George Williams' article raises many telling points which the Rudd Government must now address.

The nub of the matter is that

(a) the bulk of the so-called 'terror' laws were rushed through Parliament without proper opportunity for rational and calm scrutiny; and

(b) much of the legislation was motivated by cynical political opportunism.

Williams says" "Fear, grief and the scent of political victory are the worst motivators in driving law-making". I'd agree except to say that grief was not a significant part of the equation in the Howard era.

George Williams reminds us of one important fact: "what they (terrorists) cannot achieve by military might, they seek to achieve by stimulating fear."
One aim of terrorists is to gain as much publicity as they can for their political goals.
Australia and other western countries are playing right into their hands by arousing resentment, thus widespread debate, of draconian legislation.

Professor Williams has not introduced enough facts about where the laws have gone wrong to prove his case. As in most of his previous articles legal theory and political philosophy could benefit from "where have things gone wrong?"

There has been misapplication of some of the laws (like any laws) in some public cases, but that does not seem to be sufficient to abolish some or all of the post 9/11 anti-terror laws.

Most laws limit freedom in some way. Anti-terror laws may well be created in a highly politicised environment (usually after a bombing overseas) but that does not mean that absolute appeals to freedom are a useful line of argument to abolish the laws.

Calculations of terrorist threats may be a more productive line or measure of usefulness. However the sources and methodology that go into calculating threats are usually confidential and usually not shared with academics for publication. Maybe ASIO or the AFP should give the author a quiet briefing?

What he seems to forget is the balance between actual use of laws and availability. Just because a law is there it doesn't mean that it must be used often or in a way to threaten absolute freedom. If anti-terror laws are very rarely used in normal times but available for use in a crisis (ie. to gather information before a raid on suspects with a bomb-making formula and necessary chemicals) this, I think, is the right balance.

Then again there is the possibility that if some laws aren't required and were based on unrealised worst case scenarios the massive counter-terror budget increases enjoyed by ASIO and AFP aren't required. Who knows?

Professor Williams will recall that the ALP supported most of the anti terror laws. Labor usually voted in favour of them and has carried on Howard's security policies. Lack of information or the difficulty of estimating a terrorist threat to Australia may explain why Labor is not changing much, hence playing it safe.

Pete
http://spyingbadthings.blogspot.com/

Pete plantagenet

To expect Williams in one short article to produce all the facts about where the laws have gone wrong to prove his case is to misunderstand his case. The Haneef case was cited as sufficient demonstration that the laws were misconceived and misapplied. Moreover, Williams argued claimed that a royal commission was needed to expose the greater weaknesses.

Your appeal to generalisations - "Most laws limit freedom in some way" - is unconvincing. This is not about 'most laws' but a specific set of laws.

Your suggestion that "ASIO or the AFP should give the author a quiet briefing" is absurd and impractical. If Williams is briefed then so should you and me and countless other people with an interest.

Your next ploy: "Just because a law is there it doesn't mean that it must be used often or in a way to threaten absolute freedom" is equally nonsense. Bad laws ARE there when they could, and should, be made good laws. You can't justify bad laws by asserting that they might not be used very often. Just used once is bad enough.

The fact that the ALP supported these bad laws doesn't convert them into good laws. Try voting against a law when you've got 24 hours to read the documentation and the media is ready to crucify you for being soft on terrorism.

Bad laws are bad laws no matter how many people support them.

George Williams demonstrates conclusively that it’s not the vocation of constitutional lawyers to either “understand thy enemy” or protect the public from its more than probable lethal attacks. He woefully laments that the anti-terror laws enacted by the previous government and continue to be implemented by the present one without any revision, “imprison people for words rather than actions”. This quote of his reveals clearly that he is oblivious of the historical fact that it’s more often than not that it’s the word that inspires and leads to action. And this happens to be truer in the case of terrorists who are inspired by the word of their fundamentalist imams and perpetrate their atrocious actions.

Further he seems to be unaware that in all critical situations and especially in war times, individual and collective liberties are ineluctably constrained. A simple example would be that in a collision of several cars in a highway the motorists’ ‘liberty’ to use this highway is temporarily abrogated. Likewise the anti-terror laws are a temporary repeal of few liberties until this great threat hovering over and ‘sleeping’ under the cities of Western civilization is extinguished.

And plantagenet's argument above is telling, except for Spikey.

http://avant-gardestrategies.typepad.com

Something is badly missing - and it is not a law, or a set of laws:
What is missing is a spoonful of common sense.

When a terrorist threat is real, and people are about to be killed as a result, who needs laws to avert the danger? shouldn't and wouldn't ASIO and the AFP do whatever is necessary to save lives anyway, within the law or without it?

On the other hand, if the threat is unreal, then who needs such laws anyway?

The laws in question were therefore in the best case made by square beaurocratic figures that have no common sense (nor probably a sense of humour) that care about nothing but filling up a given number of pages to justify their wages, or in the worst case, by corrupt politicians that for whatever reason targeted those laws, supposedly against terrorists, in fact against some other group(s).