25/9/05:ARREST AND DEPORTATION OF SCOTT PERKIN -AMERICAN ACTIVIST


fwd-25-Sep-2005

ARREST AND DEPORTATION OF SCOTT PARKIN(AMERICAN ACTIVIST)

[ADDED NOTE: I am simply buffled as to why Scott Parkin was
arrested and deported by Australian Government ? One of the
following articles suggest the Australian Govt sent back
Mr. Parkin at the request of US Govt [Cover-up for
Hallibarton etc]. The other, much simpler logic, would
be that the Aust. Government tried to intimidate local peace
activists [i.e. govt. is prepared to do unworldly things
if necessary -- message read.].

I still didn't get a satisfactory explanation though. May
be aust. government was launching a provocative action so
as to gauge reaction from public (& anti-war concerns).

Don't over-react folks. -- Regards, U Ne OO.]

------


Subject: Deporting a peace activist for terror.

Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2005 12:43:00 +0930


The Scott Parkin case: did ASIO act alone?




Guy Rundle


Guy Rundle, left-wing social commentator, humorist and Arena magazine
board member, says the decision to deport US activist Scott Parkin was a
put-up job.



The arrest and imminent deportation of US activist Scott Parkin marks a
long-awaited turning point in the crackdown on dissent in Australia,
with the powers of ASIO and other organisations being turned on green
and anti-corporate activists.

Seasoned ASIOlogists are currently having a keen argument about whether
the detention of Parkin has been ordered by the government after a
request/demand by the US, or whether it is simply a case of the spooks
reviving their role as an aggressive political player, directed against
the Left.

There are compelling reasons to think it's the former. Parkin's focus on
Halliburton is by now well known, but he's not just any old
anti-Halliburton activist - he knows more about the company than pretty
much anyone around, and he's been a key organiser of campaigns against
their AGMs and HQ in Houston (see Taking Direct Action Against
Halliburton). Halliburton is of course more than just a company - it's
the company that continues to pay Vice-President *** Cheney a
pension/retainer while he occupies public office.

Halliburton is practically an arm of the government and vice-versa, and
it is particularly sensitive at the moment. Why? Hurricane Katrina.
Kellogg Brown Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, is in the running for huge
contracts to effect the clean-up and reconstruction of New Orleans at a
time when it is under the gun for overcharging the US government more
than $1 billion for services in Iraq.

If the Bush administration has stepped in to silence Parkin, it's a
spectacular own goal for all concerned, since the whole of the
Australian public sphere has become a megaphone for Parkin's
anti-Halliburton activities. But just because the idea was stupid
doesn't mean they didn't do it - it might have been a product of sheer
megalomania, or a shot across the bows of activists to show that the
administration is going to play dirty in these post-Katrina embattled
times.

Green and anti-corporate activists have expected this sort of thing for
a long time now. Australian governments were frequent users of exclusion
and deportation orders from Federation up to the end of the McMahon
government - one of the last high-profile people to be refused entry was
the Belgian Marxist Ernest Mandel.

Anti-terror laws are so broad they can be used against anyone who
commits property damage in the course of non-violent protest -
bolt-cutting a padlock to trespass could, and most likely will, be
defined as a terrorist act (in the UK the legislation has been used
against animal liberationists in such a manner).

Alternatively it is quite possible that ASIO is off on a frolic of its
own, as it has a history of taking its eye off the main game to pursue
political dissidents. In the 1970s it spent so much time spying on
dangerous lefties like Keith Windschuttle and Paddy McGuinness (their
ASIO files are excerpted at Ian Syson's blog) that it paid no attention
to right-wing Croatian groups committing actual bombings on Australian
soil.

Parkin's arrest shows that ASIO and the AFP are as little use to the
safety of Australians as the FBI and CIA were to American citizens. In
the wake of Katrina, the government would be foolish to think that
Australians will put up with such corruption. In the meantime activists
involved in civil disobedience should make whatever arrangements are
necessary - as regards children, pets, house-plants etc - to withstand a
14 day incommunicado detention. If you think that's far-fetched, just
suppose that on 10.09.01 someone showed you pictures of Abu Ghraib - and
recalibrate your political imagination accordingly.

