18th Jun 2013, 4:07 PM – Senate Motions - PRISM - Australia's vulnerability

The majority voted against a motion introduced by Greens Senator Scott Ludlam.

The motion relates to the use of the surveillance program PRISM by the United States National Security Agency.

Learn more on the ABC News program The World Today.

Motion text

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

(i) revelations that the PRISM program has been used by the United States of America's National Security Agency to conduct warrantless real time surveillance via the servers of nine companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook,

(ii) recent reports suggesting that Australian agencies are receiving information through the PRISM program to access emails, audio and video chats, photographs, documents, connection logs and location data of Australians, and

(iii) that strong concerns have been expressed by the United Kingdom's Intelligence and Security Committee, Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, and the German Minister of Justice, Sabine Leutheusser Schnarrenberger; and

(b) calls on the Attorney General (Mr Dreyfus) to table in Parliament a ministerial statement of explanation before Thursday, 20 June 2013 on the vulnerability of Australian legislated privacy protections and government information to PRISM.