Anti-terror laws are tyrannical: Fraser

[Lori Price CLG]

Anti-terror laws are tyrannical: Fraser

Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser has slammed Australia's anti-terrorism laws, saying they are laws associated with tyrannies.

In a speech to the Jewish Board of Deputies in Sydney, Mr Fraser said Australia was the only democratic nation with this kind of law.

The legislation, passed in 2002, gives the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation the power to detain suspects.

Mr Fraser said that gave ASIO the power to make people disappear .

<snip>

Lori Price

[bpilgrim]

1. he forgot the USA (Patriot Act)!

"Mr Fraser said Australia was the only democratic nation with this kind of law."


U.S. citizen Jose Padilla: No Charges and No Trial, Just Jail

Justice Delayed

Jose Padillas Yale-based lawyer says his client just wants to be indicted.

by Joel Whitney - August 11, 2005

...

Using the neocon neologism "enemy combatant," the government claims it can deny Padilla a trial--whether he was picked up on a literal battlefield in Afghanistan or on a figurative battlefield, yet to see fighting. A test case for a new kind of preemption--preemptive conviction--Padilla has been held in solitary confinement for three years, only allowed to see his lawyers two years into his confinement. Even then it was treated not as his inalienable right but as a "discretionary measure" (read: government gift).

...

To get a sense of the gravity of the case, and of the precedent it could set as it works its way to the Supreme Court, I called Frieman, one of Padilla's lawyers and a senior fellow at Yale Law School.

Frieman called Padilla's case a "landmark," underscoring that "no president has ever been granted the power to detain indefinitely an American citizen seized in a civilian setting on American soil."

...

"Not long after the drafting of the Constitution," he says, "Britain sacked Washington and burned the White House to the ground. It was in this very context of danger... that they limited the power of government."

History lessons aside, certainly some rights are negotiable during emergencies? "Some rights can be waived," Frieman says. "But a waiver has to be knowing and voluntary. There are no constitutional rights that the government can waive for you."

more...
http://newhavenadvocate.com/gbase/News/content?oid=oid:122052

peace

[Lori Price CLG]

2. Good point, bpilgrim! n/t

[Oreegone]

3. No he is right

He said "the only democratic nation"

[bpilgrim]

4. no, we are still know as a "democratic nation"

on teeVee anyways...

peace

[oscarmitre]

5. I never thought

I would ever agree with Malcolm Fraser. I do. Talk about the world turned upside down. This is the bloke who engineered the dismissal of Gough Whitlam's Labor government in 1975. Still, times and people change. I can only agree with him.

[bpilgrim]

6. "world turned upside down"

http://media.globalfreepress.com

you said it!

peace