This morning Philip Ruddock has denied that there was any government
involvement with ASIO's detention of Parkin.



http://www.crikey.com.au/articles/2005/09/13-1216-1716.print.html



* * *



Scott Parkin
The Law Report

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt/stories/s1463699.htm

This transcript was typed from a recording of the program. The ABC
cannot guarantee its complete accuracy because of the possibility of
mishearing and occasional difficulty in identifying speakers.


Damien Carrick: Today, Scott Parkin, the American political activist who
was deported after ASIO gave him an adverse security assessment.
First to another possible connection: being a security risk and being a
political protester. Last Thursday morning American activist Scott
Parkin was put on a flight to Los Angeles after ASIO handed the federal
government an adverse security assessment in relation to the 35-year-old
founder of the Houston Global Alliance.
For some time, the alliance has been campaigning against the presence of
western troops in Iraq, and highlighting the role of Houston
conglomerate Halliburton, which has been awarded many a contract in Iraq
by the US government.

Scott Parkin's barrister is Julian Burnside, QC.

Julian Burnside: Scott Parkin is an American political activist who has
spent a long time advocating non-violent protest, and has recently been
very vocal in his criticism of the American invasion of Iraq, and in
particular the involvement of Halliburton, with its close connections
with *** Cheney and the clear knowledge that Halliburton is getting
hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues from the invasion of Iraq.

Damien Carrick: What sorts of activities has he been engaged in both
here in Australia and back in the USA?

Julian Burnside: Well in the USA he's been involved in various protests
in which he's done fairly imaginative things such as dressing up in a
pig suit and calling himself 'Hallibacon' and things of that sort. In
Australia, he was involved in the protest at the Forbes dinner held at
Circular Quay, and he was giving a few workshops for various activist
groups. For the most part, he was here on holiday. He was just chilling
out with friends at various places but he was, because of his track
record, asked to do things here and there.

Damien Carrick: Now I understand that he was removed from Australia
following an adverse security assessment; what does that mean?

Julian Burnside: What it means is that a competent authority, presumably
ASIO, assessed him as an adverse security risk. They told the Department
of Immigration and automatically the Department of Immigration cancelled
his visa. That means that he was automatically detained under the
Migration Act, and he was held in detention until he could be removed.
Under the Migration Act his detention was at his own expense, and his
removal was at his own expense, and he's received a bill for about
12-grand for being locked up in solitary and his own air fare and the
air fare of two guards.

Damien Carrick: This adverse security assessment, what does it mean?
What would be the basis of it? Does this mean that he is a security risk
in the sense that he's advocating or promoting violence or involved in
any kind of violent action?

Julian Burnside: We just don't know. We simply do not know. We don't
know what ASIO takes into account, we don't know how they process it, we
don't know whether they got their facts wrong, and we don't know what
standards or values or criteria they applied to whatever facts they
worked on. We simply do not know, and the Department and the
Attorney-General will not tell us.

Damien Carrick: So is there any way of questioning what is in that
adverse security assessment?

Julian Burnside: We are trying to do that. The difficulty that confronts
us, potentially, is that the Attorney-General has got power under the
National Security Information Act to certify conclusively that revealing
the contents of the report would adversely affect Australia's national
security interests. And if he certifies that, then any court hearing our
challenge will have to hold a private hearing in which the court
considers whether or not to allow the evidence to be produced in court.
And in that process the statute directs the Judge to give primary weight
to the conclusive certificate of the Attorney, which looks (and it's
never been tested) but it looks as though it gives him the chance to
stymie the process of examining the basis for the report.

Damien Carrick: But presumably the court would be able to examine
perhaps in camera or in private, what the assessment says, so at least
it will be subject to some kind of scrutiny.

Julian Burnside: It may be. It may be. We don't know, because the Act
also permits the litigant and his lawyers to be excluded from the court.
So what goes on in the closed court without our presence is anyone's
guess. Now we don't know if it will play out that way but it's a matter
of concern that the legislation permits it to play out that way.

Damien Carrick: Now one person who has been briefed about the contents
of the assessment is Opposition leader Kim Beazley. He's satisfied that
Scott Parkin should have been removed; what store do you put in Kim
Beazley's assessment?

