How can one say other than I agree, as though that carries weight? Does one go further and wonder if rather than sloppy thinking there is a PLAN. You know, to be Australian by intelligent idiom, like Saddam and his conquest of America or the link to al quida? Is it just the outcome of a zealous individual truly worried about the security of Australia or an on going design for control?
Boy will the red necks have fun with this!

What Andrew Lynch fails to consider is that the interception legislation has to be constantly amended to keep up with fast moving changes in telecommunications technology and its uses.

The problems he vaguely waves to can also never be fully resolved because the world and terrorist threats do not wait for the satisfaction of all objections.

I can see that people outside government (like I am now) are frustrated that they can’t really put their oar into this issue. The arguments or basic information on this issue are either restricted for Cabinet-in Confidence reasons or for national security reasons.
What is not classified and not cross referenced is almost unintelligible. This article did not have links or other references and an internet search to get a “balanced view” breaks down into endless chases through pdf files.

All I know is that our democratically appointed parliament passed this latest fine tuning of the Interception legislation. It seems that the State police and federal bodies were already intercepting B party communications legally before this interception Act was passed.

The Act drew together the state and federal legal stands hence strengthening the legal force of a warrant (if Andrew or any lawyers want to correct this lay interpretation go for it).

It has strong safeguards. One defacto safeguard is that State and Federal interception resources are limited. They do not have the time, money or manpower to cover many people. Judges and elected politicians keep an oversight.

This matter has been personified in this article as “Ruddock” doing it again, but this type of law on interception/bugging is being passed by all shades of government internationally – something about concern for the greater evil of a ball of flame from a terrorist bomb roasting passengers in a tunnel.

continued...

PART 2

SEDITION

Andrew brings in sedition. Kind of easy to see why the 100 year old sedition laws were updated, not to chase us “intellectuals” but mainly to dissuade mullahs in Mosques from declaring an open season on our troops in the Middle East. Perhaps such speeches might be deemed seditious if it could be proven that members of the “congregation” carried out violent acts on the basis of those words.

The fact that a review mechanism for a sedition law was built into it is a strength for a problematic law rather than a weakness.

CONCLUSION

For the sedition, interception and national security laws generally governments cannot release most of the relevant data to the public for discussion. This is because much of the information was collected secretly (or from overseas data) and may give potential terrorists and other law breakers a leg up.

So as we’re not going to get fully informed public discussion I think review clauses and sunset clauses are a strength. They are also are one way of encouraging the laws to be updated in the face of technical changes.

What Andrew sees as a weakness is a strength that recognises practical problems in lawmaking.

Once again, this is an excellent article, keep up the good work 'The Forum'.
There needs to be a unifying concerted effort from ALL Australian journalists, academics, researchers and writers to speak out about these intrusive, anti-democratic laws.
There's something very wrong with Philip Ruddock's (Federal Attorney General) Department, under the Howard government.
Officers of his department have been harrassing and intimidating journalists, documentary makers, and writers for publishing articles and Intellectual property that critiques the government. Australian, Carmel Travers, writer/producer/director of the outstanding 'Truth, Lies, and Intelligence' documentary (available for sale at Dymocks Bookstore and broadcast on SBS in 2005) had her personal computers smashed with a sledgehammer and threaten with 7 years prison for covering the Iraq war and other issues. Clearly, this department and government is antithetic to the values of democracy and their hypocrisy must be criticised from ALL Australians of integrity, otherwise my friends, we won't be living in a democracy in Australia, and we must all unite to continue to speak out about this evil in our own nation. And if you think I'm joking, look at the SBS Dateline transcript of 22 June 2005 called, Sledgehammer Politics.
regards,
Teresa
http://teresavanlieshout.tripod.com/
http://theaustraliaparty.tripod.com/

Any attempt to incorporate anti-terrorism into the normal civil-code is inappropriate, bound to be futile and only create a mess in the rights of ordinary citizens.

Why continue beating around the bush rather than acknowledge the de-facto legal situation? one short and simple law could prevent the current messing around of all regular laws, it could state:

[
a. The government and its appointed agents may break any other law if and to the extent it honestly and reasonably deems it necessary to prevent imminent terror attacks against Australia or its citizens.
b. The government must do everything in its power to prevent the rights and well-being of those not involved in terror from being unnecessarily compromized as a result of (a), and to remedy such compromizes if they occured, even if they were necessary.
c. An attempt to use (a) with any intent other than stopping terror, is a criminal offense that is punishable, according to its severity, by up to incarceration for life.
]

If Howard's honest intention is indeed only to prevent terrorism, he should gladly embrace this law instead of all others.

suggestions/improvements welcome!