[LINK] New secret search powers

[Craig Sanders]

On Tue, Jul 31, 2007 at 07:04:35PM +0200, Kim Holburn wrote:
> http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-secret-search-powers/2007/07/31/1185647903263.html?s_cid=rss_news
>
>> New secret search powers
>>
>> Tom Allard
[...]
>>
>> Moreover, the warrant can be issued for any offence that carries a prison 
>> term of 10 years or more, despite a strong recommendation from a 
>> bipartisan Senate committee earlier this year that it only be used for 
>> investigations into terrorism, organised crime and "offences involving 
>> death or serious injury with a maximum penalty of life imprisonment".

now, does anyone still think that those of us who said that 911 and the
so-called "War On Terror" were being used by Western, allegedly-democratic
governments as an excuse to trample the rights & freedoms that *define*
western liberal democracies and bring in a big-brother police surveillance
state were being "overly paranoid"?

aren't these sorts of powers EXACTLY what all the 1950s-1980s
anti-soviet, anti-eastern-bloc propaganda made a big point of scaring
us about (and rightly so, that kind of ubiquitous surveillance has a
chilling effect on freedom and a poisonous effect on society)?

>> They are scheduled to be introduced to the Senate on Tuesday when 
>> Parliament resumes.

the interesting question, to be answered in the Senate soon is whether
Rudd's me-too-ism is a cunning anti-wedge tactic or if he's a real
Howard-clone.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>