Yes !! This is such a vital concept to re-register in our cultural mindset. As in so many fields of modern conceptual thought, the language of expression pertaining to the subject has been corrupted or obfuscated to deny the conversation a means of wholesome expression: akin to excluding the colour blue from an artists palette so s/he can no longer express 'sky'. We need to reclaim or reinvent the language that allows humanity to righteously articulate its relationship to divinity . . before our minds lose touch with the concept altogether.
They emphasised concerns about the alleged voluntary nature of the scheme, its security, and its treatment of privacy and rights. Digital Rights Watch also expressed concerns about the misuse of personal and biometric data, law enforcement access, and the potential for discrimination and surveillance.
Community Voice Australia also outlined its concerns about the Digital ID Bill 2023, including the potential for function creep, involuntary digital ID implementation, privacy breaches, and increased surveillance. Their submission highlighted issues such as the voluntary nature of digital ID being undermined by exemptions, the broad accreditation scheme allowing private entities to issue digital IDs, and the risk of marginalised groups being excluded or subjected to surveillance. Community Voice Australia warned of a future where access to services and goods, including employment and social benefits, could be contingent on having a digital ID, raising ethical, privacy, and societal implications.
In total, the Senate Economics Legislations Committee inquiry into the Digital ID Bill 2023 and the associated Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023 received almost 400 submissions. About 350 of these submissions were by everyday Australians expressing their concerns about how this bill will impact their lives and how it could affect their privacy.
Alarmingly, the Senate Economics Legislation Committee ignored these concerns and recommended passing the bill.
Of note is the excellent dissenting report by Australian Greens Senators who were part of the Senate Economic Legislations Committee's inquiry into these Digital ID bills. The Greens Senators pointed out that the Digital ID bills could exclude those without digital literacy or access from essential services. They also cautioned against voting for the bills ahead of necessary privacy protections being put in place. The Greens rightly criticised the bills for potentially allowing law enforcement excessive access to personal information, undermining public confidence, and failing to ensure a digital ID system was genuinely voluntary and inclusive. They also raised concerns about biometrics and data profiling, pointing out that these practices might replicate existing biases and prejudices by public agencies and private corporations.
While some might suggest that there could be amendments made to improve the Digital ID bills, it will take significant time, more public consultation and extensive redrafting to allay concerns raised by many reputable organisation about how these bills undermine the privacy and rights of Australian citizens.
We appreciate your strong track record of listening to community concerns and prioritising privacy and human rights over ideological considerations.
As a key crossbench Senator, we respectfully request that you take another brave stand for the privacy and rights of the Australian people and reject the Digital ID Bill 2023 and the associated Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023.
Dear Peter, thank you for engaging in this argument again, regarding our human Rights !
My understanding is that we were created to embody & realize the beauty of all creation !
We were created as sovereign sons & daughters of GOD to be in bliss & experience every facet of creation ! However, we find that throughout history we have been prevented from knowing this & burnt at the stake if we ever encouraged others to even consider these ideas !
We talk today about being in a spiritual war against a bunch of madmen, that want to strip away all connection from our divine heritage & turn us into obedient cyborgs ?
As a consequence, we have to reclaim our living connection to source & reestablish our inalienable
rights to be able to enjoy life with true liberty, equality & the freedom to be our unique selves !
So in order to achieve this we must all stand up & demand to not only pursue happiness but to also
defend the sanctity of life for all sentient beings on this beautiful planet !
We need to write a Bill of Rights for Australia & a new constitution that will never allow us to be usurped by unscrupulous criminals & which allows all of us to discover who we really are, so that we can receive the incredible gifts that GOD wants to give us, on our journey back home !
Believe it or not, there is a Divine Plan for the liberation of all humanity & nothing can stop the will of GOD from manifesting this ! Magic is in the air & let the miracles unfold to create a wonderful future for us all ! Have no fear GOD is here within every one of us !
Beautifully and eloquently said Peter. Amazing how reframing a question brings so much clarity as it gets to the absolute heart of the matter and what is at stake. Brilliant!
Sadly, the 'anything goes' mentality has crept into all of our establishments, and in my opinion, to the very detriment of all of our society. Back in the day there was accepted behaviours, and just about everybody knew their boundaries and operated within them. Nowadays, the lack of boundaries and cultural 'norms' has resulted in a society of confused and disempowered people. It is especially hard for young people. We all know as parents, that our children thrive within boundaries but when they are left to their own devices, it just about always backfires on them.
