It's taken 10 months for attorney general George Brandis to bring on the first of his anxiously awaited measures to slake Australia's impossible thirst for bigger, wider, deeper security laws. What's taken him so long?

Australians look to their conservative attorneys general to make us feel safe against jihadists, menaces to our north, people fighting on the wrong side in foreign wars, commies, even asylum seekers. So far, Brandis' footing seems more sure when he's bolstering our national security than he does freeing our inner bigotry by debolstering the racial discrimination act. He's the attorney general for free speech and national security, as long as the latter trumps the former.

The latest manifestation, wheeled into parliament just over a week ago, was not a total surprise – the measures had been flagged by a joint parliamentary committee a year ago. The focus is on data and letting Asio get better access to it, even to the extent of planting malware on your devices so that there can be no doubt what you're up to. This is described as "keeping pace with technological developments".

There are other provisions, too: some designed to discourage Asio officers becoming little Edward Snowdens, while others threaten hefty jail time for anyone who discloses "special intelligence operations".

Edward Snowden. Photograph: Alex Healey

A special intelligence operation is whatever the director general of Asio, or the deputy director general, says it is. As the legislation was introduced, Tony Abbott had a stab at defining the patriotic duty of journalists:

News that endangers the security of our country frankly shouldn't be fit to print and I'd ask for a sense of responsibility, a sense of national interest ... a sense of the long-term best interests of the country as well as the short-term best interests of creating sensation to be present right across our country including in the media.

A bit of a muddle, to be sure, but we know what he's on about because we all remember the hot water the ABC and The Guardian landed in when they forgot their "national duty" and published slabs of Snowden's NSA revelations. Now the hot water is at boiling point, with up to between five and 10 years imprisonment on the line, depending on whether lives are endangered as a result of disclosures.

Still to come, after the winter recess, are laws to deal with disturbed teens and others who race off to Syria and Iraq to fight for the caliphate. This is likely to involve designating countries or wars within countries as off limits, and then working out ways to getting the evidence to stick. As the attorney general told Sky News viewers: "Let's not beat around the bush. We don't want them back ... those who do come back, there is a very high chance that they're coming back for no good." That seems like a sound basis for a fresh offence – "up to no good". At the moment, it is illegal for Australians to take up arms in Iraq or Syria; the trouble is getting the evidence.

We're also on notice about data retention laws. Brandis says the government has yet to make a decision on this, but Asio's mind is already made up. Director general David Irvine, a jowly latter-day Charles Spry, wants a mandatory scheme whereby telcos and ISPs retain your metadata for two years.

Irvine told a senate committee this week that the current telecommunication interception powers have enabled the interception of four "mass casualty terrorist attacks occurring in Australia", and nipped quite a number of others in the bud. We have to take his word for it. He insists the public should not be troubled about gross invasions of privacy.

Corporations, Irvine added, use your data to sell you a "new BMW or a new whatever", adding that "for the life of me I cannot understand why it is somehow correct for all your privacy to be invaded for a commercial purpose and not allow me to do it to save your life. Is that dramatic enough?" Senator Scott Ludlam chimed in: "It's probably heading towards melodrama."

The director general knows the right calls, melodramatic or dramatic. Fear, uncertainty, loss of lives. The politicians usually give him whatever he wants because they don't want it said something dreadful happened on their watch. Playing to fears is a sure winner. Consequently, national security legislation frequently has a loose quality, which can pretty well take it anywhere. In fact, some of it is unnecessary because the same patch is covered by other existing loose pieces of law. From recollection, there has only been one terrorist attack on Australian soil: the bombing of the Hilton Hotel in 1978. The various rushed security laws have been in response to terrorist attacks elsewhere and after the event:September 11, Bali, London, Madrid, Mumbai.

In their wake the security agencies have, bit by bit, been given impressive counter terrorism powers, including: detention and questioning, even for people who are not suspected of anything; confiscation of passports; extended time frames for search warrants; removal and detention of material gathered during a search; preventative detention; control orders; bans on extolling terrorism; the proscription of certain organisations; amended sedition laws; tracking and preventing the financing terrorism; and special laws for the conduct of terror trials involving, including the restricted red use of intelligence.

Asio is a hugely well funded and hungry beast. It will always want more in its mission to save our lives. Collection of metadata and nabbing jihadists are today's mission. Tomorrow it will be the retention of broader classifications of data; wider definitions of terrorism and who is a terrorist; more powers relating to association and communications; more access into the functions of daily life; special security classifications; and emergency powers.

There's not much that Irving won't be able to nip in the bud. Who knows. One day we might feel as safe as North Koreans.



