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Australia passed national security and foreign interference laws at the end of June that Attorney General Christian Porter has called the country’s biggest counterintelligence overhaul in decades.
Editor’s Note: Programs to counter violent extremism (known as “CVE”) attempt to offer non-military and non-law enforcement means to fight terrorism, working with communities to identify potential radicals and move them away from violence. Critics who have the ear of the Trump administration deride them as weak and ineffective, and programs at DHS and other agencies are on the chopping block. Eric Rosand, a non-resident fellow at Brookings and the director of the Prevention Project, calls for renewing U.S. CVE efforts.
Australia is weighing in on the encryption debate regarding exceptional access by law enforcement.
Photo: Svetl. Tebenkova
According to published news reports, the Australian government plans to “introduce draft legislation that will attempt to force technology companies to break into end-to-end encrypted messages.”
The United States and Australia have rarely disagreed on issues of strategy in the post-Cold War era. Generally, Australia reliably agrees with Washington’s assessment of threats and risks and supports America’s policy responses. In past examinations of the relationship some Australian analysts warned that a rising China would inevitably upset this happy status quo, while others insisted there was no dilemma and that Australia is not a “conflicted ally.”