In spite of the draconian government anti-conversion laws and other evil doctrine, I will impress upon young folk in my sphere of influence the importance of truth, the human rights of their fellow individuals, to go with their inner gut feeling, their innate divine nature to understand how to live in a world that has become horribly corrupted, back the front, inside out and upside down.
We need to impress upon the upcoming generations that they need to be the change that they want to see in this world, to make it a far better place than what it has become at this point in time.
Question - in terms of the 'solidity' of human rights, is there much difference between countries with common law background like UK and Aust vs countries in the civil law tradition like continental Europe? Or is the Statist erosion pretty consistent?
(My understanding is that english common law is more reliant on precedent, and continental civil law is more based on 'immutable principles' derived from continental philosophy)
Finally - what are some avenues in Australian law that this could be explored and discussed at grad level (JD)? I love this stuff.
Thanks Chris. Good question. I would say in general that theoretically, countries in the civil law tradition should be a little more stable in their foundations, yes. But in practice, and particularly in the past few years, it hasn't stopped flimsy decision making in line with the sensibilities of decision makers, which fly in the face of the foundation which gives those decision makers their purported power. The problem seems to be that even if a game has stable and solid rules, the game only works if everybody playing agrees to follow them. And we've entered a period in legal jurisprudence where rules are being bypassed and distorted in favour of the societal zeitgeist (or more cynically, in favour of orders being made external to that system).
Re JD studies, you could look into concepts like legal pluralism, jurisprudence generally, and/or the real-time interpretation of international human rights principles on a domestic level that we've seen play out over the past few years in particular.
Hmm, I too don't like the terminology "human rights", but I don't think we can capture what we need by appeal to timeless truths of human well being. Indeed I fear that might encourage the very kind of "malleable and amporphous" framework you decry.
For example: most societies did not think there ought to be a right to blaspheme, it people find it deeply unnatural even today. But there's good reasons why free speech does extend even to blasphemy -- those are reasons that society learned the hard way and encoded (imperfectly) into it's laws.
So in a way I agree, that fundamental rights probably are universal truths of the human condition. But our *understanding* of them is not, and the ancients only glimpsed hints of them.
Yes !! This is such a vital concept to re-register in our cultural mindset. As in so many fields of modern conceptual thought, the language of expression pertaining to the subject has been corrupted or obfuscated to deny the conversation a means of wholesome expression: akin to excluding the colour blue from an artists palette so s/he can no longer express 'sky'. We need to reclaim or reinvent the language that allows humanity to righteously articulate its relationship to divinity . . before our minds lose touch with the concept altogether.
Beautifully put. Bang on point.
Peter, I hope you've seen this theory on Autobiographical Memory disfunction - see https://michaelnehls.substack.com/
Makes lotsa sense !
Well said Peter. It's time to re-educate the judges.
They emphasised concerns about the alleged voluntary nature of the scheme, its security, and its treatment of privacy and rights. Digital Rights Watch also expressed concerns about the misuse of personal and biometric data, law enforcement access, and the potential for discrimination and surveillance.
Community Voice Australia also outlined its concerns about the Digital ID Bill 2023, including the potential for function creep, involuntary digital ID implementation, privacy breaches, and increased surveillance. Their submission highlighted issues such as the voluntary nature of digital ID being undermined by exemptions, the broad accreditation scheme allowing private entities to issue digital IDs, and the risk of marginalised groups being excluded or subjected to surveillance. Community Voice Australia warned of a future where access to services and goods, including employment and social benefits, could be contingent on having a digital ID, raising ethical, privacy, and societal implications.
In total, the Senate Economics Legislations Committee inquiry into the Digital ID Bill 2023 and the associated Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023 received almost 400 submissions. About 350 of these submissions were by everyday Australians expressing their concerns about how this bill will impact their lives and how it could affect their privacy.
Alarmingly, the Senate Economics Legislation Committee ignored these concerns and recommended passing the bill.
Of note is the excellent dissenting report by Australian Greens Senators who were part of the Senate Economic Legislations Committee's inquiry into these Digital ID bills. The Greens Senators pointed out that the Digital ID bills could exclude those without digital literacy or access from essential services. They also cautioned against voting for the bills ahead of necessary privacy protections being put in place. The Greens rightly criticised the bills for potentially allowing law enforcement excessive access to personal information, undermining public confidence, and failing to ensure a digital ID system was genuinely voluntary and inclusive. They also raised concerns about biometrics and data profiling, pointing out that these practices might replicate existing biases and prejudices by public agencies and private corporations.
