The Haneef washup 1 Feb 200818 Sep 2017 Readers will know that I got very angry about the Haneef Affair, in which a muslim Indian doctor was accused of being a terrorist and deported by the improper abuse of power by the minister for immigration of the previous government [here, here, here, here, here and here]. Now his lawyer has been cleared for “leaking” the Australian Federal Police transcript of interview, which basically showed that Haneef was innocent and the AFP had nothing. And of course the head of the AFP is upset. He wanted the AFP to remain under the rose, free from public scrutiny. I’ll say it again. Whenever a government instrumentality or administration wants to be free from oversight, the motivation, whether they are aware of it or not, is empire building and control. No government activity, not even those pertaining to that hold-all of rights denial, national security, should automatically be free from supervision. Democracy only works when government is done in the open. Otherwise it simply becomes a matter of who can rort the system most effectively, as we see with the Bush administration today. No special powers are required to prevent terrorism, just good old fashioned police work. No special acts of parliament are needed to prosecute them, for insurgency and murder are already crimes. And no special politicians are needed to “lead us out of this mess”, because either every political authority can do this, or we have no hope. And a democratic government, legislature or judiciary knows this already, and will act to protect our rights in a time of stress. Politics Race and politics
Academe Us, them and the real issue 21 Apr 2011 I think I need to clear the air a bit. In the Synthese posts I have been defending the authors of the special issue to which I contributed. Some may think this has to do with my agreeing with them. I happen to, in the main, but I do not… Read More
Ethics and Moral Philosophy The hammer of religious faith 24 May 2009 To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail. But hammers actually have a purpose that is useful. They do things. Some religious belief is rather more like a man with an imaginary hammer. The outgoing and obviously not-to-be-missed Archbishop of Westminster, the man who thinks you aren’t entirely… Read More
Evolution Images on evolution outreach 17 Jan 200818 Sep 2017 Colin Purrington has a nice set of publicly available images for use in pro-science talks. Go check ’em out. Read More
You’ve articulated the way I feel. I consider the Haneef affair was a disgraceful event exemplifiying the results of our previous Government’s vigorous yet short-sighted and vote-seeking use of the terrorism issue. It made me realise anyone could be arrested for no substantive reason under the justification that it was “in the national interest” under current law. I would have felt safer than I do now had we merely enforced or strengthened existing law when terrorism became an issue.
One for the quotation books: No special powers are required to prevent terrorism, just good old fashioned police work. No special acts of parliament are needed to prosecute them, for insurgency and murder are already crimes. And no special politicians are needed to “lead us out of this mess”, because either every political authority can do this, or we have no hope. And a democratic government, legislature or judiciary knows this already, and will act to protect our rights in a time of stress. — John S. Wilkins Very well said.