AUSTRALIA – The Federal Government has announced the launch of a major review and upgrade to aviation security in the country following a White paper published in December and the incident of terrorism on Christmas day. The irony is that the announcement comes at a time when Government websites have been invaded and incapacitated by computer hackers.
The air cargo industry will receive a dedicated security package in excess of A$50 million as part of a total overhaul costing A$200 million which will also see increased policing with many more officers and specialist sniffer dogs, trained to detect explosives, at every airport. The main investment will include upgrades to cargo screening installations and trace detectors targeted at munitions and explosive materials.
The announcement came just as protestors launched “Operation Titstorm” which is a campaign against the Rudd Governments plans to filter all internet content, a scheme which has met with a huge swathe of disapproval from many free thinking Australians. As one protestor stated: "If they’re going to censor my Broadband then they should provide it free of charge”. The hacking group apparently calling themselves “Anonymous” hit the main Government website with a barrage of requests which are said to have numbered over seven million per second causing the entire network to crash for much of yesterday.
The Parliament website was still unavailable at the time of going to press.
