One Thousand Reasons
A whole site dedicated to a thousand reasons not to vote for Bush -actually, kind of a news site hawking a book of the same title. But I’m not picky today.
Looks like Australia is picking up on our fascistic example:
New “terrorism” laws have been recently pushed through Parliament in Australia.
Answer this 5 point quiz:
1. Have you ever disagreed with any government policy and joined with others to express this by sending emails or phoning any politician, government department or bureaucrat?
2. Have you ever joined or been associated with the activities of a trade union, local protest group, or political or religious organisation?
3. Have you ever participated in a non-violent protest, rally or strike?
4. Have you ever donated money, bought raffle tickets or in any other way supported an international environmental, political or human rights organisation such as Amnesty International or Greenpeace?
5. Have you ever provided any professional advice for any political or religious organisation?
If you reply “YES” to any one of these questions the Government could brand you a ‘terrorist’ using this legislation…
The definition of ‘terrorism’, includes actions made ‘with the intention of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause’. It is so broad that it would cover civil disobedience by peace groups, M1 and other anti-globalisation blockades, union pickets and strikes, actions to stop logging in forests and similar activities. The demonstrators who pushed over a fence at the refugee detention centre at Woomera would be defined as ‘terrorists’…
ASIO has moved from being a spy agency, and has become a secret police. With new powers it is now able to:
* Arrest and detain people for questioning for 48 hours. Detention warrants can be renewed every 24 hours which means detainees could be held indefinitely.
* Detainees would have no right to a lawyer.
* Detainees could be held incommunicado with no contact with family and friends.
* Detainees could face up to five years in jail for refusing to answer questions.
* There are no rules for interrogation of detainees. Will torture be used?
2 thoughts on “One Thousand Reasons”
Holy shit! Talk about oppression and loss of civil liberties. I am waiting for those fiesty Australian freedom-lovers to see what is going on and start yelling. That list is obscene.
Hope you don’t mind, but, I am stealing this to post on my page, with credit, of course.