Julian Burnside: None at all. ASIO were not prepared to show the report
to the leader of the Greens, and it's not clear that Mr Beazley was
shown the report. He was given a briefing - that's a different matter.
We don't know how much he knows of what went on. In addition, we don't
know whether Mr Beazley was given the underlying facts on which the
report was based, nor do we know whether he had any opportunity or even
desire, to check whether the facts were accurate. Now any assessment
like that depends on two things: the first is what are the facts, and
whether those facts are accurate; and the second is, what's the process
of assessment? How do you go from the facts to the conclusion that this
person is a risk? What's the standard which is applied? Now we don't
know whether Mr Beazley was told anything about that. We do know a
couple of things though: we know that Scott Parkin did not break the
law; we know that he was not involved in anything violent; we know that
he doesn't advocate violence; so we're left wondering, what on earth is
it that makes him apparently a security risk?

Damien Carrick: And what do you think that might be?

Julian Burnside: I've no idea. And the one possibility of course is that
his open political opposition to the war in Iraq and to the involvement
of Halliburton might put him in the unpopular camp in the eyes of the
present government in Australia and certainly in America. I'm a little
reluctant to think that it would be as plainly political as that, but
it's possible and the difficulty is, when you've excluded other
possibilities, like he'd broken the law, which he hasn't, or he'd been
advocating violence, which he hadn't, once you've excluded those
possibilities, then you're not left with very much else. And it looks
just like bare-faced political censorship.

Damien Carrick: So you're basically throwing down the gauntlet to the
government saying, if you don't reveal what the basis of your adverse
security assessment is, that leaves the general community with the view
that perhaps you're playing politics here.

Julian Burnside: It does leave you with that unsatisfactory possibility,
and in any event, it's unsatisfactory that a government agency with
great powers cannot be held to account for the way it exercises those
powers. This case has brought to light the scope and consequences of
ASIO's powers. ASIO has to have wide powers, but it shouldn't be
unaccountable. It's interesting to speculate whether this would have
played out the same way if Scott Parkin, instead of being an American
activist, had been a devout Muslim from Iran, or somewhere like that. I
wonder if there would have been the same level of community concern, or
whether we would have been prepared to assume that that person was
involved in bad business and therefore should be kicked out? It's a
dangerous climate that's developing in Australia, that anything that is
anti-Muslim is fairly readily accepted, and of course that in turn is
built on the false assumption that all Muslims are either terrorists or
possible terrorists. It's a very dangerous development, and I think as
soon as ASIO and other agencies are held to account for the way they
exercise the powers, the sooner that climate will dissipate.

Damien Carrick: Julian Burnside, QC.

I put it to Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, that by not
disclosing the details of concerns about any potential politically
motivated violence, the government is leaving itself wide open to the
criticism that there is no real substance to Parkin's adverse security
assessment.

Philip Ruddock: Well people can assert that, but I don't know of any
assessment that's ever made public. The fact is that ASIO makes between
20,000 and 40,000 security assessments a year. Very few of those are
prejudicial. In the last year 2003-4, they made 44,722 assessments,
three of which were prejudicial to the person about whom they were made.
But the assessments, whether positive or adverse, are never made known
publicly.

Damien Carrick: But I guess what you're doing is, you're asking the
community to accept that someone's rights should be severely curtailed
without giving any reason for it.

Philip Ruddock: Well what I can say is, if it's an Australian who
receives an adverse assessment, they're advised that it's adverse. And
they contest it before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in its
Security Appeals Division. And while there is still limitations on
information that might be provided if that has relevance to national
security, the fact is that there is an independent assessment. They are
the assessments on which, say, passports are cancelled for instance, but
in relation to adverse assessments given in relation to foreign
nationals, we've never provided access to our Security Appeals Division.
If people want to test those matters they can complain to the Ombudsman,
who is the independent officer appointed to look at the administration
of the security system.

