[ra]

Absolutely. The only way any authority should ever be able to wiretap or get phone / internet records is with a warrant signed by a judge because there is a reasonable suspicion that the individual has committed a crime.

Even then this should only be available for law enforcement, not local fucking councils!

How did we get into this mess?

[goatforce5]

The article is really unclear, but to me it sounds like they were doing reverse phone lookups.

Illegal advertising - get the details of the number on the poster.

Unregistered pets - maybe they have an 'if found please call ...' tag on the pet, but no pet registration.

People dumping stuff illegally - if you were dumping general household/office waste, you'd probably have letters or bills with your address on it already, but I can think of scenarios where they might only have your email address to go on.

[vacri]

The reasons why they're seeking the numbers are law enforcement reasons. Dumping rubbish and having unregistered pets violate by-laws.

Wiretaps (ie: obtaining content) do require a warrant, and in the state of Victoria, where this is, half of all such applications for warrants are rejected by the magistrate. Getting the name and address of the owner of a phone number is a humdrum law enforcement issue, and really councils should have that power. Getting the list of calls made or where emails have been sent is a more serious violation of privacy (instead of "who owns this?" it's "what do they do with it?"), and I imagine that there's simply a legal loophole there.

The article has an amazing lack of detail and follow-through.