Attorney-General George Brandis was flooded with messages when it was discovered that his Australian Parliament House email address, senator.brandis@aph.gov.au, was linked to his Apple device, meaning anyone could send an iMessage directly to the Senator.
Activist group Beyond Green used the discovery to launch a grassroots campaign called 'Curious George' urging Australians to "cc" George Brandis in on all their emails and texts, in an attempt to show their frustration at the prospect of the federal government gaining unprecedented access to personal metadata without a warrant.
The new laws force telecommunications providers to store the metadata of all phone and internet users for two years.
There are fears the legislation will result in a surge in the price of household internet and phone plans.
According to the Attorney-General Department's website, implementing the metadata retention laws will cost the telecommunications industry between $188 million to $319 million.
A number of people have been bombarding Mr Brandis with questions and posting their results online.
It's believed Mr Brandis has since unlinked his publicly-available email address from the iMessage app.
