The right to an impartial hearing trumps the social imperative of bringing accused to trial even 'down under'

Accused persons who are subjected to a saturation level of negative media coverage may be denied an impartial hearing, which is perhaps the most important aspect of the right to a fair hearing. Despite this, the courts have generally held that the social imperative of prosecuting accused trumps the interests of the accused. The justification for an impartial hearing stems from the repugnance of convicting the innocent. Viewed dispassionately, this imperative is not absolute, given that every legal system condones procedures which result in the conviction of some innocent people. While the importance of guarding against wrongful convictions has been overstated, the imperative to bring to trial all accused has been even more exaggerated. The legal system has displayed a capacity to deal with cases where the guilty walk free. The institutional integrity of the criminal justice system would be significantly compromised by convictions that are tarnished by pre-judgment. Confidence in the criminal justice system is more important than individual criminal accountability. The inability to receive an impartial hearing should result in a permanent stay. The only exception is where the alleged crime has the capacity to cause widespread fear or social unrest. This only applies in relation to serious acts of terrorism. This article focuses on recent legal fair trial developments in Australia, however, the analysis, reasoning and conclusion applies in relation to all jurisdictions where juries determine guilt and innocence.

Beyond the separation of powers : judicial review and the regulatory proscription of terrorist organisations

Administrative law remains the key defence against an over-zealous executive arm of government, but administrative law needs to be understood in an international context. Perhaps nowhere is this more apparent than in relation to legislation designed to counter terrorist activities. The co-ordination of terrorist activities knows no borders, and state-centered executive action designed to address the threat of terrorism necessarily operates in a broader global environment. An important but controversial part of Australia's counter-terrorism legislation suite is the power to proscribe terrorist organisations. The authors contend that the scope of judicial review available in relation to decisions of the Commonwealth executive to proscribe terrorist organisations is inadequate and may jeapordise Australia's compliance with international standards, such as those provided in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Now is an opportune time to reassess the structure and operation of the power to proscribe organisations in Australia.

Crime risks of three-dimensional virtual environments

Three-dimensional virtual environments (3dves) are the new generation of digital multi-user social networking platforms. Their immersive character allows users to create a digital humanised representation or avatar, enabling a degree of virtual interaction not possible through conventional text-based internet technologies. As recent international experience demonstrates, in addition to the conventional range of cybercrimes (including economic fraud, the dissemination of child pornography and copyright violations), the 'virtual-reality' promoted by 3dves is the source of great speculation and concern over a range of specific and emerging forms of crime and harm to users. This paper provides some examples of the types of harm currently emerging in 3dves and suggests internal regulation by user groups, terms of service, or end-user licensing agreements, possibly linked to real-world criminological principles. This paper also provides some directions for future research aimed at understanding the role of Australian criminal law and the justice system more broadly in this emerging field.

Influence operations and behavioural change

The intended outcome of Information Operations appears to be a favourable change (to the instigator) in attitudes or belief systems of the target, however, the relationship between attitude and behaviour is tenuous. Propaganda and other methods of ‘influence’ are difficult to assess as the cause and effect relationship is complicated. The short term effects of psychological warfare where force is used in conjunction with influence techniques can be easily assessed; at least at a superficial level. Even in the latter case, the actual causes and effects could be solely the force used or some other factors rather than the psychological techniques per se. Influence Operations attempt to win the hearts and minds of the target audience but, even if successful, the lasting effects of a campaign are problematic. It is further complicated because if a person has a particular view, it does not mean that the ensuing behaviours will reflect that view. Also, there is evidence that the use of force on one set of people produces attitudes and behaviours that instigate radical beliefs and behaviours in another set. So psychological warfare techniques on one group that may or may not produce compliant behaviour stimulates another group to empathise with the victims thus producing an overall practical negative influence. Influence campaigns cannot be separated from the physical environment in which they are executed. If good politics requires good influence campaigns then good influence campaigns require good politics to back them up. This paper will examine the relationships between short term influence campaigns and compare them with the more long term socialising effects such as early education, family and physical attributes that have on attitudes and beliefs which result in the development of such behaviours as terrorism.