While some might suggest that there could be amendments made to improve the Digital ID bills, it will take significant time, more public consultation and extensive redrafting to allay concerns raised by many reputable organisation about how these bills undermine the privacy and rights of Australian citizens.
We appreciate your strong track record of listening to community concerns and prioritising privacy and human rights over ideological considerations.
As a key crossbench Senator, we respectfully request that you take another brave stand for the privacy and rights of the Australian people and reject the Digital ID Bill 2023 and the associated Digital ID (Transitional and Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023.
Kind regards,
DEFEAT DIGITAL ID!
Dear Peter, thank you for engaging in this argument again, regarding our human Rights !
My understanding is that we were created to embody & realize the beauty of all creation !
We were created as sovereign sons & daughters of GOD to be in bliss & experience every facet of creation ! However, we find that throughout history we have been prevented from knowing this & burnt at the stake if we ever encouraged others to even consider these ideas !
We talk today about being in a spiritual war against a bunch of madmen, that want to strip away all connection from our divine heritage & turn us into obedient cyborgs ?
As a consequence, we have to reclaim our living connection to source & reestablish our inalienable
rights to be able to enjoy life with true liberty, equality & the freedom to be our unique selves !
So in order to achieve this we must all stand up & demand to not only pursue happiness but to also
defend the sanctity of life for all sentient beings on this beautiful planet !
We need to write a Bill of Rights for Australia & a new constitution that will never allow us to be usurped by unscrupulous criminals & which allows all of us to discover who we really are, so that we can receive the incredible gifts that GOD wants to give us, on our journey back home !
Believe it or not, there is a Divine Plan for the liberation of all humanity & nothing can stop the will of GOD from manifesting this ! Magic is in the air & let the miracles unfold to create a wonderful future for us all ! Have no fear GOD is here within every one of us !
Beautifully and eloquently said Peter. Amazing how reframing a question brings so much clarity as it gets to the absolute heart of the matter and what is at stake. Brilliant!
Sadly, the 'anything goes' mentality has crept into all of our establishments, and in my opinion, to the very detriment of all of our society. Back in the day there was accepted behaviours, and just about everybody knew their boundaries and operated within them. Nowadays, the lack of boundaries and cultural 'norms' has resulted in a society of confused and disempowered people. It is especially hard for young people. We all know as parents, that our children thrive within boundaries but when they are left to their own devices, it just about always backfires on them.
In spite of the draconian government anti-conversion laws and other evil doctrine, I will impress upon young folk in my sphere of influence the importance of truth, the human rights of their fellow individuals, to go with their inner gut feeling, their innate divine nature to understand how to live in a world that has become horribly corrupted, back the front, inside out and upside down.
We need to impress upon the upcoming generations that they need to be the change that they want to see in this world, to make it a far better place than what it has become at this point in time.
Absolutely agree, Michelle. Confusion and disempowerment is exactly right...a dangerous combination.
Loved this Peter.
Question - in terms of the 'solidity' of human rights, is there much difference between countries with common law background like UK and Aust vs countries in the civil law tradition like continental Europe? Or is the Statist erosion pretty consistent?
(My understanding is that english common law is more reliant on precedent, and continental civil law is more based on 'immutable principles' derived from continental philosophy)
Finally - what are some avenues in Australian law that this could be explored and discussed at grad level (JD)? I love this stuff.
TIA
Thanks Chris. Good question. I would say in general that theoretically, countries in the civil law tradition should be a little more stable in their foundations, yes. But in practice, and particularly in the past few years, it hasn't stopped flimsy decision making in line with the sensibilities of decision makers, which fly in the face of the foundation which gives those decision makers their purported power. The problem seems to be that even if a game has stable and solid rules, the game only works if everybody playing agrees to follow them. And we've entered a period in legal jurisprudence where rules are being bypassed and distorted in favour of the societal zeitgeist (or more cynically, in favour of orders being made external to that system).
Re JD studies, you could look into concepts like legal pluralism, jurisprudence generally, and/or the real-time interpretation of international human rights principles on a domestic level that we've seen play out over the past few years in particular.
Hmm, I too don't like the terminology "human rights", but I don't think we can capture what we need by appeal to timeless truths of human well being. Indeed I fear that might encourage the very kind of "malleable and amporphous" framework you decry.
For example: most societies did not think there ought to be a right to blaspheme, it people find it deeply unnatural even today. But there's good reasons why free speech does extend even to blasphemy -- those are reasons that society learned the hard way and encoded (imperfectly) into it's laws.
So in a way I agree, that fundamental rights probably are universal truths of the human condition. But our *understanding* of them is not, and the ancients only glimpsed hints of them.