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<p>Hi everyone,<br>
</p>
<p>From time to time, Linux Australia is approached by various
organisations to seek support for campaigns or initiatives. Many
of these fall into the category of grants and sponsorship - cf.
the recent work we have been doing with the Australian Internet
Governance Forum and GovHack. In this case, we've been approached
to support a political campaign being run by Electronic Frontiers
Australia called 'Citizens not suspects'. We warmly welcome the
approach from EFA, and now would like to gauge community feedback
to help guide our support actions. <br>
</p>
<p>The essence of the Citizens not suspects campaign is to oppose,
and bring to bear political pressure, to reject a number of
proposals currently before parliament, including;<br>
</p>
<ul>
<li>a proposal for <strong>mandatory retention of data</strong> relating
to the internet and telecommunications activity of all
Australians for up to two years. This data could include records
of your phone calls, your location, the websites you visit, the
searches you make and who you send emails to and who you receive
them from.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li> a proposal to make it a crime to <strong>refuse to provide
authorities with passwords</strong> for encrypted
communications, which could include your email, as well as your
Facebook and other accounts.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>a proposal to give ASIO the power to <strong>add, modify or
delete files on any computer.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.citizensnotsuspects.org.au/">http://www.citizensnotsuspects.org.au/</a><br>
</strong></p>
<p>Specifically, we are seeking feedback on;<br>
</p>
<p>1. The level of comfort in the community in taking a specific
political position against the proposals<br>
2. The type and level of support you believe it would be
appropriate to provide - such as financial, in kind through
raising awareness etc, utilising the #DataRetention hashtag etc<br>
3. Any other feedback you may wish to provide<br>
</p>
<p>Feedback may be sent to list - if you're comfortable with it
being made public, or privately to myself.<br>
Please indicate if you would like your feedback kept in confidence
and I will not disclose the source of feedback. <br>
</p>
<p>Thanks in advance for your thoughts and advice,<br>
</p>
<p>Kind regards,<br>
Kathy<br>
</p>
<p>on behalf of Council<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Kathy Reid
Secretary
Linux Australia
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:secretary@linux.org.au">secretary@linux.org.au</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://linux.org.au">http://linux.org.au</a>
Linux Australia Inc
GPO Box 4788
Sydney NSW 2001
Australia
ABN 56 987 117 479
</pre>
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