*?* Blogmanac | Aussie spies can now arrest and detain without charge

ASIO bill passes Senate
Spy agency can imprison 16 and 17-year-olds for up to a week
ASIO (Australian Intelligence Security Organisation -- the Aussie CIA) will be able to detain people who are not even suspected of having committed any crime, under sweeping new powers approved by the Senate last night, ostensibly for "anti-terrorism".

Now, you don't even need to be a suspect to face arbitrary detention for a week without charge. As in the United States recently, hundreds of years of traditional human rights such as habeas corpus and 'the golden thread of law' (innocent till proved guilty) are being flung aside by radically conservative governments in a contrived 'war against terrorism', which millions of people understand is a ruse to cover other agenda.

Conservative Opposition too
The Opposition party in Australia, the Labor POarty, an erstwhile left-wing party torn apart by disputes between dominant right-wing factions, has missed the opportunity to block the passage of this disturbing bill. The bill itself has received scant attention from the most concentrated media in the Western world (mostly run by two men, one of whom is Rupert Murdoch).

Never before have Australian spies had such police state powers -- indeed, they have had no police powers, as the Australian people have not permitted them. Like the Shrub administration, the neo-con econo-rat (economic rationalist) openly racist government of Prime Minister John Howard has spent millions on a propaganda campaign of fear to convince ordinary Aussies that they are under threat from Muslims.

"As you're walking out the door from your first detention you can be arrested and brought straight back in again," Greens Senator Bob Brown said of this chilling Act of Parliament.

"Any legislation that entitles a spy agency to imprison 16 and 17-year-olds for up to a week in breach of Australia's obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of a Child should not be passed in this country and has no place on our statute books," Victorian Law Institute president Bill O'Shea said.

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