Bill Toulas reports:
Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs has announced the “Australian Government’s Ransomware Action Plan,” which is a set of new measures the country will adopt in an attempt to tackle the rising threat.
[…]
To further strengthen the ability to conduct investigations and disrupt ransomware attacks, the government is looking to establish new powers through the Surveillance Legislation Amendment Act 2021.
Under this new legislation, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission (ACIC) will have the power to delete or remove data linked to suspected criminal activity, permitting access to devices and networks and even allowing the take over of online accounts for investigation purposes.
Read more on BleepingComputer.
So if this is in collaboration with other countries, is Australia claiming the right to take down data on servers in the U.S. or to seize devices of American journalists who may have data dumps or stolen data that they analyze for reporting purposes? Where do these new powers end?