It appears that Sith Lord George Brandis did not have the force on his side in attempting to explain the Government’s plan to require telecommunications companies to store detailed information about the calls and internet use of its customers for two years.
In an interview on Sky News yesterday evening (extract above), Brandis stuttered, stumbled and mumbled his way through and gave answers that were quite frankly embarrassing and as ‘clear as mud’.
Following repeated questions over whether the internet sites people visited would be captured under the plan, Brandis conceded they would be before contradicted himself by stating the plan wouldn’t extend to web surfing, but then attempted to clarify his position by stating that the sites would be captured, but not the individual web pages within a site.
I won’t go into all of the reasons why data retention is a bad idea – e.g. the plan’s exorbitant costs and civil liberties breaches – since these were covered yesterday. All I will say is that the Government needs to do a much better job in making the case for why data retention is needed and selling the plan to the Australian people.
As it currently stands, the Abbott Government appears totally confused about the proposal, which doesn’t instill faith that they have thought the plan through.