So those avenues are available, but there are good reasons why security
information is not put in the public arena. There are people around who
think I should be able to make the decision as to what will be there or
not, and some should be, and some shouldn't perhaps, but the reality is
that if you get information for instance from a foreign source, it may
be from MI5 in the United Kingdom, about somebody whom they suspect has
been engaged in, say, a terrorist operation. Then they don't
particularly want it to be known that this information which they have
has been provided, it may well put at risk the inquiries that they're
undertaking. If you have obtained information through a human source,
you don't necessarily want the information that you gain from a human
source paraded publicly so that somebody's life might be in danger; if
they're involved in a covert operation to discover that information. It
may well be that you have certain techniques that are available, certain
equipment that enables you to do certain things in obtaining
information, where you wouldn't want to tell the world that you were
doing that, because it might well mean that your future operations would
be effectively compromised.

Damien Carrick: But surely there'd be ways of exploring the accuracy and
the substance of any adverse security assessment without compromising
any of those legitimate security mechanisms or devices?

Philip Ruddock: Well I'm not sure that you do it by starting off to
disclose every bit of information you have to the individual about whom
it's been collected. I'm not sure that you do it by publishing it in a
newspaper for the whole world to see. There are ways in which those
issues are addressed, because the fact is that the agency is under
continual supervision. In this case, let me say that we also know that
the Leader of the Opposition, in accordance with the Act, was briefed
and he satisfied himself that the course that was taken was appropriate.
He didn't ask that the information be disclosed publicly, but he said
that he was satisfied. Now the point I'm making is you'd have to be a
pretty game head of ASIO or an AISO official knowing that in reporting
on these matters it can go not only to the government, but also to the
opposition, and it can be the subject of an independent review by the
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. You'd be saying to
yourself, How am I going to get all of these people into the loop so
that I can pursue an inappropriate course of behaviour in relation to an
individual. I think not.

Damien Carrick: Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock.

And a number of this morning's papers are reporting that the
Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security will investigate the
Parkin case.


* * *



Deported activist denies violent protest claims
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1466489.htm]

PM - Thursday, 22 September , 2005 18:10:52

Reporter: Mark Colvin



MARK COLVIN: The already controversial case of the deported activist
Scott Parkin became even murkier today, with an alleged leak suggesting
that ASIO believed he would teach certain violent methods of protest if
he were allowed to remain in Australia.
The story by The Australian's Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan suggested
that ASIO had intelligence suggesting Mr Parkin would hold seminars
canvassing methods like throwing marbles under the hoofs of police
horses, to bring the horses and their riders down.
The story also says that ASIO was concerned about Mr Parkin teaching
tactics involving the use of force to free protesters from police after
they'd been arrested.
The story has raised a number of questions about the issue of leaks,
since it would be a breach of the Crimes Act for ASIO personnel to leak
secret information without authority.
It also comes at a time when leaks from less sensitive Government
departments have been actively pursued using methods including
investigation by the Australian Federal Police.
But there's also the question of whether the alleged leak is even true.
Scott Parkin himself, now back in Houston, Texas, flatly denies it and
insists he's always preached the non-violent teachings of Gandhi and
Martin Luther King.

SCOTT PARKIN: I say that's completely untrue and unfounded, that the
type of protest tactics or whatever you want to call them that I teach
basically are from what I've heard about the article, I don't teach
that, I teach actually the opposite.
I've actually gotten up and publicly stated some of the stuff that
they're accusing me of.
I've publicly stated that, you know, I think it's a bad idea. I think
doing anything to interfere with police horses, you know, is animal
abuse - I'm against that.

MARK COLVIN: So you would never encourage throwing marbles under police
horses' hooves?

SCOTT PARKIN: Absolutely not, and I never did do that, or had never
planned to do that.
And I think the whole thing about, you know, breaking people away who
are in police custody, I actually got up in different seminars during
the Forbes Conference in Sydney and said I think it's a bad idea,
because it leads to things like assault on a police officer charges. So
philosophically and practically I'm against it.

MARK COLVIN: That's the accusation that you advocate the use of force to
get people while they're being arrested, or before they're actually in
jail, maybe on the way to the paddy wagon.

SCOTT PARKIN: No. I'm against that. I even publicly stated that while
travelling through Australia.

MARK COLVIN: So what kind of things do you advocate?

