Bosses' power to check email
By Tom Allard | smh.com.au | 14 April
Companies will be able to intercept the emails and internet communications of their employees without their consent under new laws being considered by the Federal Government to protect the nation's critical infrastructure from a cyber attack.
The proposed powers, which the Government wants in place by the middle of next year and which could affect millions of workers, have been slammed as an unprecedented and unjustifiable intrusion on civil liberties.
The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, acknowledges concerns but said the powers were a necessary bulwark against a growing threat to national security.
Mr McClelland told the Herald he had been advised that an attack to disable computer networks that sustained the financial system, stock exchange, electricity grid and transport system "would reap far greater economic damage than would be the case of a physical [terrorist] attack".
The Government is developing counter-measures, including amending the Telecommunications (Interceptions) Act to allow companies and others operating critical infrastructure to monitor emails and other internet communications without their workers' consent.
The act allows only security agencies to monitor their employees' communications without consent. That power expires at the end of June next year and Mr McClelland said he wanted the new legislation to include companies providing services critical to the economy.
"At least 90 per cent of networks exist outside government but there's no powers for corporate network supervisors to intercept such communications unless they have specific authority from the employee," he told the Herald.
"It's unquestionable that it's necessary from time to time for network supervisors to open emails addressed to people to identify viruses and the like ...
"There needs to be protocols and guidelines developed so companies can protect their own networks.
"It will need new legislation."
Mr McClelland said there had already been instances of hackers infiltrating sensitive systems in Australia.
"There's no question that breaches of both government and private sector computer networks have occurred already - in some instances as a result of mischief, in some instances to obtain security-sensitive information and in some cases to obtain commercial information."
He said it was difficult to track electronic attackers.
He cited an attack by hackers in Estonia last year that effectively shut down its government for almost two weeks.
They used thousands of computers controlled through viruses - known as botnets - to simultaneously access an Estonian Government website, overwhelming the server and crashing its entire network.
Mr McClelland said he would consult unions, privacy experts and civil libertarians before introducing the laws.
Dale Clapperton, the chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, a non-profit group concerned with the rights of individual internet users, was unimpressed.
"These new powers will facilitate fishing expeditions into employees' emails and computer use rather than being used to protect critical infrastructure," Mr Clapperton said.
"I'm talking about corporate eavesdropping and witch-hunts ... If an employer wanted to bone [sack] someone, they could use these powers."
Mr McClelland said Australia would send people to the US to help with a project to tackle electronic attacks. Hackers have infiltrated networks of the Pentagon and intelligence agencies.
The Secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, said the problem needed an approach similar in scale to the Manhattan Project, which led to the creation of atomic weapons.
First published by Smh.com.au on April 14 2008
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