{"id":368691,"date":"2018-07-09T20:03:59","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T19:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/australias-foreign-interference-laws-threaten-whistleblowers-and-media-freedom\/"},"modified":"2018-07-09T20:03:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T19:03:59","slug":"australias-foreign-interference-laws-threaten-whistleblowers-and-media-freedom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/australias-foreign-interference-laws-threaten-whistleblowers-and-media-freedom\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s foreign interference laws threaten whistleblowers and media freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"content\">\n<h3 class=\"nomargin\">\u00a0<\/h3>\n<h2>Australia\u2019s foreign interference laws threaten whistleblowers and media freedom<\/h2>\n<h5>\n<p>    By<br \/>\n    James Cogan<br \/>\n    <br \/>9 July 2018<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p>An exchange on June 28 in the parliament, prompted by questions from Green senator Andrew Bartlett, underscored the fact that Australia\u2019s sweeping new \u201cforeign interference\u201d laws have immense implications, not only for whistleblowers, but for the right of media organisations to publish leaked information. Aspects of the legislation, relating to espionage and secrecy, appear to call into question what millions of Australians consider to be fundamental democratic rights and the freedom of speech.<\/p>\n<p>Bartlett highlighted remarks made in an interview by Liberal-National Coalition government member Andrew Hastie\u2014the former special forces officer who chairs the Australian Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, which drew up much of the legislation.<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageRight\" style=\"width:200px; oveflow:hidden;\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/asset\/7e28e12c-bc84-4062-9a60-674fd33563eM\/image.jpg?rendition=image480\" srcset=\"\/asset\/7e28e12c-bc84-4062-9a60-674fd33563eM\/image.jpg?rendition=image960 2x\" width=\"200\" style=\"width:200px;\" \/><span>Julian Assange<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Hastie insisted that the laws were needed, in part, to criminalise \u201cseeking to get secrets from the United States.\u201d He declared that Australia could not allow \u201cradical transparency.\u201d Asked to define this term, he said: \u201cRadical transparency is Julian Assange dumping a whole bunch of Commonwealth secrets out for public consumption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In parliament, Bartlett challenged the government over Hastie\u2019s statement. He commented: \u201cThe things he [Assange] exposed and, more specifically and definitely, that Edward Snowden exposed, are things that governments wanted hidden\u2014things so-called democratic governments were doing to their own people. So now we have that definition\u2014\u2018radical transparency is Julian Assange.\u2019 These laws are attempts to criminalise and attack people like Julian Assange. Let\u2019s not forget that Julian Assange is acknowledged as, and registered as, a&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsws.org\/en\/articles\/2018\/07\/09\/assa-j09.html\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Australia\u2019s foreign interference laws threaten whistleblowers and media freedom By James Cogan 9 July 2018 An exchange on June 28 in the parliament, prompted by questions from Green senator Andrew Bartlett, underscored the fact that Australia\u2019s sweeping new \u201cforeign interference\u201d laws have immense implications, not only for whistleblowers, but for the right of media [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2526,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-368691","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2526"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}