SCOTT PARKIN: I advocate things along the lines of like Martin Luther
King, Ghandi kind of stuff, like stuff about putting your body on the
line, maybe making things more awkward for the police, but nothing along
the lines of being, you know, being aggressive or violent.
Stuff about like, let your body go limp, you use voice control, you use
eye contact, you know, respectfully communicate to the police that this
is a peaceful protest. You know, things like that.
Nothing aggressive or violent.

MARK COLVIN: Are you absolutely certain that there's nothing that you've
ever said or written that would give ASIO the reason to think that you
were going to say these things or advocate these things?

SCOTT PARKIN: I can't. I've thought about it since I've had to answer
this question many times today and I can't really think of anything I
did or said on my tour in Australia.

MARK COLVIN: And were you given any clues whatever? Did anybody ever say
to you anything about precisely why you were being deported?

SCOTT PARKIN: No, they just gave me the vague language out of the
Immigration Act, that I have been assessed to be a national security
risk, which, you know, actually is really unfair.
I mean, they leak it to sympathetic media that, you know, they think I'm
a violent person or teach these violent tactics, but they never told me
during the five days I was in custody, they never told my legal support
or anyone like that. And it just seems like they're kind of creating
some of this after the fact because they've had such a backlash with my
detention.

MARK COLVIN: The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, Ian
Carnell, is going to investigate your case and he says that he will
chase all rabbits down all burrows whatever time it takes.
Has he been in touch with you yet?

SCOTT PARKIN: No sir, he has not. No one from your. the Australian
Government's been in touch with me since they dropped me off at LAX (Los
Angeles International Airport) last week.

MARK COLVIN: Will you cooperate with Ian Carnell if he contacts you?

SCOTT PARKIN: Yeah, I'll probably have him go through my legal support,
but I'm willing to fully cooperate.

MARK COLVIN: And you absolutely insist that you have nothing to hide.

SCOTT PARKIN: I'm. yeah. I absolutely insist.

MARK COLVIN: The anti-globalisation activist, Scott Parkin, speaking
from Houston, Texas.



* * *






Democrats demand investigation over alleged ASIO leak

[This is the print version of story
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2005/s1466502.htm]

PM - Thursday, 22 September , 2005 18:14:52

Reporter: Louise Yaxley



MARK COLVIN: The Australian Democrats are demanding to know whether
there'll be an investigation into the apparent leak from ASIO about its
findings on Scott Parkin.
The Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says it would be inappropriate to
say whether there'd be an investigation, because to do so would go to
the veracity of the report itself.
His spokeswoman says the Minister will not comment on any matters of
national security.

Louise Yaxley reports.

LOUISE YAXLEY: The Attorney-General insists the security assessment for
Scott Parkin and his deportation were in accordance with the ASIO Act.
But Mr Ruddock refuses to make the security assessments public.
He says it's inappropriate to comment publicly on any matters of
national security.
When asked how information apparently from ASIO was then published on
the front page of a national newspaper today, Mr Ruddock's spokeswoman
said it would be inappropriate to comment.
And asked if there'd be an investigation into the apparent leak, she
said she could neither confirm nor deny, because that to do so would
indicate whether the reporting is accurate.
So it remains unclear if there'll be an investigation by the Federal
Police into this apparent leak.
The Australian Democrats Natasha Stott Despoja says if the newspaper
report is accurate, there must be an investigation, given that the AFP
have been asked to inquire into many other leaks not involving ASIO, and
two News Limited journalists face potential jail terms over leaks.

NATASHA STOTT DESPOJA: Well the Australian Democrats would like to know
why details of Mr Parkin's alleged activities are on the front page of a
daily national newspaper today, and yet he and his lawyers are still in
the dark as to what he's supposed to have done, been guilty of, or been
inclined to do. It's just farcical.
And if there is a leak, if it's come from ASIO or the Attorney-General's
office -and I'm not saying it has - but if there has been a leak, surely
that's an issue for national security and intelligence, and I hope the
Government would pursue it.

LOUISE YAXLEY: You also make a link to the other case of journalists
who've received leaks - Gerard McManus and Michael Harvey.

