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News :: Civil Liberties & Human Rights |
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Community seeks more power to interrogate ASIO suspects |
Current rating: 0 |
by Propaganda Monster
Email: gkable (nospam) hotmail.com (unverified!) |
08 Dec 2004
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Greens Senator Bob Brown does not think increased police powers are necessary. "We have enormous powers for surveillance, apprehension or punishment of people who are engaged in or intending to engage in or thinking about being engaged in terrorist acts in this country," he said. |
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Australian Community leader Mr Lothar from the 2nd Renaissance is calling for more powers for reverse surveillance of the Federal Police.
Mr Lothar is also calling for expanded community powers to combat the HoWARd Governments fascism.
He says, "Dictionaries tell us that fascism involves, "Extreme right-wing, nationalist and authoritarian systems of government and social organisation." Almost everyone recognises the past regimes of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini as totalitarian. However, few citizens of the US, Britain, or Australia, consider that their governments have yet reached such extremes." He said
"The mainstream media, and the professional propagandists that now influence and shape every event that is reported by such channels, make it difficult for the ordinary citizen to reason clearly, without being led along carefully contrived lines of argument. Many lines of reasoning given for increased surveillance, and for continual intrusions on individual privacy, end in the exhortation, "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about." For example, one sequence goes like this:
* Criminals do harm to society,
* Criminals use cell phones to talk to each other,
* All cell phones need unique identifying codes, so that law enforcement officers can track criminals by their phones,
* So, your phone has a unique identification code embedded in its SIM card,
* The police (and anyone else) can track your every movement while you have your phone switched on,
* But don't be concerned, "If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to worry about."
This all seems reasonable to many citizens, who genuinely feel that they have nothing to hide. They consider that the surveillance is not directed at them, but only at the "bad guys" in society. However, that's not true. Anyone who thinks it through soon realises that such surveillance is a significant intrusion on citizen's privacy."
Today's line from the war criminal and his cronies
Mick Keelty: (AFP): "Police need greater powers to force terror suspects to say who they work with and what they know about planned attacks."
"If society really expects law enforcement to prevent and disrupt terrorist activity, then we need to look at other models that are working or that are under development in other parts of the world," he said.
"The AFP's overseas counterparts have a greater ability to force suspects to provide information about planned attacks."
"These include questions such as the person's identity and movements, what the person knows about a recent explosion or another recent incident endangering life and what they know about a person killed or injured in a recent explosion or incident," he said.
Mr Lothar " But don't let officials and propagandists think for you. Think for yourself. Think for your family, think for their security, think for their future, think for their freedom."
Talk Straight About Surveillance
The prevailing debates about surveillance and individual privacy are unidirectional, they all lead towards citizens and away from governments. Nobody ever suggests surveillance of police by citizen groups. Nobody ever argues that, "Since the AFP works for the people, it can have nothing to hide from them. Therefore, let us see the files. Give us the computer passwords. Let us into the AFP offices, we own them anyway. Don't we?" If Australia was a real democracy, none of these requests would seem strange. But, the fact is that Australia is only a pretend democracy, as are its allies; the US and Great Britain. So, requests of this nature can be expected to be described by authorities of these elected governments as, "outrageous", "impractical", "dangerous", and of course, "not in the national interest."
It is up to ordinary people to raise the level of debate about the undemocratic surveillance practices of the many faceless and unaccountable agents who make daily intrusions on individual privacy, and about the apologists and propagandists for the War on Terror who applaud every new attack on human rights and freedoms as "prudent" or "necessary". If there is no discussion of reverse surveillance in the national media, create it on the streets on a citizen to citizen basis. If nobody is talking about the outrageous assaults on privacy and human rights embodied in the new antiterrorist acts forced through US, UK and Australian legislatures, start talking about it to your neighbours and friends. If you are apprehended for behaving in a suspicious manner, make sure that the subject of your "disloyal" dialogue comes out in court. There is nothing inherently wrong with arguing for an overview process covering the files of covert agencies, or other government departments for that matter. Such reverse surveillance could be performed by randomly selected citizens audit teams. That idea won't be popular with the Feds, but discussion of the proposal can't easily be prevented in a society that is declared to be democratic. If such discussions are to be outlawed, secretive states can no longer pretend to be democratic, and they must show their true colours to their citizens, and the world."
HoWARd's Cronies
Federal Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says he will look into whether the AFP needs greater powers to fight terrorism?
The Government gave the AFP increased powers earlier this year, but Mr Ruddock says he will consider any request made.
"I have asked my officials to look at what the Commissioner has had to say," he said.
"If I get advice from somebody like the Commissioner of Police that these matters need to be looked at, I'll look at them."
Reality
Greens Senator Bob Brown does not think increased police powers are necessary.
"We have enormous powers for surveillance, apprehension or punishment of people who are engaged in or intending to engage in or thinking about being engaged in terrorist acts in this country," he said.
"The challenge to Mr Keelty is to use those powers properly before claiming he needs even more."
Mr Keelty was speaking to a conference of criminologists in Melbourne last night.
Lothar:
Argue For Reverse Surveillance - It IS Democratic!
