Carl - by trying to divorce Islamic wars from spiritual/ religious wars you are committing a serious perceptual miscalculation.

You see the argument with Islam is that there is no difference between State and Religion. A point that the likes of Alchemist persists in blurring by choosing to ignore the real “facts of life” by painting all religions as equally evil – thus turning his face away from reality.

Islam is a political system but also a religious tyrant which SOLE purpose of existence is the establishing the Ummah, an “earthly kingdom”, (as opposed to the Christian heavenly spiritual kingdom) that knows no boundaries, having their god Allah and their prophet as supreme authority upon humanity.

By failing to address this eminent threat you and others are dismissing the predicament we are all facing.

Do yourselves a favour and start investigating our warnings. Read and learn about the true motives of Islam before you commit to indifference or worse : consent.

It's always amusing to see the 'terrorism' word applied soley to Muslim (or any other religious) fanatics so readily and easily as we see here.

What George is asking is what other liberties and freedoms do we give up because of a treat against those very liberties and freedoms we seek to protect.

It is hard to believe that a single figure, holed up in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan is running an evil empire of suicide bombers ready to pounce at the first sign of weakness. The few images we have of this figure, often old and repeated show a person with no idea on how to fire an AK47 from a crouched position.

The ASIO Powers laws include one very very special feature, that as George stated, would have been unthinkable in the pre September 11 world. We have chipped away at the fundamental common law right of Habeas Corpus (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_Corpus). Our democratic system and legal system are so entwined that this becomes a very serious attack at the heart of our democracy.

Such a thing would have been unthinkable in the wake of the Port Arthur masacre or even the French Government sponsored terrorism which resulted in the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and the death of one person in Auckland Harbour. These new laws would now allow the AFP to detain suspects in such acts for questioning by ASIO.

The Quote MrMan was looking for was actually from the American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin [any society]"that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety".

Wow, reactionary right-wingers are getting started young nowadays.

The culture of fear and hate has begun and our current government can bear most of the responsiblity for it (along with similar regimes in other countries).

I don't know why I'm bothering to respond or try to defend others rights; if you're happy to be detained (imprisoned) without being accused of or suspected of a crime, then good luck to you. If you're happy to have your right to silence removed (and be imprisoned for not wanting to talk without a lawyer present), then good luck to you. If you're happy to have your right to speak to the media (or a public) watchdog removed and in fact, be outlawed, then good luck to you. If you're happy to have the executive branch of government be given the power to imprison you without the decision of the judicial branch (the courts), then good luck to you.

I retract my earlier comments about the "next generation" (as I can't speak for them...obviously), I am unhappy about these laws for MYSELF! I don't believe governments should have this type of power, no matter what the "world situation". A lot of you people would have fitted well into facist Germany as the rights of the people were progressively nulified and the state took over.

Oh, and btw, we are NOT in a "war" here. The "war on terror" was declared by the US President based on lies and misinformation, and was directed at a target of convenience rather than any real terrorist cell or organisation. Get your heads out of the government propaganda and start thinking for yourselves.

Two corny old cliches,or are they?
To be fore warned is to be fore armed.
Remember the boy who cried,"Wolf"
I'm favouring the corn.

Just as the dust was settling on the hysteria surrounding terrorism and Islamism this Guy guy goes and pours fuel on the fire.

The first to ignite in incandescent rage was Boaz David.

The DB of late is not the DB of old - he has cussed lately he has also posted with out religious references - a departure from his modus operandi - nevertheless he remains incensed and pre occupied by our terorrist foe.

I dont see it - if these lads are pre-occupied with fertilser it suggests they cant get hold of the good stuff - their masters failed to get the "plastique" through the post.

This integrated and sophisticated network of jihadist powder monkeys seem unable to blow much up. Most of them seem to get caught before than can do that - by virtue of the new laws? - unlikely; we'll never know as we will be spared the truth.

A good number of people have died at the hands of the terrorists - and more will die - but it is a small problem and we have responded in a way not commensurate to the threat - like too damn much.

Death is not a good thing - but if we look at the USA - and we all like to do that - over 500,000 Americans souls have been lost to AIDS - with 39,00 new cases reported last year or so - USA spend on this dillemma in the knowledge the epidemic will grow has been announced to grow to 2 BILLION!! And lets not get started on Africa.

Since 2001 when a few thousand persihed the USA has added (annually) 30 BILLION to its homeland defence spend - genuine over kill for a relatively small kill.

The bad guys continue to rain terror intermittantly onto our unsuspecting heads for less than 100K per event - see the Age 27/08/2004 - yet we so over value our lives (well some of them any way) we spend gozillions protecting ourselves from bugger all - Doesnt really make sense to me - never really has

Interesting debate. Without going too much into the semantics of the issue, I think it is important to note that the main question here is: what will these laws do to prevent terrorism in Australi? The answer is, of course, very little. What will they cost? Well, if you value a persons liberty, right to a fair trial, presumption of innocence etc etc etc then a great deal.

I think I'll stick with the old Jean Jaqueas Rousseau, who famously said "I prefer liberty with danger than peace with slavery". After all, these are the fundamental rights democracy was built on we are talking about