NATASHA STOTT DESPOJA: Indeed. The Government has made a big deal of
chasing up people who've received information that may be sensitive or
important to national security - I'd like to know whether they're going
to chase up this information.
How is it that information is on the front page of a national newspaper
today, yet the man involved is not aware of this information - his
lawyers still not been informed. This man has been placed in solitary
confinement, now deported and he still can't get information as to what
he's done.
Will the papers reveal their sources? I don't think they necessarily
should have to, but I'd like to know if the Government's keen on
investigating this possible leak.

LOUISE YAXLEY: Do you think it should be investigated?

NATASHA STOTT DESPOJA: I think if the Government's to be consistent,
then they should investigate where this information has come from.

LOUISE YAXLEY: Andrew Wilkie is a whistleblower who quit his job as a
Senior Strategic Analyst with the Office of National Assessments as a
protest against the way ONA material was used to justify going to war
against Iraq.
The journalist Andrew Bolt obtained a copy of one of Mr Wilkie's secret
reports. There was an investigation into how the leak came from ONA, but
no one was ever charged.
Andrew Wilkie says the article in today's Australian newspaper appears
to be a similar case.

ANDREW WILKIE: Well frankly, I'm appalled. It appears to be another
example of the Government being quite prepared to leak information to
the media, in particular to News Limited, which has become the public
relations arm of the Howard Government, are quite prepared to leak
information when it suits them.
As occurred to me a couple of years ago when a report was leaked to
Melbourne journalist Andrew Bolt, but yet when the information in the
leaks don't suit the Government, it comes down really, really hard on
the journalists who report it.
And I would add, that regardless of what's on the front page of The
Australian today, I think it's quite laughable to think that a peace
activist, someone who is in Australia to teach non-violent forms of
protest, it's quite laughable, quite silly to claim that he was in
someway a threat to national security.

MARK COLVIN: Andrew Wilkie, former ONA analyst, speaking to Louise
Yaxley.




* * *




Activist denies violence claims
Date: September 23 2005

By Sushi Das



THE mystery surrounding Scott Parkin, the American activist expelled
from Australia for posing a risk to national security, took another
twist yesterday after he denied a leaked report saying he had planned to
promote violent tactics in demonstrations.

ASIO believed Mr Parkin, a Texas teacher, had intended to teach local
demonstrators in a workshop tactics including scattering marbles to
bring down police horses and using force to free demonstrators taken
into police custody, The Australian reported yesterday.

Mr Parkin strongly rejected the report, describing the allegations as
"false, unfounded and personally damaging". He was deported from
Australia last week after being detained for five days. The Federal
Government claimed he had engaged in "spirited protest".

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock yesterday refused to confirm or deny the
newspaper report. Asked if he would investigate the source of the
reported leak, he called for evidence to prove a leak had actually
occurred.

"If you have evidence that a leak has occurred you might like to give
that to me so I can provide it to the Australian Federal Police for any
investigation that they are undertaking, assuming that they are," he
told reporters.

A spokeswoman for ASIO said its Director-General, Paul O'Sullivan, had
nothing to add to Mr Ruddock's comments.

Ian Carnell, Inspector-General of the spy watchdog Intelligence and
Security, is inquiring into Mr Parkin's deportation after receiving a
complaint.

Preparing to leave Houston, which is in the path of hurricane Rita, Mr
Parkin told reporters: "They (ASIO) were pretty tight-lipped and I find
it interesting the Australian Government leaks this information to a
sympathetic media, but won't tell me or my legal support why I was being
detained."

Iain Murray, Mr Parkin's Australian co-presenter in the protest
workshop, questioned why Mr Parkin had been deported but was "still free
to roam the streets". "Either it's a mistake and this is a cover-up or
there is something else going on," he said.

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2005/09/22/1126982179107.html




* * *




PM shies off sunset deal
Date: September 22 2005

By Michelle Grattan



JOHN Howard has backed away from having sunset clauses in his proposed
federal anti-terrorism measures - despite earlier seeming willing to
consider them.

Some measures are raising concern among the small-l liberals on the
Government backbench and there is likely to be pressure for sunset
clauses, probably of five years.

