A sim card and a one way ticket
You know what? I am willing to be convinced about the need for different rules to apply to suspected terrorists. I think that terrorism is a scary thing that we don’t really understand and which can leave us vulnerable because we frame our society in such a way that we think our values will be broadly similar (eg value of life, self-preservation etc).
I have found myself unable to roundly condemn on principle the idea that special terrorist laws are needed. For the record, on the basis of what I have seen, I suspect that David Hicks is a moron at best and a traitor at worst. I suspect that many of the people that were held in Guantanamo Bay are very nasty people who we should be secretly pleased are under surveillance and/or out of circulation.
In saying the above I have probably pissed off a bunch of people with whom I am normally politically aligned. And there are probably another bunch who say “Hey, we never said that it wasn’t a problem, but…” You see, I suspect that there are a bunch of people who fall in the latte left camp that I strongly disagree with and believe are stupid and naive. But we may never know.
Because the Howard government seems monumentally intent on failing to establish or demonstrate that the terrorist laws are being applied to people and in such a way which will actually address any of the valid concerns that many Australians might have (even if we disagree on how to handle them). I object to the whole violation of the rule of law thing on principle, but am prepared to be open to the argument that an exception ought to be made.
I just read the first ninety-odd pages of the record of interview with alleged crazed terrorist supporter Dr Haneef and think that some of his explanations warrant being checked out, but if the questions are any guide to the sort of hard evidence they have against him, then the guy is guilty of sending money to people he knows to support his family or repay loans, allowing people who are staying with him to use his internet connection and otherwise being a little too inclined to be worried that the authorities will assume he is suspicious because he knows someone who was involved in an alleged terrorist act. Clearly an unfounded suspicion.
Seriously, the PR people for the Howard government and the AFP should be making damn sure that they have enough evidence on such a high profile case to clearly show the public that these right restrictions are warranted. And they don’t. Maybe they can’t reveal it, maybe they are still gathering it, but the truth is that they have failed to back up their rhetoric on why these things are needed.
And sooner or later won’t someone realise that the people who might mentally lob all the brown-skinned muslims into the terroist box are also the ones that are famous for being after a fair go and realise that someone who is making $5K a month and sending a big chunk of it home to his family in India might actually be reluctant to waste unused credit on a pre-paid phone SIM?
July 18th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
latte left… i stopped reading after that! What a great term - made me laugh anyway!!!
July 18th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I commend you for reading 90 pages when most of us give an opinion about anything without bothering to find out any details.
The Qld govt is not too happy with the latest advertisement to any doctors considering working there.
I’m glad I’m not a missionary in a country with a foreign policy like ours.
What is it anyway with the linking latte with the political left?
July 18th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
It’s fun alliteration… like “chardonnay socialist”… it’s also subtly disparaging because it implies such people pontificate over drinks but never do anything more substantial than this.
July 19th, 2007 at 9:43 am
Latte lefties and chardonnay socialists are to be distinguished from the boilermaker unionists… they are clearly members of the educated middle class.
Anyway, such semantics aside…. I think I am willing to surrender SOME right to privacy in a climate of terrorist threat… if a magistrate is given some grounds by which federal police may monitor my phone calls or emails I’m willing for this to happen if it has the potential to save lives. (Besides… the Feds would be pretty bored hearing phone calls from my house about picking up the kids or the bread and milk)
But… I am not willing to compromise on the right to a fair trial, to presumption of innocence until proven guilty beyond all reasonable doubt, to prolonged periods of detention without charges being laid. Our legal system embraces the idea that it is better that sometimes a guilty person walks free due to lack of evidence, than that an innocent person spends 20 years in jail for something they did not do. Of course this has always carried an element of risk to the community… but I believe it’s better than the alternative. I would not want to live in a country where you can be held in jail based on suspicion or because the government doesn’t like you… and I think I am willing to die for that kind of freedom. It’s a precious thing…
Complete safety is an illusion anyway… no matter how draconian the legislation of this country may become, a terrorist could slip through the net…
July 19th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Dan, I don’t disagree that we might need special laws or that people who are terrorists should be locked up. However if those “special laws” mean blatant breaches of human rights, then yeah, I firmly disagree with you.
Re: Haneef…I damn well hope that there’s a lot of classified information that we don’t yet know about.
July 19th, 2007 at 9:48 am
Janet - you were posting while I was - I agree that there are fundamental principles of our justice system which should not be overturned in the name of “anti-terrorism”.