Code breaking, and subsequent surveillance of military communications transmitted by the German and Japanese forces, played a major part in the victory of the British and US forces in World War II. As a consequence, the old allies continue to maintain major systems of surveillance, under the UKUSA agreement. To this day, the US National Security Agency (NSA) is the largest employer of mathematicians and cryptographers on the planet. But their surveillance now intrudes on the private lives, commercial confidences, and intellectual property rights of all citizens. Not only those people living within the territories of countries that are signatories to UKUSA are affected. The secret SIGINT community spies on all or humanity, on a 24/7 basis. It is possible to argue that this constant, all pervading surveillance is in the "national interest" of the British or US governments and their "owners", (but not the interests of ordinary citizens). However, nobody can soundly argue that such spying is in the wider interests of humanity. When the surveillance systems of UKUSA are used to steal knowledge, dominate trade, create artificial scarcity, and maintain poverty and economic control, they serve to refute the notion that the governments that deploy them are either free or democratic.
Reverse surveillance, on the other hand, is inherently democratic. The whole basis of democracy is that elected representatives act for their constituents, and that they run accountable and transparent administrations. There is nothing in the democratic contract that permits covert surveillance of citizens by government agencies, nor is there any understanding that it is acceptable for "our" governments to bug "their" technological developments and steal or suppress what they choose, to keep scarcity and poverty going in the world.
All such surveillance activities are out of step with democracy, and it is entirely legitimate for citizens of any nominally democratic state to insist of their right of inspection and elimination of surveillance systems. All agencies of government, both overt and covert, come under this remit of citizens in a free society.
And I guess that includes Governments who want more, more, more and even more powers to screw citizens over for political purposes.
Related:
Eureka Stockade!
On October 16, 1975, five journalists filming the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, for Australian TV channels, were killed at a place called Balibo. This name seems set to become one of the rallying cries of 2nd Renaissance secession movements in Australia. The facts surrounding the Balibo killings are so damning of the central governments of Australia and Indonesia that the event will rank in Australian consciousness with the Eureka Stockade uprising of 1854.
More: http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/archive1/LWFES.pdf
Australian Greens warn of 'politicised' terror trials
AUSTRALIA/CUBA?: The Australian Greens say they are concerned that new anti-terrorism laws being debated in the Senate allow for the "political black-banning" of defence lawyers at terrorism trials.
Greens leader Bb Brown says the bill gives bureaucrats in the Attorney-General's department the right to decide which lawyers are suitable to appear in some courts, by conducting background checks to ensure they do not pose a risk to national security? The legislation is expected to be passed with Labor's support?
Senator Brown says aspects of the bill allow for the "extraordinary politicisation" of Australian courts, and should be stopped. "Release the list of prohibited lawyers - the black-banned lawyers," he said.
"At least give the numbers of lawyers who have been put onto that list and the criteria for black-banning lawyers from Australian courts which is used by the Government to politically determine who is or who isn't suitable to come before Australian courts," he said.
More: http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/archive1/AGWPTT.pdf
Melbourne man charged over ASIO links
ASIO a know Australian terrorist organization is verballing the community again...about allegations that a man, while living overseas, received funds from Al Qaeda and had close association with the members of the terrorist group.
More: http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/archive04/2004a96.html
Lawyer claims Al Qaeda suspect's evidence tainted!
Joseph Jack Thomas appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with receiving terrorism funds?
Lawyers for a Victorian man charged with terrorism offences claim evidence to be used against him has been tainted.
Joseph "Jack" Thomas, 31, appeared in court yesterday on three charges including receiving money from and providing support to the Al Qaeda terror network, while living in Pakistan in 2002 and 2003.
More: http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/archive04/2004a95.html
DING DONG! THE WITCH IS DEAD
A court has been told Joseph Terrance is a sleeper? ZZZZZZZ!
Melbourne Australia: A court has been told that Osama bin Laden asked a Melbourne man to become a "sleeper" in Australia before undertaking activities for the Al Qaeda network?
Munchkins: "Ding Dong! The Witch is dead. Which old Witch? The Wicked Witch! Ding Dong! The Wicked Witch is dead."
More: http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/archive04/2004a94.html
The unlikely CRIMINAL
Where cops once stuck to their strengths and creeds, they were now more likely to form alliances of convenience across national borders. Their chameleon ways extended to the means used to commit and conceal their crimes. In short, they were proving far better at adapting to propaganda lying and the chance it offered to cover prime minister Howard the "rodent types" tracks. Innocent, not just those in Australia ran the risk of being nailed to the wall by the corrupt cops that were chasing scapegoats for HoWARd and the US alliance.
More: http://www.melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2004/10/81715.php
SMS was Keelty's first choice: Alleged bomber
Keelty: "It was just days before Australia's embassy was attacked on September 9"?
But you couldn't believe SMS could you? If your life depended on it? What about inviting him to you birthday party? Would you believe answering his own SMS text message? Could you trust him with that?
More: http://www.adelaide.indymedia.org.au/newswire/display/7333/index.php |
See also:
http://www.geocities.com/nswac14/feature
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