This month Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty said he
would not object to a sunset clause and Mr Howard said the Government
could consider them. But yesterday he told the ABC: "We are not
proposing a sunset clause. Some people have raised that issue but we are
not committed to it."

He said laws like this should always be the subject of review, "but
unless you know that the need for something is almost certainly going to
disappear within a set period of time, the sunset clause is not
necessarily a good idea".

Terrorism was not something that could be predicted to disappear in
three or fivc years.

He defended the deportation of US activist Scott Parkin on national
security grounds. "I am satisfied that proper grounds existed," he said.

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2005/09/21/1126982123422.html



* * *



We've gone too far,
The Age 23/05.09
PREMIER Steve Bracks and Prime Minister John Howard's 70th anniversary
"Nuremberg laws" frighten me. They frighten me enough to urge a campaign
of civil disobedience against them before we are locked up for writing
letters to The Age urging civil disobedience.

This whole terrorism in Australia nonsense has gone way too far. There
has only been one act of terrorism in Australia - the 1978 Hilton Hotel
bombing, which many believe was perpetrated by ASIO.

Every measure these governments take is counterproductive. I want our
airports returned to the people, now that we know that terrorists have
learned how to buy train and bus tickets.

Strip-searching at the football and bag searches at the Big Day Out are
an affront to the Australian lifestyle, as are incarceration without
trial, searches without warrants and pursuit of terror suspects by
people who wouldn't know a bag from a bomb.

These measures are all the more outrageous given the lack of evidence
for doing any of this.
David Langsam, Flemington Hill

Unnecessary evil
YES, terrorism is a great threat. But it is also disturbing to read
letters from readers such as Troy Cox (Letters, 22/9) who are so keen to
surrender their personal freedoms until the "war" is won. This attitude
is based on the naive notions that somehow we will be safer and that
those lost rights will be restored one day without any cost to the
individual or to the nation.

One can't but feel that this is what the terrorists want, and in the
process we end up casually throwing away the very rights and freedoms
that cost so many lives in last century's many devastating wars.
Tibor Majlath, Greensborough

Are we on a slow march to fascism?
WHEN the Second World War was closer in people's memories, the question
was often asked: Why did the ordinary German people apparently do
nothing to stop Hitler's extreme fascist policies of concentration
camps, the "final solution" and the like.

What we used to forget in asking this question was that a fascist state
in an ostensibly democratic system does not arise overnight. Hitler's
expansionism began in 1939, but he had had six years before that to
offer the German people solutions on economic and efficiency grounds,
and to prepare them with propaganda for the extremes of later years.

It appears that a similar situation is occurring in Australia. Each time
a clear breach of freedom is perpetrated by the Government, we see it as
an isolated incident and, encouraged by the prevailing mantra, "move on"
to something else.

But we now have a government in Australia that has concentration camps
in which it imprisons men, women and children without charge or trial;
it deports activists because it doesn't like their message; it declares
parts of Australia to be no longer parts of Australia for certain
classes of people; and it contemplates such egregious infringements of
civil liberty as preventive detention.

Australia is not yet a fascist state. But the idea is not so fanciful,
particularly when the Government has the benefit of two ill-defined
enemies - illegal immigrants and terrorists - and has the perpetual war
on terror to justify any action it wants to take and can persuade people
to accept in their name.

If Australia becomes a fascist state, it will do so gradually and by
accretion of small deprivations of liberty. We can accept each one as a
minor irritant, or we can see the bigger picture and object forcefully
to each one as a building block in our eventual prison.

Once the walls get too high, it will be too late.
Steve Halliwell, Fitzroy North



* * *





Time to lift the cloak off
Date: September 22 2005



The deportation of Scott Parkin shows ASIO needs to be called to
account, writes Sushi Das.



You could be forgiven for thinking only beautiful girls are seduced by
spies like 007. But they're not the only ones. It seems politicians (and
some journalists too) go weak at the knees in the presence of men in
dark glasses and trench coats.

So mesmerised are they by spooks that they have been known to accept
anything they say without question. Perhaps it is because everything is
shrouded in secrecy that politicians feel anything in a dossier stamped
"Top Secret" must be right.

