Despite indications that looked like Attorney-General Nicola Roxon was backing national data retention laws this week, she has written to a national newspaper claiming that she did no such thing, adding that she’s still mulling over the proposal.
In a letter to the Herald Sun, Roxon does her best to refute claims she has lined up behind data retention proposals. All she says she has done is ask the National Security Committee to consider all the angles.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Government is not proposing to store everyone’s emails, Facebook updates or tweets.
Earlier this year I asked Parliament’s intelligence committee to investigate potential reforms to national security legislation, before deciding my own position.
One of the many potential reforms in this review is whether or not telecommunications data should have to be held for a certain period by telecommunications providers, so it is there if it is needed to investigate crime or terrorism.
I am not backing or opposing any of reforms that I have referred to the Committee. I want to make sure I have advice from the experts and hear from the community before making decisions on these important reforms.
While we know that data retention isn’t just the storage of people’s Facebook posts, the full letter gives us a bit of an indication as to what the data retention laws might entail if they ever become real.
Go read the full letter to the editor by Roxon on Crikey.