. Last time I checked, Australia was NOT in charge of the planet.

Besides, if somebody is doing something that warranted that kind of search & seizure authority with networked computers, I’m certain that they’d be using security measures that would make confiscating and searching (or even destroying) their hard drives little more than an inconvenience.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that they’d captured a computer, searched it’s hard drive and not manged to break the encryption keys … Assuming they could find the correct encrypted containers to attempt breaking into.

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