An excellent article Bruce.In 2009 40,000 Tamils including women and children were massacred by the Sri Lankin Govt.This was a civil war and we should not be taking sides.

Note also Obama's NDAA( National Defence Authorisation Act) in which the US Military can arrest and detain anyone in the West without trial or legal council indefinetly.Obama's Preventative Dentention it seems,has come here.

I see these terrorist laws as a move towards world Govt in which the individual will have absolutely no rights.Hilter used the Reich Stag fires to take away the people's freedoms.Our Govts are using 911 as the pretext to do likewise.http://www.globalresearch.ca/

Well all the children illegally jailed are jailed only on the pretext that the parents might be dangerous.

By that criteria we better lock every child because their parents might break some law.

We could put barbed wire and mines around the entire country and call it a penal colony for the innocent.

Well all the children illegally jailed are jailed only on the pretext that the parents might be dangerous.
Marylin,
How would you solve that dilemma ? Just imagine if every Australian was as simple-minded as you we'd be overrun in a week. Is that what you'd like to see ?

Individual, there are 12,500 people coming to this country every day of the week and still you whinge about the average of 19 refugees.

<< Well all the children illegally jailed are jailed only on the pretext that the parents might be dangerous. By that criteria we better lock every child because their parents might break some law. We could put barbed wire and mines around the entire country and call it a penal colony for the innocent. >>

Ohh Marilyn, you so extraordinarily over the top!

Can't you see how this sort of comment just destroys your credibility?

Haigh does make an interesting point, and is kind enough not to hide the fact that he has an axe to grind here. As this is an 'On Line Opinion' forum, I respect that. My opinion differs from his just a little, though.

He first asks where ASIO gets its information from, offering a range of suggestions. One of these suggestions is that ASIO relies on the government of Sri Lanka for its information; he then promptly assumes this to be true and uses that as the basis for the rest of the article. It's entirely possible that he's building his own straw man here - perhaps the man openly admits to having been a driver for the Tamil Tigers? We don't know.

Additionally, while he acknowledges that we should not take sides in a civil war (and I agree), he seems to make that same mistake himself. By accusing the Sri Lankan government of waging a campaign of terror against Tamils, he seems to think he has cleared the Tigers of any accusations of terrorism. Either that, or their terrorism is a sort of 'justified' terrorism. I don't know if this is intentional or not, but it underpins much of what he says in his article.

Unfashionable as it is to say this in the 21st Century, it has to be said: the Tamil Tigers used terrorist tactics to achieve their objectives. Whether they were fighting terrorism with terrorism is irrelevant.

Consequently, if there is certifiable evidence that the man was a driver for the Tamil Tigers, there is certifiable evidence that he has been a member of a terrorist organisation. I can understand the adverse security assessment in that light.

As none of us know whether or not there is certifiable evidence, we can't really comment with any certainty on the matter - as I have done, we can only offer opinion and conjecture.

As for the broader issue of detention, I agree that we're in a bit of a quandary. Ignore our own security assessments or ignore international law?