ASIO set to get enhanced secret police powers

by Bob Briton

A decision of the parliamentary Labor Party's shadow cabinet may be all 
that the Federal Government needs to get its "ASIO Bill" to pass through 
the Senate next week and into its arsenal of anti-people legislation.

Various Labor spokespersons, including Party leader Simon Crean, have 
declared their general satisfaction with the revised proposal. While the 
Opposition hasn't seen the "fine print" of the legislation, it is expected 
that Labor will decide to support the Bill it sought to amend last 
December. On that occasion, the Government withdrew the Bill claiming the 
amendments had made it unworkable.

Political pressure, rather than any significant changes to the Bill, appear 
to be behind the present desire to "work with the Government" to give the 
Commonwealth's domestic spook outfit wider powers than have been sought by 
either the FBI in the US or by the UK's MI5.

With the ALP lagging disastrously in the opinion polls, it looks as though 
the threat of a double dissolution election fought on "security issues" and 
the powers of the Senate has been enough to blunt the Parliamentary Party's 
concerns over civil liberties.

The minor parties and independents in the Senate, civil liberties and other 
community organisations concerned at the granting ASIO powers that would 
convert it into a fully-fledged secret police will have been sidelined in 
this process.

Democrats spokesperson Brian Greig notes that the proposed "detain and 
interrogate" powers still apply to those not suspected of any involvement 
in terrorism. Bob Brown of the Australian Greens has the same objection, 
among others, and has vowed to oppose the power grab in toto.

Attorney General Daryl Williams is making much of the government's 
"concessions" in the revised Bill. It now has a sunset clause that will 
allow for a review of the powers given to ASIO after three years — again, 
more generous than the period given to the FBI or MI5.

It will lift the age at which people can be swept of the streets or dragged 
from their homes from 14 to 16 years — Labor would still prefer that this 
be raised to 18.

It will limit the time a person can be held in detention to a week and 
reduce the amount of time that person can be interrogated to 24 hours, i.e. 
three blocks of eight hours.

The Bill also does away with the 48-hour period during which a person was 
to be denied access to a lawyer. However, as the Attorney General points 
out, any lawyer chosen will have to meet "with a range of safeguards to 
protect the disclosure of sensitive information". In other words, the 
"choice" of lawyer will be vetted by ASIO.

The oversight of the detention and interrogation process by a Federal Judge 
or Magistrate is being sold as a safeguard in the system. The measure is 
more likely to guarantee that the dirty secrets of these spook operations 
remain within the walls of the establishment club.

The judicial authority figures in question will already have reconciled 
themselves to the fact that persons known to be innocent of any wrong doing 
can be held without even being told the grounds on which they are being 
detained. Those held will have no right to silence; in fact they could be 
threatened with five years in prison for refusing to answer questions.

All of these provisions are violations of fundamental human rights listed 
in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The grab for more power for ASIO comes at the same time as the media devote 
considerable space to promoting the spy agency as doing a fine job of its 
anti-terrorism work.

Supposedly, it foiled a terror plot against the 2000 Olympics in Sydney; 
uncovered a plan (maps and all) to assassinate Zionist mining magnate Joe 
Gutnick; thwarted an attempt to establish a support network for Jemaah 
Islamiah based on a mosque in the Sydney suburb of Dee Why. It has 
succeeded in having 13 organisations banned in this country and has the 
future of the local chapter of Hamas in its hands.

The Government is satisfied that every intelligence measure that could have 
been taken to avoid the Bali tragedy was taken. ASIO cooperates in counter-
terrorism teams with local police, their state protective security branches 
and the Australian Federal Police in every capital in the country. The 
arrest of a man in Adelaide has resulted.

Even the series of raids on homes in different states and the upending of 
scores of peoples' lives were possible under the present arrangements. As 
recently as June 3, ASIO raided the homes of ten Iranian families in 
Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Computers and documents were removed in an 
effort to link them terrorist organisations. The material was returned and 
no charges were laid. Calls from Senator Bob Brown for an investigation 
into the matter have been shrugged off.

Stephen Hopper, lawyer for six Indonesian families also raided by ASIO, 
insists that intelligence information was leaked to The Weekend Australian 
that suggested that they had links to Jemaah Islamiah.

Material taken from their homes was returned and ASIO reportedly has no 
further interest in the families. Mr Hopper's plea for a public statement 
from the Government clearing the families of any terrorist connection has 
also gone unheeded.

Clearly, the relevant question about ASIO powers is how to curb them, not 
increase them. The potential for further misuse of its authority is too 
great to ignore. The Government may choose to broaden the purpose of the 
new powers.

Deputy PM John Anderson made public comments on the confiscation of the 
passport belonging to suspected terrorist sympathiser Bilal Khazal, who had 
worked as an airline baggage handler a number of years ago, and on a 
proposal for new airport staff security cards.

He said: "As I've announced, people who hold cards — airport security 
cards — will face the toughest and most stringent background checks of any 
country in the Western world, including checks for political involvement 
and attitude."

The move to exclude people from a steadily widening range of jobs on the 
basis of "political attitude" could not be far behind if ASIO gets the 
endorsement implicit in the expansion of its powers. A lot hangs on the 
fate of the Bill coming before the Senate this week.