SPIES will have “infinite” reach to monitor Australians’ activities online as part of a new suite of anti-terror reforms that the Australian Lawyers Alliance (ALA) has branded as of “enormous concern”.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) has been granted the power to essentially monitor the entire Australian web with only one warrant, with the government’s first set of national security laws passing the Senate with bipartisan support last night.

With Australia on high alert for terrorism on domestic soil, the government has been able to beef up the surveillance powers of our domestic spy agency quickly.

ALA spokesman and barrister Greg Barns has slammed the laws, saying “they can essentially do an enormous amount under one warrant”.

“They can dress up a warrant to give themselves major leverage,” he told news.com.au.

Australia has no specific laws that protect privacy, so innocent people who may be monitored have “very little by way of redress in legal terms”.

Mr Barns said the law had been drafted in “such a shoddy way” as to allow the agency to spy on as many as 5 million Australians with one warrant.

“Effectively it’s zero for the internet user and 10 for ASIO. We think it’s of enormous concern,” he said.

The changes allow ASIO to access an unlimited number of third-party computers on a network with only one warrant.

The bill doesn’t define “computer network”, which has led experts to say that the laws essentially allow ASIO to monitor the entire internet.

“There is no arbitrary or artificial limit on the number of devices,” Attorney-General George Brandis told the Senate.

The Palmer United Party managed to attach an amendment that means anyone who publicly names an ASIO agent could be jailed for up to a decade, which is a 10-time increase in the existing maximum penalty.

Australian Greens list unprecedented security and surveillance powers being passed in Oz pic.twitter.com/R9mBfeksIm @caparsons @OpenMedia_ca — Adam Molnar (@admmo) September 25, 2014

The laws have raised concerns over the fate of whistleblowers and journalists, who could be jailed under the legislation for “recklessly” disclosing information related to a “special intelligence operation”.

Mr Barns said particular groups were “under threat”, such as journalists, whose confidential sources could be identified, and lawyers, whose privileged information between them and their clients could be exposed.

“Is ASIO going to look at this previously privileged advice? The law says they can. ASIO can do what they want. You will see wholesale internet surveillance,” he said.

Mr Barns said ASIO already had adequate powers to monitor individual suspects’ internet use, but this would give the spy agency blanket powers to investigate anyone.

“The government has been cynical in the way it’s had this legislation rushed through at an opportune moment, with no consideration for people’s privacy and no real justification,” he said.

“ASIO is already a shadowy organisation. It needs to be accountable to someone. It does not need these powers, and there’s no counterbalance to account for the abuse of these powers.

“If you give unchecked powers to organisations, it inevitably leads to abuse.”

But Attorney-General George Brandis said the reforms “had nothing to do with the press”.

He told the Senate that the reforms were the most significant improvement to Australia’s security agencies since the 1979 ASIO Act was passed.

“What we have achieved tonight is to ensure that those who protect us, particularly in a newly dangerous age, have the strong powers and capabilities they need,” Mr Brandis told the Senate last night.

“But we’ve also achieved the outcome that those strong powers are protected and balanced by strong safeguards.”

The Greens have slammed the new measures — particularly those that allow ASIO to access, copy and delete data on Australians’ computers — as extreme and a “relentless expansion of powers” of the surveillance state.

“You can’t help but think that what the government is doing is using this atmosphere of fear and tension push draconian measures through Parliament that invade people’s privacy without making us any safer,” Green leader Christine Milne told reporters this afternoon.

“Everybody condemns what (terror group) ISIL is doing, it’s horrendous, it's barbaric, but we do not want to see the fabric of our own society here in Australia torn apart.”

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said the bill was passed with an “absence of critique and opposition at a time when this country desperately needs it”.

Senators David Leyonhjelm and Nick Xenophon, who moved a number of unsuccessful amendments last night, also opposed the legislation.

However, the government agreed to amend the legislation to specifically rule out ASIO using torture.

The bill will now be sent back to the House of Representatives for the requisite rubber stamp.

The legal changes come amid growing concern over Islamic State extremists in the Middle East and terror threats at home.

A second suite of anti-terror laws targeting foreign fighters was introduced on Wednesday and will be debated next month.

These changes have opposition support and would make it a criminal office to travel to a terrorist hotspot without a reasonable excuse.

The government is aware of about 60 Australians fighting in Syria and Iraq.

A third bill enabling the collection of metadata will be introduced later this year.

News.com.au has approached Mr Brandis’s office for comment.