Dear Senators

Honorable Senators,

TODAY you will be asked to ratify the ‘anti-terror’ laws proposed by the federal government. It is vital to understand that it won’t be Parliament that actions these laws, it will be police and security groups who have been shown many times in the past to be riddled with corruption and massively error prone. It is the real world effects of these laws that must be understood, and it is the real world effects that smart Australians fear.

If these laws are to be passed there are several critical safety factors that you should demand:

1) How will the relatives of missing persons be able to check that their loved ones are not merely detained, as opposed to dead, kidnapped or otherwise victims of severe circumstance. Also what priority can we expect our police to give to a missing persons case if they could have been detained and kept incommunicado? Without adequate protection, you may be placing the lives and health of innocent Australians into jeopardy for spurious reasons.

2) Australians will be totally exposed to risk by anyone impersonating an ASIO, police or other operative. Anyone will be able to insist that people accompany them without the public being able to check if the detention is valid. And if people do believe they are being taken by hostile individuals so representing themselves as ASIO operatives or similar, and they run, these laws allow police to shoot to kill. These ambiguities are unnecessary and should be addressed, not least because they are such a good cover for terrorists.

3) How will anyone know who IS authorised to ‘detain’ them so that they can feel safe and secure that their detention is official?

4) What controls are in place to prevent corrupt police and officials from using these powers to personal advantage without ever being able to be held accountable?

5) Under what conditions must detainees be kept? Can they be starved? Deprived of light? Water? Sleep? What guarantees are in place to assure that Australian taxpayers are not abused by their own governments?

Our lives, freedom and our democracy are in your hands.

Sincerely,

Mike Bolan
Value for Taxes

Dear Michael Ferguson

Hi Michael,

I am concerned about certain key practical impacts of your new ‘anti-terror’ laws.

1) How is a citizen to know whether or not a ‘detention’ is legitimate, that is how can anyone know that they are not being kidnapped by enemies, even terrorists?

The reported level of secrecy makes impersonating an ASIO or other operative a very attractive way of getting a citizen under control quickly and quietly. This is particularly true since you have authorised police to shoot-to-kill under your laws. The detainee silence provisions also mean that criminals can keep people incommunicado with impunity. (N.B. There’s a story in today’s Age about a women fleeced of $250,000 by an ASIO imposter)

2) Given the corruption in Australia’s police forces, coupled with the number of errors that are made by government departments, e.g. the illegal detention of Cornelia Rau and the deportation of Alvarez, what protections do the citizens have against error or detention caused by corrupt or incompetent individuals? How will you be able to find out about such abuses?

3) If a citizen is detained, what rights do they have while in detention? Are they entitled to food, water, toilet facilities etc? Are they entitled to a comforable bed? What rights to detainees have, and if none, can they be tortured and otherwise mistreated by authorities? Are you going to charge them for their costs during detention?

4) In the future, under your laws, in the case of missing persons, how are the police to know whether or not a person declared missing has been detained? And what priority can we expect police to give to reports of missing persons given your new laws?

5) Much of the actual implementation of these laws will be left to the States. If departments think that they’ll attract bigger budgets by reporting ‘terrorist’ activities, surely they are more likely to want to ‘find’ terrorist suspects to justify their budgets? Indeed isn’t there a substantial risk that security agencies will percieve that you are rewarding them for frightening us by giving them more money and power?

And if the States interfere with people’s rights in an unjustified way, won’t the Liberal party be the scapegoat? It doesn’t make sense to put this kind of power into the hands of State governments surely?

I realise that is a lot of questions, but who else can we trust but our local member to make sure that practical matters are taken up and that citizens are advised of their rights and responsibilities under your new laws?

Yours sincerely,
Mike Bolan