The American lawyer for whistleblower Edward Snowden has questioned whether legislation to retain metadata will improve national security, as the Australian government introduces the bill to parliament.

Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has told Guardian Australia that there’s “no good evidence” that data retention aids national security authorities in preventing terror attacks.

“Having a massive database of records is unlikely to assist [law enforcement]. There is some argument that it does the opposite. That there’s so many false leads that the FBI has stopped doing its traditional investigative work,” Wizner said.

“Most plots are stopped not because of some fancy algorithm running through a database and forming connections, but because intelligence agencies have people undercover and they do old-fashioned police work.”

He acknowledges that the retention of metadata can help connect the dots after an attack, but said: “I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence that mass surveillance is good at preventing terrorist attacks.”

The federal government introduced legislation forcing phone companies and internet service providers to retain users’ metadata – the digital footprint left behind when customers use their devices – for two years. That information would be freely available to law enforcement agencies.

In introducing the bill, the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said it would not increase the extent to which metadata could be obtained by authorities. Rather, the bill established an industry-wide standard to make sure telecommunications companies kept this information for two years.

Both the prime minister, Tony Abbott, and the chief architect of the data retention bill, the attorney general, George Brandis, floundered in trying to explain what information would and would not be collected under the proposed legislation when they first floated it in August. Abbott’s office issued a statement at the time clarifying that web browsing history would not be included in data collected.

Tech experts and civil libertarians converged on parliament house on Wednesday before the bill was introduced to call on the government to release an exposure draft of the legislation that clearly defines metadata and explains what oversight provisions are in place to minimise the potential for data breaches.

“We have seen a significant history of data breaches in this country,” Narelle Clark from the Australian Communications Consumer Action Network said. “This kind of [retention] system will create a large honeypot with people who don’t have good intents and purposes.”

Chris Berg from the Institute of Public Affairs said the issue of who would bear the costs of the retention program were unclear but that it was likely they would ultimately trickle down to consumers in a “being spied upon tax”.

Jon Lawrence from Electronic Frontiers Australia was highly critical of the effect of the program on individual freedoms, labelling the bill “the single biggest threat to the liberty of Australians”.



The government has argued that data retention is necessary to protect the country from terrorist cells and lone wolf attacks.

“When it comes to counter-terrorism everyone needs to be part of Team Australia,” Abbott said in August.

“The highest priority of government is the safety of our community and I want to ensure the Australian people that we will leave no stone unturned to ensure that our community is as safe as it can be.”

The data retention policy, which is part of the third tranche of the government’s national security laws, has broad bipartisan support and is expected to pass through parliament.

Some crossbench senators have raised concerns over the bill.

“The idea that the government can watch all of us is fundamentally wrong,” Liberal Democrat senator David Leyonhjelm said on Wednesday, adding that authorities already had “plenty of existing powers” to deal with wrongdoers.

Public sentiment turned against data retention last year, when Edward Snowden revealed the extent to which US security agencies were monitoring and storing phone and internet information.

While Wizner is against data retention, he acknowledges that the Australian government has handled the issue well, saying that the veil of secrecy often imposed by authorities on national security legislation is “deeply corrosive” to public trust.

A security expert for American thinktank the Brookings Institute, Benjamin Wittes, has told Guardian Australia that the Australian system of data retention is more effective than the US model which asked companies to “hang on to the data if they feel like it”.

“I think the ideal answer is a retention requirement for the companies themselves,” Wittes said, arguing that companies were less likely to misuse the data than government agencies.