The whole idea of being able to protect ourselves against terrorism is stupid anyway. The present form of terrorism is a class example of the uncertainty of risk if ever I saw one!!
July 19th, 2007 at 10:02 am
Hi Bec… I’m wondering what others (especially those legally trained minds out there) think on the privacy issue… I just have that gut feeling that if we make compromises there it will be easier to obtain enough evidence for conviction on serious charges… then there’ll be less political pressure to tamper with other elements of the legal system, such as detention or deportation based on on “suspicion” or “association”.
I think I’m willing to make that compromise… but privacy is reasonably low on my list of priorities… and I know other for whom privacy is terribly important.
Case in point… someone at my husband’s work was burgled… and claimed she almostfelt like she’d been raped because it was such a violation of privacy. We were burgled at around the same time… and my concern was not that a stranger had been in the house (big deal) but that getting everything fixed and replaced and filling out insurance forms was such a nuisance.
July 19th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Call me stupid and naive but I dont think it has been established that we need special laws for a “scary thing that we dont really understand”. I think value-of-life and self-preservation are common values in humanity, within reason. Janet has said that there are principles that she would be prepared to die for. I dont think we are really all that much different to the so-called terrorists.
The record is not good on special laws for things we dont understand - Witches, Jews, Communists etc. etc.
But then I like lattes, they seem so much more practical than cappuccinos with their frothy poorly defined layer on the top.
July 19th, 2007 at 10:30 am
“Principles I am prepared to die for”…. I mean be blown up as a victim of a terrorist attack because a suspected terrorist walked free…. not take up arms myself… lest that be misinterpreted.
July 19th, 2007 at 4:23 pm
Yes, of course. Glad you cleared that up Janet. The point was people are willing to take up arms or to die for a cause on both sides, and it is a matter of point of view whether they are noble, or a freedom fighter or a terrorist.
In the film “The Patriot” Mel Gibson would have been a terrorist to the British and a Patriot to the Americans.
July 19th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
Yes the line between terrorist and freedom fighter is a very thin one.
I actually read all 142 pages of the interview….If that is all they have on him we should all be very very scared. He is guilty of generosity!
My eldest son and I were discussing the Howard Government and Bush’s America a few weeks ago and came to the same conclusion as Paul Keating did later….The country fought against facsim and totalitarian regimes in WWII, our Govenment seems so Xenaphobic and extremly right wing that perhaps the Nazi’s did win after all.
July 20th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
From a humble nation of Convicts to a proud nation of Jailers.
Leunig in todays Age.
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:20 pm
“with the federal police case surrounding Haneef collapsing after revelations that the SIM card he left in Britain was not used in the failed suicide bomb attack in Glasgow, GOVERNMENT STRATEGISTS believe there is little point holding him in Australia.”
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2007/07/21/1184560109126.html
Should “government stategists” have anything to do with our justice system? It appears you can now in effect be deported for being a political embarassment in an election year.
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:37 pm
Although not related to Haneef… here’s another article today reflecting how expedient election politics leads to terrible decisions (eg navy staff being banned from sending emails to their families… one can only assume there was an attempt to ensure noone found out the “children overboard” fiasco was outright deception.)
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/pms-plan-threatened-security/2007/07/21/1184560109123.html
“THE Australian Navy’s war-fighting ability has been blunted by the Federal Government’s efforts to keep asylum seekers out — a policy so unpopular that some sailors have feigned illness or quit rather than enforce it…. One crew complained, during the politically charged operations in September and October 2001, that they were banned from sending personal emails to their families — a level of censorship that did not apply even in wartime.”
How did we ever let our country get like this?
August 3rd, 2007 at 10:38 am
Apparently we are faced with a new threat - terrorists who can commit their evil crimes without leaving any evidence.
To combat this unprecedented danger, we cannot rely on old fashioned techniques. We must use 21st century investigative methods.
1. Suspects must remain under suspicion until they can conclusively prove their innocence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
2. Investigations and hearings must either be conducted in complete secrecy, or in the open media. This is the only way to weed these dangerous terrorists out.
3. Truth is too high a standard and increasingly irrelevant. Seeking after Truthiness and gut-feeling is more likely to yield results.
September 1st, 2007 at 10:34 pm
I have no idea what this is about - I am just trying to be the last poster on the threads - leaving my mark for posterity’s sake.