The siege should not be used to justify draconian new anti-terrorism laws, argues David Marr.
Old laws allowed police to bug his phones, intercept his emails and place him under surveillance. They didn’t even need a warrant to access his metadata and track down everywhere Monis had been and everyone he was talking to year after year.
They didn’t need fresh laws threatening journalists with 10 years’ jail for revealing Asio’s newfangled “special” operations. Look at the superb cooperation the press displayed during the siege: forgoing scoop after scoop to follow the police strategy of denying Monis the oxygen of publicity ...
This is not a time for blanket new anti-terrorism laws. More facts may yet emerge, but Monis seems not to have been part of any terrorist operation. He wasn’t under orders. The horrors in the Lindt cafe seem to owe as much to Hollywood as terrorist manuals. All we know for certain is that Monis was a terrorist in his own crazy imagination.
Read the rest of the article here.
http://www.theguardian.com/australi...used-to-justify-draconian-anti-terrorism-laws
Legal commentator Richard Ackland says there are series of questions about why Man Haron Monis was granted bail three times in the past 12 months. But he argues the answer is not greater police powers.
This man was known to be threateningly unstable, so we are entitled to ask why a firmer grip wasn’t applied to him, given the lavish powers at the disposal of counter-terrorism agencies.
The point about security people is that they are forever asking for bigger and better powers and this is granted by politicians anxious for insurance policies against nothing dreadful happening on their patch.
Read the article in full here.
http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...pplied-to-sydney-siege-gunman-man-haron-monis
Well worth reading these articles bros