The perennial problem of police gratuities : public concerns, political optics, and an accountability ethos

Despite the perennial nature of the problem of gratuities in considerations of police ethics, many prior analyses of this issue have rested on anecdotal, piecemeal or hypothetical considerations.. This paper draws on a unique sample of actual complaint cases involving gratuities, providing evidence of a range of public concerns about the problem. Gratuities are analysed and contextualised by reference to the concept of conflict of interest, which draws attention to the potential for the performance of public duty to be tainted in fact or appearance. In either case, public trust in the integrity of the police is damaged, giving rise to "political optics" as a key problem with gratuities.  The paper argues that an accountability ethos must be developed to promote active responsibility and a preparedness to prioritise the public interest in policing.

Australian national critical infrastructure protection : a case study

Australia has developed sophisticated national security policies and physical security agencies to protect against current and future security threats associated with critical infrastructure protection and cyber warfare protection. This paper will discuss some of the common security risks that face Australia and how their government policies and strategies have been developed and changed over time, for example, the proposed Australian Homeland Security department. This paper will discuss the different steps that Australia has undertaken in relation to developing national policies to deal with critical infrastructure protection.

Aligning anti-money laundering, combating of financing of terror and financial inclusion : Questions to consider when FATF standards are clarified

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify key questions that should be addressed to enable the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to provide guidance regarding the alignment of anti-money laundering, combating of financing of terror and financial inclusion objectives.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper draws on relevant research and documents of the FATF to identify questions that are relevant to consider when it formulates guidance regarding the alignment between financial integrity and financial inclusion objectives.
Findings – The FATF advises that its risk-based approach enables countries and institutions to further financial inclusion. It is, however, not clear what the FATF means when its uses the terms “risk” and “low risk”. It is also unclear whether current proposals for financial inclusion regulatory models will necessarily limit money laundering (ML) aswell as terror financing risks to levels that can be described as “low”. The FATF will need to clarify its own thinking regarding low money laundering and low terror financing risk before it will be able to provide clear guidance to national regulators and financial institutions.
Originality/value – This paper was drafted to inform current FATF discussions regarding guidance on financial inclusion. The questions are relevant to all stakeholders in financial regulation.

Editorial : advances in network and system security

Current parallel and distributed networks/systems are facing serious threats from network terrorism and crime, which cause huge financial loss and potential life hazard. As attacking tools are becoming more widely available, more easy-to-use, more sophisticated, and more powerful, more efforts have been made in building more effective, more intelligent, and more adaptive defense systems which are of distributed and networked nature. This special issue focuses on issues related to Network and System Security, such as authentication, access control, availability, integrity, privacy, confidentiality, dependability and sustainability of computer networks and systems.

A survey on latest botnet attack and defense

A botnet is a group of compromised computers, which are remotely controlled by hackers to launch various network attacks, such as DDoS attack and information phishing. Botnet has become a popular and productive tool behind many cyber attacks. Recently, the owners of some botnets, such as storm worm, torpig and conflicker, are employing fluxing techniques to evade detection. Therefore, the understanding of their fluxing tricks is critical to the success of defending from botnet attacks. Motivated by this, we survey the latest botnet attacks and defenses in this paper. We begin with introducing the principles of fast fluxing (FF) and domain fluxing (DF), and explain how these techniques were employed by botnet owners to fly under the radar. Furthermore, we investigate the state-of-art research on fluxing detection. We also compare and evaluate those fluxing detection methods by multiple criteria. Finally, we discuss future directions on fighting against botnet based attacks.

Defending against large-scale and coordinated attacks in the ubiquitous environments

Ubiquitous computing is an exciting paradigm shift where technology becomes virtually invisible in our lives. In the increasingly interconnected world, threats to our daily lives can come from unexpected sources and universal directions. Criminals and terrorists have recognized the value of leveraging the ubiquitous computing environments to facilitate the commission of crimes. The cyber criminals typically launch different forms of large-scale and coordinated attacks, causing huge financial loss and potential life hazard. In this talk, we report two innovative approaches to defend against large-scale and coordinated attacks in the ubiquitous environments: 1) Inferring the cyber crime's intent through network traffic classification to enable the early warning of potential attacks, and 2) Profiling the large-scale and coordinated cyber attacks through both microscopic and macroscopic modeling to provide better control of such attacks. These approaches are effective in finding weak symptoms caused by the attacks thus can successfully defend against the large-scale and coordinated attacks at their early stages.