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WSWS : News & Analysis : Australia & South Pacific
Australia�s secret police to get unprecedented powers
By Mike Head
27 December 2001
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A further boost to Australia�s political police agencies, including
unprecedented powers to secretly detain people without charge, has
become a major item in the Howard government�s agenda for the new
year. At its last cabinet meeting for 2001, on December 18, the
government approved �a raft of measures� under the pretext of
combatting terrorism. It also announced a summit of federal and state
government leaders in March to strengthen and possibly restructure
the police and intelligence forces.
Attorney-General Daryl Williams provided only vague outlines of the new powers.
Moreover, none of the proposed legislation has been released. But is already clear
that the planned measures will make deeper inroads into ba
sic democratic rights than ever before, except under wartime emergency conditions.
The cabinet confirmed a plan, first unveiled in the wake of the September 11 attacks
in the United States, to allow the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation
(ASIO) to detain and interrogate for 48 hours anyone th
at it suspects of involvement in terrorism or of having any information about
terrorism. Detainees will be held incommunicado, unable to contact their families, and
denied access to legal advice or representation. ASIO wi
ll not have to specify a charge, or produce evidence, yet any prisoner who refuses to
answer its questions can be jailed for five years.
Working in conjunction with state and federal police, ASIO will be able to have people
picked up, brought before a tribunal and ordered to provide information or hand over
documents, even if they are not themselves suspec
ted of terrorist activity. These provisions could easily be used against journalists
and political activists.
These measures tear up long-standing protections against arbitrary government power,
including no detention without charge, the right to remain silent and the principles
of natural justice (the right to a fair hearing). C
ivil liberties groups have warned that innocent people could easily be detained, and
detained repeatedly, creating the conditions for assaults and forced confessions.
According to Williams, �terrorism� will be re-defined so that it includes an act or
omission �for a political, religious or ideological purpose designed to intimidate the
public with regard to its security and intended to
cause serious damage to persons, property or infrastructure�. The Criminal Code will
also cover aiding, abetting, conspiracy, attempt and incitement, with all these
offences carrying a maximum penalty of life imprisonmen
t.
These provisions are so sweeping that they could cover a range of dissenting political
activity, including protests and the distribution of literature. Moreover, collection,
receipt or provision of funds for the preparati
on and planning of terrorism, or knowingly assisting any of these activities, will be
punishable by up to 25 years jail.
ASIO and other intelligence and police agencies will be given powers to access unread
e-mails, allowing them to act on the basis of messages that the alleged recipient has
not even seen. They will also be permitted to sha
re information on terrorism and alleged financial links with equivalent agencies
overseas. ASIO will receive extra funding and resources, unspecified as yet, and
�cabinet will give further consideration to a range of addi
tional measures� in the new year.
Over the past two decades, ASIO has already been handed powers to tap phones,
intercept e-mail and mail, plant tracking devices on people or vehicles and instal
listening devices in offices and homes. It can easily obtain
secret search and entry warrants, and physically or electronically break into
computer files and databases.
Williams admitted that �there remains no known specific threat of terrorism in
Australia�. This is despite well-publicised ASIO raids of homes in Sydney�s Arabic and
Islamic community immediately after September 11�raids
that resulted in no charges or evidence of terrorism.
The Attorney-General claimed that the new powers would be used only rarely and with
strict safeguards. �ASIO�s definitely not becoming a secret police,� he said, adding
that the government did not �envisage the power to d
etain without arrest could be used in any but the most extraordinarily serious cases�.
These assurances fly in the face of the record, not just of ASIO�s recent raids but
its long history of spying on, harassing and conducting dirty tricks operations
against socialists, militant workers and others, even chu
rch groups and Labor politicians, regarded as opponents of the political establishment.
Various federal and state inquiries conducted in the 1970s proved that ASIO and the
state police special branches with which it collaborated, kept extensive files on the
activities and personal lives of members and suppor
ters of left-wing organisations, trade unions and anti-war groups.
Civil Liberties Council of New South Wales spokesman Cameron Murphy said the extended
powers were unwarranted. �We need to be very careful because once the imminent crisis
is over in terrorism, what we�ll find is that ASI
O�s attention will focus on innocent members of the Australian public.� Australian
Council for Civil Liberties president Terry O�Gorman said similar measures used in
Britain against the IRA had led to �false confessions b
ecoming the order of the day�.
International Commission of Jurists Australian president John Dowd said the detention
powers would represent the first time outside war that agencies were given such
powers. Having been detained once, there was no obvious
block to people being detained repeatedly. �What happened in the United States is not
a justification for giving ASIO these massive extensions of powers.�
This is not the first time that governments have seized upon the alleged threat of
terrorism to expand ASIO�s powers. The first ASIO Act was passed in 1979, in the wake
of the 1978 attempted bombing of the Hilton Hotel in
Sydney during a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. The federal Fraser
government, joined by the state Wran government, declared that �the age of terrorism�
had arrived in Australia. That bombing has remained unsol
ved to this day, but it led to two police frame-ups of members of the Ananda Marga
religious sect. Sect members spent years in jail before the frame-ups were exposed,
leaving all the evidence pointing to the bomb having b
een planted by ASIO itself, or another police agency.
In 1999, the Howard government cited fears of terrorism at the Sydney 2000 Olympic
Games to give ASIO further sweeping powers. No terrorist activity eventuated, but
ASIO�s powers, including to hack into computers, access
taxation files and plant secret tracking devices, have remained. The government also
used the Games as a pretext to pass legislation providing for the military to be
called out against domestic political unrest.
Both in 1979 and 1999, these measures were implemented with the full support of the
Labor Party, which first established ASIO in 1949 during a coal miners� strike.
Without even waiting to see the new legislation, the Labo
r leaders have stated their agreement in principle with the Howard government�s
proposals. This is consistent with their stance during the recent election campaign.
Labor�s then leader, Kim Beazley, sought to outbid the g
overnment by releasing his own 11-point package to boost the powers and resources of
ASIO and the military.
Copyright 1998-2001
World Socialist Web Site
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