The Wickr app ensures no metadata is left behind. "I must record my very grave misgivings about the proposal," he added. "It seems to be heading in precisely the wrong direction." And on and on he waxed lyrical about the dangers of the proposal. But as Communications Minister, Mr Turnbull has been forced to support the plan. Along with Attorney-General George Brandis, the two have been asked by Prime Minister Tony Abbott to push the Data Retention Bill through the federal parliament by the end of March, describing it as "urgent" and "crucial" for fighting crime and terrorism. Note, that telcos will have two years to comply with the law after it is passed. Now it appears Mr Turnbull has become the perfect example of why the data retention plan is doomed to fail. On Monday, The Australian newspaper claimed he and Minister for Social Services Scott Morrison were using encrypted messaging app Wickr to communicate, apparently about leadership tension.

The popularity of encrypted messaging app Wickr peaked to a new high in Australia this week. Credit:AppAnnie Wickr circumvents data retention as it is a United States-based service whose metadata is not captured by Australian telcos. It also uses encryption it claims is uncrackable. Mr Turnbull confirmed he used the app — dubbed "Snapchat for adults" — on Tuesday morning, saying the service was superior to SMS. But he didn't comment on whether he was using it to discusss the Liberal leadership. Illustration: David Pope Funnily enough, talk of his use of Wickr has seen a surge in people downloading it. Data from app analytics company App Annie shows the number of downloads in Australia surged in recent days, causing its ranking to go from 546th overall in Apple's App Store early Monday to 76th at time of writing on Tuesday.

"I use Wickr as an application, I use a number of others, I use WhatsApp, because they're superior over-the-top messaging platforms; hundreds of millions of people do," Mr Turnbull said. Mr Turnbull's right. Wickr is superior to SMS and I've used it myself to communicate with sources (my handle is bengrubbsmh). But it's not the first time the minister has encouraged Australians to use encryption. Just last year Mr Turnbull joked that virtual private networks (VPNs) could be used to circumvent data retention laws. VPNs make it easier to disguise your identity on the web by letting you tunnel your traffic through another network, sometimes in another country, to make it harder to uncover your online footprint. They also allow Australians to watch overseas video services, such as the US version of Netflix, that have been "geo-blocked" in Australia.

"Your web-surfing history is a matter for you," Turnbull said. "You've all got VPNs (virtual private networks) anyway. "All of you appear to be somewhere in Iowa when you go online ... I know that ... anyway, I won't go on," he said with a smile. So as we reflect on whether Australia really needs data retention laws — which not only pose a threat to all Australians' privacy and liberties but to journalists like myself who do in fact have something to hide (the identity of our sources) — we only need to look back to Mr Turnbull's 2012 speech. "Why do we imagine that the criminals of the greatest concern to our security agencies will not be able to use any of numerous available means to anonymise their communications or indeed choose new services that are not captured by legislated data retention rules?" he said. Indeed. And they already are, as witnessed by the fact some NSW bikies have been using highly-secure Blackberrys to thwart monitoring.