You Can Be Seditious As Hell, But You Can't Call For Violence

Is there such a thing as a Psychological Terror Attack? Not yet, but maybe next year :

The new counter-terrorism laws - to be drafted in the first half of next year - will cover attacks that cause psychological as well as physical harm and will remove the term "sedition" to focus on crimes that urge violence.

Does this mean we have to be on the lookout now for non-BOOM! related terror events? Terror attacks where only emotions are terrorised and damaged, with no harm at all to the physical body? Will 2009 be the year politicians and media start talking of "emotional terrorism" and 'psychological terrorists"? And if so, what the hell would that exactly mean?

I can think of half a dozen anti-smoking and anti-boozing ads that leave me feeling psychologically terrorised.

For now, the Rudd government are talking big about sweeping away still more of the Howard era's more disturbing, supposed, anti-terror laws, but right now we don't know what the current government means when they say they are going to "protect free speech" :

The Howard government's sedition laws - which the commission said failed to distinguish between dissent and genuine incitement to violence - had come under heavy attack for restricting free speech and academic freedoms.

The Government also agreed to broaden the powers of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security to allow inquiries that extend across all national security agencies. A separate official, to be known as the National Security Legislation Monitor, will regularly review the nation's counter-terrorism laws.

The stream of lies, distortions and calls for violence from the vast majority of Australian media, that is, nearly all of the Rupert Murdoch media, in the build-up to the War On Iraq would certainly have to qualify as a mass psychological terror event.

BTW, Merry Christmas to all the readers here. I'll do some highlights of 2008 over the next week, and if I can think of an ending that doesn't make me shiver and cringe, I'll have a new piece of fiction, A Christmas Story, up here in a few hours. It's a few thousand words long, so feel free to cut and paste it into a blank Word Doc for easier printing if you still hate reading off the screen.

Police Association Warns Against Fast Introduction Of Harsher Ant-Terror Laws

Many in the Australian media are still picking their jaws back up off the ground following a speech by Mick Keelty, the commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, which many in the media claimed was a barely disguised call for a ban to be imposed that would block news media from reporting on terrorism cases.

Mick Keelty :

Call me old fashioned, but I don't believe anyone accused of, or charged with, a crime can receive a fair trial if the matter is tested in the court of public opinion before being appropriately tested in a court of law.

It will always be a challenge to get the equilibrium just right, but let's not forget that it is these freedoms that we want to enjoy and protect for the whole community.

(At times when) I find myself not in complete agreement with the conclusions reached by some members of the press, I try to remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said: "Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted."

Now the chief executive of the Australian Federal Police Association has issued a warning of his own - that Australian citizens, police and politicians enough time to get their heads around the harsh changes to freedom and liberty in Australia imposed by the former Howard government before new, and more extreme anti-terror laws are introduced :

Echoing the fears of civil libertarians across Australia, AFPA chief executive officer Jim Torr warned against the rapid adoption of new counter-terrorist powers.

"We are of the view that the counter-terrorism legislation is so wide ranging as it stands, and so new to policing and concepts of policing, that any further changes to it should proceed with caution."

Mr Torr warned that the counter-terrorism legislation already introduced in Australia needed digesting before anything new was added.

"It involves concepts that are alien to decades and decades of policing, that is, taking a person into custody without immediately taking them before a magistrate or a bail court or a judge," he said.

"And that is new to policing; it's entirely new."

National Security Demands Widespread Dobbing

But Religious Leaders Unite In Their Vow To Keep Quiet About Confessions

Australian Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders have all vowed they will not betray their followers by passing information they may learn through confessions to national security authorities, unless there were direct threats that impacted on the safety and wellbeing of other people.

Radical religious views and beliefs, however, are unlikely to be viewed by the leaders of Australian faiths as worthy of supply "tip-offs" to anti-terror investigators.

How could they betray "the trust of their followers", they argue, when the protection of confidential information was their "bread and butter" :

The Jesuit Social Services associate director, Peter Norden, told The Australian he would be prepared to give police information only if the tip-off was crucial for the safety of others.

But he said he would make sure the information given did not identify the person who provided it.

"You would be entitled to take some steps to protect human life but you need to do that in such a way that it was of a general nature and wouldn't identify the person concerned."

"If you were (to betray confessors), you would have to do away with the profession for minister of religion."

The Rabbinical Council of Victoria president Meir Shlomo Kluwgant said rabbis were bound to the same confidentiality procedures as counsellors, but were able to tip-off the authorities if the information they received suggested someone's life was in danger.

"Certainly the very first thing that a rabbi would do would be to dissuade their congregant from committing a crime," he said.

Muslim clerics were revealed, last week, to have not alerted federal police when they had been asked about the rights and wrongs of joining the international jihad.

Tim Dunlop, at Blogocracy :

Maybe all this means is that they are willing to be prosecuted rather than disclose all the information they have, though Norden’s further comments—that “If you were (to betray confessors), you would have to do away with the profession for minister of religion”—seems wide of the mark. Why would that be the case? And I’m really not sure why informing authorities of a crime should even count as “betraying confessors”.

...it’s interesting that all the major religions line-up on the issue...

Maybe the leaders of Australia's major religions have got a gut feeling that the violations of human rights and civil liberties that are becoming the "bread and butter" of the 'War on Terror' are not always going to be confined to the followers of the Islamic religion.

"Patriotic" Movies That "Glorify War" Won't Face Ban Under New Anti-Terror Censorship Laws


This from the Sun Herald :

Patriotic movies or games that glorify war will be specifically excluded from tough new anti-terrorism censorship laws.

So Australia faces a new regime of media censorship that will aim to define what acts of violence and bloodshed constitute acts of terrorism, and which are patriotic and glorify war?

What's the difference between glorifying acts of war that decimate civilian populations and glorifying acts of terrorism that decimate civilian populations?

It may all come down to what is deemed to be "patriotic" by a censorship board.

So what about the peoples' movement of Fretelin in East Timor? They rose up against the Indonesian government - a government backed by Australia and armed by the United States (amongst the many nations that sold them weapons of mass destruction) - in the mid-1970s, and fought back against the depopulation of their nation. They used what would now be called terrorism to fight for their freedom.

Would an Australian made movie about this 'terrorist group', that showed how they waged their insurgency against the Indonesian government, not be deemed to be "unpatriotic" under these new guidelines? After all, Australia was a close ally of Indonesia during the very worse years of East Timor's depopulation, which may have claimed more than 200,000 lives.

Or what about the insurgency waged by the Kooris in New South Wales against the English occupation of their native lands in the late 1700s and early 1800s?

There is no doubt that the Aboriginal warriors terrorised the civilian population of Sydney and Parramatta back then, as the English terrorised and decimated the Aboriginal tribes.

In a movie about the Aboriginal uprising against the English invaders, which side would be deemed "patriotic"?


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