Who knows exactly why politicians become aroused by the espionage
establishment? Maybe it's the frisson that comes with being let in on a
secret. We'll never know for sure. But what we do know for sure is the
intelligence service has been known to provide politicians with
information that has not been checked for accuracy and is completely
wrong.

A few years ago spy agencies showed total incompetence when they
incorrectly advised the Government that Saddam Hussein had weapons of
mass destruction. Unreliable intelligence is meaningless tittle-tattle
and worth nothing.

And then there is how ASIO goes about doing its job. Last year the
domestic spy agency was caught bugging the wrong people without proper
legal authority because of errors in its automated telephone
interception system.

Recently columnist Philip Adams who, after years of trying finally
received his ASIO file, discovered ASIO agents had been following him
around for years during his young communist days and had recorded all
manner of meaningless information about his movements.

But all that was in the bad old days of the Cold War, right? We're told
ASIO has changed. The new-look, expanded ASIO is now so busy hunting
terrorists and Islamic extremists that it hasn't got time to infiltrate
leftie groups to examine their subversive activities.

So it seems odd, what with the war on terror and Australia reportedly
home to about a dozen terrorist cells, with up to 60 individuals in
Melbourne and Sydney, that ASIO has had time to creep around after
American activist Scott Parkin. He was tracked down by police outside a
Brunswick cafe where he was on his way to a seminar on non-violent
protest. His visa was cancelled and he was locked up for five days
before being thrown out of the country for posing a direct or indirect
risk to Australian national security. That was the only official
explanation given.

Parkin may well have been a risk to national security, but with ASIO's
activities hidden under a blanket of secrecy unprecedented in Australian
history, it is impossible to know the truth or check the accuracy of
ASIO's assessment.

As a result of a complaint, Ian Carnell, the Inspector-General of
Intelligence and Security, Australia's spy watchdog, will conduct an
inquiry into Parkin's removal. His report will be provided to
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock who may or may not provide details to
the public.

The Government's line is that Parkin was detained for "spirited
protest". Presumably that falls short of violence because otherwise they
would surely say so. On Sydney radio recently, Ruddock said non-violence
was Parkin's "stated view for the public". The implication here is that
in reality he uses or advocates violence. The Government is not prepared
to inform the public of the whole truth, but it is prepared to put
implications in the public arena to influence public thinking.

Everything is hidden behind spy language that politicians
enthusiastically employ. The line in vogue is that nothing can be
revealed because of "operational security matters".

The dangers of secrecy are further heightened when there is a lack of
any effective legal scrutiny of ASIO assessments of national security.

And it's not as if we can rely on the flaccid Federal Labor Opposition
to ask the right questions. Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and Labor's
spokesman on homeland security, Arch Bevis, were briefed on the Parkin
case. Beazley, a military and security enthusiast, didn't wish to take
the matter any further. And when the Greens asked for details of the
security assessment in the Senate, Labor opposed the motion. Such
devotion to the cult of intelligence.

So who will act on behalf of the people to make sure the details
surrounding the Parkin case are properly debated? According to Michael
Head, a senior lecturer at the University of Western Sydney's law
school, the legislative and judicial record indicates a lack of any
effective political or legal scrutiny or check on ASIO's activities.

Even the High Court has in the past effectively refused to call into
question ASIO's assessment of what constitutes a threat to security, he
says in a 2004 article. In 1982 the court rejected an attempt by the
Church of Scientology to challenge ASIO's assessment that the church
presented a possible threat to security. Are judges as supine as
politicians?

Right now ASIO and the Federal Police can raid anyone's home at any time
and drag them away against their will, interrogate them, strip-search
them and hold them for as long as they can get repeated warrants. The
detained person has no right to know why he or she is being questioned.
Under the Government's new proposals, measures are more draconian.

Politicians have allowed these changes because too many people have been
complacent. It seems most Australians have accepted the erosion of their
civil liberties. When there is inertia of thought among the people,
freedom faces its greatest menace.

As long ago as 1852, orator and columnist Wendell Phillips said:
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." How vigilant are
Australians? How much do they care about their liberty?

Sushi Das is a staff writer.

http://www.theage.com.au/text/articles/2005/09/21/1126982118428.html




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