calls for submissions
A Senate inquiry into the proposed anti-terrorism laws will start advertising today for submissions.
Public hearings are likely to start in nine days and are expected to be held in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra.
After lobbying from the Australian Democrats, the Government has agreed to a three-week inquiry.
Democrats leader Lyn Allison is expecting a strong response from the community.
"I think it's going to generate a lot of interest, I think there will be a lot of submissions," Senator Allison said.
But Senator Allison doubts if her party will support the legislation.
"The Democrats have had a good look at the provisions in this bill and we are very, very concerned," she said.
"I doubt we will support any part of it, but we will keep an open mind and it is an opportunity for us to put forward amendments which could improve the Bill."
The state pre-meditators agreed to the counter-terrorism package after a lengthy round of negotiations between themselves and the dictator HoWARd.
The Prime Meanster, hoWARd the coward, wants the federal dictatorship to approve the laws before Christmas so he tried to terrify everyone playing his terrorist card.
But now decent people are being urged to send him their psychiatrist bills for the next twelve months. He should be glad to pay your psychiatrists bills for inciting fear in the community.
Sedition concerns
Liberal Member for Wentworth Malcolm Turnbull said he does not believe the sedition provisions in the proposed anti-terrorism laws are ideally drafted.
"I think they are an attempt and a very good effort but, nonetheless, I don't think the outcome is as effective or as clear as it should be," he said.
"The problem is, the sedition laws ... are very old laws going right back centuries.
"There's been an effort to modernise them, but I still think the language is very cumbersome and hard to follow."
He says the laws have to meet the circumstances of the times.
"I would like to see these offences we're concerned about - people promoting violence, people urging others to assist our enemies - those sort of provisions being expressed very clearly in contemporary language," he said.
"The primary duty of every state, every government and every society is to protect the security of its citizens.
"In doing so, it should endeavour to ensure the laws it enacts impinges on as little as possible on the liberties of the communities."
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Christ would have little chance against the new sedition laws, writes David Marr
THE stench that hangs around sedition cases goes way, way back to the greatest trial in our history, the one that has loomed over our world for a couple of millennia. Christ was tried for sedition.
"Anyone who is relaxed and comfortable about the proposed anti-terrorism legislation might care to read Chapter 23 of Luke's Gospel," Canberra's auxiliary Catholic bishop, Pat Power, said this week.
"Jesus is dragged before Pilate accused of sedition. The trumped-up charges are laid but Pilate returns a 'not guilty' verdict. The accusers become more insistent, so the cowardly Pilate orders a review, sending Jesus the Galilean off to be examined by Herod. The new trial simply shows up the shallowness of Herod's character.
"The upshot is Jesus's eventual crucifixion and two old enemies, Pilate and Herod, becoming good friends. It is amazing how anti-terrorism measures bring together unlikely allies!"
Christ's trial had in spades elements that would emerge time and again through the squalid history of sedition: dodgy evidence, lies, duplicity, and a judge who goes with the mob knowing in his heart he's condemning an innocent - but troublesome - man.
The charge was clear. Dr Paul Barnett, the former Anglican bishop of North Sydney and ancient history lecturer at Macquarie University, says: "The gospels all agree, Christ was crucified as King of the Jews. So sedition and treason were the presenting cause for the Romans to crucify Jesus of Nazareth."
Note: the presenting cause. What makes Christ's the prototype of so many trials that followed was the use of sedition as a device for persecution. Christ was arrested and tried by the Sanhedrin on the night of April 6, AD30 (approx) for blasphemy. They wanted him dead, but as they explained to Pilate the next morning: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death."
That's when they accused Christ of sedition, saying: "We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king."
The accusation played on two Roman fears. The first was the fear of another tax revolt like one that erupted a few years after Christ's birth when Judea first became a Roman province. The second was a fear that this man was trying to displace the local king. As Barnett explains: "It was Roman policy to set up client kings in the provinces they conquered. But the Romans decided who that would be and they took a very dim view of any local individual who made that claim for himself."
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Same old, same old in Britain too
By Paul Joseph Watson posted 5 November 05
The Australian government is under intense pressure to water down proposed draconian laws that include provisions whereby peaceful anti-war protesters could be jailed for 7 years under the language that they support the opposition of the Australian military.
The new legislation also paves the way for oversees video evidence to be used in federal courts, which is basically tantamount to a welcoming of evidence obtained under torture.
British MI5 openly embraced torture last week when they stated they will use evidence obtained by torture and treat it as reliable.
Australian Prime Minister Howard is facing an uphill battle trying to justify these draconian laws, he's getting opposition from doctors organizations, human rights organizations, artists, musicians, TV stars.
So what do we see in the news today?
Australia Receives Threat of Terror Attack
Australian authorities have received specific intelligence that terrorists are planning an attack on the country, Prime Minister John Howard said Wednesday, calling on lawmakers to increase the powers of Australia's intelligence agencies.
So just coincidentally as he's facing vociferous opposition to these terror laws, our useful Al-Qaeda friends pop up and help the Prime Minister push through his political agenda.
He's playing the terror card.
No details of the threat were given, just as the New York subway threat turned out to be a hoax for Mayor Bloomberg to use it as one-upsmanship in his election and to gain approval points.
On the other side of the world in Britain we see exactly the same process.
Labour is trying to push through more police state laws, including spreading the shoot to kill policy to domestic affairs. So if a husband and wife are having an argument the police can just turn up and gun someone down.
Also, 90 day detentions without trial are being included on the basis that computer hard drives are larger than they were five years ago so it takes more time to sift through the evidence. So in ten years when we all have 2,000 gig hard drives, will that mean indefinite detention for 900 days, three years?
This would rival but still not top the Bush administration's creation of secret gulags around the world, at which Jose Padilla, an American citizens has now been interned without trial for three and a half years.
These laws are on the table and what does Ian Blair the police chief come out and announce? We've prevented terrorist attacks and there are more attempted attacks on their way.
This is blatant psychological intimidation He's saying, 'look we've been nice to you so far, we've kept the wolf from the door, but if you don't let us have our way we're going to sick him on you.'
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, recently warned that governments would "play fast and loose" with terror alerts in order to advance their domestic and foreign political agendas.
It's a cliched tactic. They have cried wolf so many times that there in no credibility behind these threats and the public are becoming numb to them.
Let us hope that a provocation or staged terror attack is not used to jolt the masses from their ignorance and again rally them behind supporting their own enslavement.
Related:
By Cop Watcher posted 4 November 05
Police distribute corpse photos on work time.
The Novemeber 3 ABC Newsonline reports that no police officers will be sacked, as requested by families members, for the distribution of a photo of two corpses.
The Western Australian Police Service says that 600 police officers received an email of a photo of the two corpses of men who died in Western Australia's north-west in April.
Of the 6oo coppers who received the photo, presumably on worktime paid for by the taxpayer, 183 officers forwarded the email, including 50 outside the police force.
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