Australia/'Appalling' anti-terrorism laws draw criticism

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Civil libertarians and lawyers say the anti-terrorism laws agreed upon by the Commonwealth and the states today are appalling. Under the laws, which Prime Minister John Howard describes as "unusual", state and territory police will be given extra tracking powers and will be able to detain terrorism suspects for up to two weeks without charge. The laws will also make provisions for a review after five years and a sunset clause at 10 years.

Terry O'Gorman, of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, says the agreement is an appalling state of affairs. "I think it just shows what a sorry state civil liberties have reached in this country that someone will now be able to be held for 14 days without charge on the basis that the premiers have been secretly briefed by ASIO," he said. Patrick Emerton, who is an assistant law lecturer at Monash University, says the definition of terrorism under Australia law is too broad.

"If someone sent money to Aceh to help with tsunami relief and that money ended up in the hands of the rebels in Aceh who control significant parts of Aceh, the person who sent the money could be a terrorist," Mr Emerton said. "If someone went there and taught those rebels how to rebuild houses that person would be training with terrorists and so are criminals under Australian law."

Australian Lawyers Alliance president Richard Faulks says the laws are totalitarian and un-Australian. "Depending on what the final version is, I think it is a retrograde step, and one that we didn't need," Mr Faulks said. "Australians value their freedom and even though everyone is concerned about terrorism and rightly so, there are steps that can be taken that are still consistent with proper safeguards which are part of our everyday life."


http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1469669.htm

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1. Howard marches lock step with junior

[interupt]

2. Howard is spooked....

Polls have been falling and public anger about workplace reforms and Telstra so have to trot out those terror reform laws.

[Kailassa]

3. It's worse than it looks.

They can walk into your house in the middle of the night, take away your wife just on "suspicion", and if you tell anyone in the next 2 years that it happened, you can be jailed.

This is the same government that earlier this year picked up primary school children from their schools in a manner frightening enough to traumatise the other students, and carted them off to internment camps for illegal aliens.

Australia used to be 10 years behind the American trends, but I get the impression that Howard the Coward is using Australia as a guinea-pig for his hero.

I know the gerbils-and-gays myth has been disproved, but I can just see Howard as a happily squeaking gerbil delighted to be scurrying up *'s backside.