Mirko, I cannot fathom why you, who has chosen to make Australia your home rather than your homeland that has suffered terrible racial/ethnic troubles, would take such a mean-hearted stance on civil libertarians.

Civil libertarians are the ones who argued that people like yourself, and others including Serbians, should be allowed the opportunity to make Australia your home.

This article, in an ironic way, does more to justify your stance by providing an example that some immigrants are unable to value the opportunity they have received.

Civil libertarians are the first to argue your rights to express yourself - even if they disagree with what you are saying.

In short, this article is catering to populist claptrap and you must know it. However it does serve to keep your publications up so that you can progress up the academic ladder.

Come on Aka, every civil libertarian I have ever heard has been a lawyer, using their civil libertarianism to try to get some law changed or watered down.

I have never been able to detect any humanitarian motive in any of this, just an attempt to make it easier to get their criminal clients off the hook.

I do recall one O'Gorman who used his constant interviews on the ABC as free advertising, growing his law practice greatly.

Were our brilliant ABC journalists aware of how this was working, did they not care, or were they too dumb to notice? Yes we all know it was the latter, but I needed to fill some space, just like those ABC twits.

Hasbeen,
Mirko is a lawyer - your point is?

For those who think this continual erosions and exceptions to the normal rule of law within the justice system is okay, where would you draw the line?

I am all for national security - it is necessary in a growing globalised world - but it should be a responsible approach that does not result in eroding the very rights and freedoms these policies aim to preserve. We may just protect ourselves out of certain liberties impacting much more, the democratic process.

Civil liberties are not unique to the Left or Right. To deflect this debate as wither Left or Right conspiracies is to miss the point completely and when spun this way one can only doubt the agenda.

I have no problem waiting a bit longer at airports nor having to show numerous bits of identity given the increased threat of identity theft, coupled with concerns about cyber security. However laws which seek to erode the system of justice that also serves to protect, is counterproductive in the long term.

Fairer foreign policy with less emphasis on self-interest (either explicit or implied) would go much further in quelling the terrorist threat.

Dear old Mirko, the man fired from the refugee review tribunal for declaring his love of torture now claims that we won some mythical war on terror and that refugees have zero rights and all of us who claim they do should go away and die.

Why is this tripe written by Mr Torture in person allowed to be published as supposed opinion?

There is no such thing under the law as off shore push away of asylum seekers, Britain and other EU nations decided to try and push them away to other EU nations but are not allowed to if the conditions are worse.

The minute we all start simply throwing civil law and liberties in the bin we are Al Qaida and the Taliban.

I would greatly appreciate it if Mirko could explain just what he means by "the right" and especially "the left" in his articles.

To me these labels have long since lost their significance. If by "the left" he means the marxists, who gives a stuff what the devotees of a discredited religion (that's what Marxism really became) who these days meet in shoeboxes and still have lots of room, think about anything?

Is Mirko inventing a devil so he will have someone to criticise?

It seems to me that the important division today is between those who support liberal democracy and those who support authoritarian forms of government. And when supporters of the former resort to the methods of the latter to "defend democracy", they are alreadfy defeated. Beware of becoming the thing you hate.

It might, eg, be "utilitarian" for me as an atheist to support the arrest of leading church types for their covering-up of various egregious child-abuse cases. A good way of discrediting my enemies with an impeccable excuse for doing so.

But I don't support any such repression. Why not? Because the next time around it might atheists who get arrested on convenient excuses. This is why civil liberties need to be protected. It's easy to give them to those you like; much harder to accord them to those you despise.