Australians troll ministers with iMessage texts over data retention bill

Australians are trolling their politicians with iMessage texts in protest over a controversial law which would increase the length of time the government retains communications data.

Apple’s messaging service, built into iOS devices and the newest versions of Mac OS X, lets users send text, picture, voice and video messages through an SMS-style app. But while most users link the service primarily to a phone number, it can also be connected to an email address, and at least two Australian legislators have apparently done so with their publicly available work addresses.

Senator George Brandis, the Australian attorney general, was the first minister to be on the receiving end of the messages, largely humorous in tone. Users sent photoshopped pictures, Blade Runner quotes and questions about favoured emoji to the senator, who has been at the forefront of pushing the data retention bill through the Australian legislature. Journalist Lauren Ingram even messaged him the entire first chapter of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Brandis was also in the midst of a censure motion in the senate at the time, which was passed 35–32 on Monday. The Labor party had accused the attorney general of mistreating the president of the Human Rights Commission.

A campaign to protest the data retention act had encouraged Australian internet users to cc all their emails to Brandis’s government email address – or “curious george”, as the campaign nicknamed him. “Attorney general George Brandis is very very curious. He wants to know exactly what we’re all up to online. And the phone,” the campaigners wrote.

“We like ‘Curious George’. He’s such a clever little monkey. But he’s really not too technical. Please pledge below to help George feed his insatiable curiosity. All you need to do is to cc senator.brandis@aph.gov.au on all your emails. Easy!”

Shortly after the iMessage bombardment began, Brandis unlinked his senate email address from the service – but other ministers didn’t move so quickly, and Buzzfeed News reports that Greg Hunt, the environment minister, had his iMessage account hooked up to his government email as well.