Surely, preventing is better than annihilating later - but to what extent?

<Latham lifts lid on Iraq spies
By Mark Devis

Former opposition leader Mark Latham has confirmed that the Australian Security Intelligence Service had a substantial commitment of officers operating in Iraq following the US-led invasion. ….The Australian Financial Review 23/09/2005 , p.15
www.afr.com >

Phillip

I thought fridge magnets posters and billboards were meant to keep Australia safe. Now you want to introduce unwarranted random searches, and you justify it with an appeal to the UN Declaration of Human Rights 'right to security'. It's ironic considering your the same guy that got kicked out of Amnesty International for not upholding the UN Declaration of Human Rights, 'right to asylum'.

Dear Fundamentalist Extremist Reliogious Zelots

If you don't play the game don't make up the rules.

XXX

Tieran

Mr Ruddock begins by giving examples of questions have been raised. Where is the question on human rights and/or judicial process?

Answering the question, will Australians be safer, is Mr Ruddock claiming that those eight interviews DID "reveal information about plots to attack our cities"? It seems that he tries to imply this without outright saying it.

He talks about terrorists being adaptable and while this is true (they have taken advantage of the coalition presence in Iraq) what have they adapted to in relation to Australian anti-terror laws?

Mr Ruddock says: "Accountability mechanisms ... ensure innocent people are not caught up in such an operation. Watchdogs such as the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) are there to respond on behalf of individuals if there are any such problems."

The Commonwealth Ombudsman, according to its website cannot issue a direction to an agency, unlike a court. Anyway, it advises you should use the complaint handling scheme of the agency concerned before writing to the Ombudsman. (see http://www.comb.gov.au/)

That would be the IGIS, but it too can only make recommendations. According to its 2004 annual report, it's a "small agency" on a budget of less than one million dollars and "relies on the assistance of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPM&C) in handling staff and other administration issues and in providing general support." (see http://www.igis.gov.au)

No criticism is intended of these agencies or their staff, but why would they be even aware of a detention without a complaint made?

The ASIO website says the main accountability mechanism is the Attorney General himself (see http://www.asio.gov.au/About/Content/account.htm). So it would be accurate to replace "Accountability Mechanisms ensure... " with "I will ensure..."

Interesting that no mention is made of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, which under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights covers refusing legal assistance and incommunicado detention. (see http://www.hreoc.gov.au)

No mention either of the judiciary, which is very surprising given than Mr Ruddock is the Federal Attorney-General.

We have way too many laws.

If the old laws are ineffective and we need new laws then please consider the following options.

1. Put a sunset clause into all the new laws. 25 years should be more than enough and it will spare the next generation from having an even bigger law book to deal with. And if in 25 years the laws are still necessary then we can always extend them.
2. Repeal some of the old laws while your at it.

Philip Ruddock wrote: "Accountability mechanisms are a central feature of Australia's terrorism laws."

... like the kind of 'accountability' that occurred when this Government recently rushed through its hastily drafted Telstra privatisation legislation, opposed by 70% of Australians, in barely a week from when it was first made public?

The Government assured us, against the loud objections of those of us who opposed the war, that the invasion of Iraq would make the world safer from terrorism.

Instead we, and the rest of the world, are now reaping the whirlwind that this Government has helped to sow.

A defeat of terrorism can only occur if its root causes, as well as the symptoms, are addressed. However, this Government has shown itself to be even incapable of addressing the symptoms. As Matthew Franklin wrote ("PM should be blushing", 24 Sep) in Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper on a recent report by British security expert John Wheeler on the failure of Philip Ruddock's Government to implement basic security at our airports:

"But it speaks ill of the Government that it took Wheeler to point out problems that should have been thought of years ago and obvious to any competent transport minister moving around the country."

Given this and the overall record of this Government's dishonesty and its demonstrated ill intentions towards at least a sizable minority (unskilled workers, the unemployed, farmers, single mothers, people with disabilities, people who don't own their own homes) if not the majority, of our community, then we are entitled to assume that this legislation has much more to do with its desire to control us than it has to do with defeating terrorism.

(to be continued ...)

(... continued from above.)

I accept that effective measures must be taken to prevent outrages such as those which recently occurred in London and Madrid, but unless we are prepared to live under the kind of state that existed in Cambodia in the late 1970's, no attempts to eliminate terrorism can be entirely successful.

Such a price is clearly unacceptable, and I hold that the price this Government would have us pay today is also far too high. We should not forget Benjamin Franklin's words :

"The man who trades freedom for security does not
deserve nor will he ever receive either."

In any case, the terrorist threat should be looked at in its proper perspective.

No terrorist group in the world could possibly hope to inflict anywhere near the harm on our society as was caused recently to the US by Hurricane Katrina.

The changes in weather patterns, due to global carbon dioxide emissions, are likely to result in this kind of event being repeated many times in the coming years and decades.

Yet this Government chose to use its influence, on the international stage, in recent years to delay urgently needed action to confront the threat of global warming.

Remember John Howard's immortal words, when he came back from the London Kyoto Protocol conference in 1998, having succeeded in undermining the resolve of the global community to act against this threat:

"It is Tony Blair's job to look after Britain's best interests. It is my job to look after Australia's"

... as if such a massive problem can be fixed by each and every nation on earth looking only after its narrow short term interests.

It is Philip Ruddock's own Government, more than any terrorist group, which Australian citizens need to be both alert against and alarmed about.