I'm sure Ashcroft is happy to know that he's not alone.
Subject: Australia considers shrinking civil liberties to fight terror Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 12:27:50 +1100 From: mediarel@lstsvr1.ag.gov.auAustralian Broadcasting Corporation LATELINE Late night news & current affairs
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT LOCATION: abc.net.au
Broadcast: 27/11/01 A-G defends new anti-terrorism lawsThe person responsible for overseeing the drafting of these new anti-terror laws is the Federal Attorney-General Daryl Williams. Tony Jones asked Mr Williams what was the purpose of giving ASIO [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation] new powers to detain people?
DARYL WILLIAMS, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, we're dealing with potentially quite extraordinary situations where there may be a great number of lives at risk, there may be a very serious risk of major property damage. What we need to do is to be able to get maximum information, maximum intelligence, in order to prevent any terrorist acts being committed. Now, if we don't suspect a person of being engaged in planning for a terrorist act, there is no capacity for the police to arrest them. They may be unwilling to participate in questioning. We need to have a power to coerce people to answer questions, or to provide information.
TONY JONES: That power is effectively detention without charge, as it's been interpreted. Is that correct?
DARYL WILLIAMS: We envisage a range of situations. In some cases, we would expect that people would voluntarily assist. If they refuse to assist, they could be detained without arrest and without charge. If they commit an offence in the process of failing to respond appropriately, they may be arrested on that charge. We would need to have access to people who may not be themselves involved in doing anything, but who may have information.
TONY JONES: Now it has been reported that under these proposals a person could be held for 48 hours and interrogated without legal representation. Is that correct?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, that's a situation we envisage. It may not always be like that, but it certainly may be necessary in some cases to keep the person being interrogated incommunicado so that people who may be at that time be planning or doing things are not warned of the fact that the agencies are closing in.
TONY JONES: But in these cases these are people who are not suspected of involvement with any terrorist activity. Why does ASIO need coercive powers for people who aren't suspected of anything?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, they may have information that will be very useful in countering any proposed terrorist act and if they're not willing to provide it voluntarily, then we need a power to require it.
TONY JONES: Your critics have claimed, of course, that this would be open to abuse and it's giving ASIO for the first time the powers to arrest which some critics describe as "re-creating ASIO as a secret police force".
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, the way we envisage it working is that any arrest would be done by the relevant police. Any detention would be done by the relevant police. It would only be done under a warrant that would be sought by the Director-General of Security, that is the head of ASIO, with the consent of the Attorney-General and it would be issued or approved by what we've referred to as a prescribed authority. Prescribed authority would be either a federal magistrate or a senior legal member of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and the magistrate, or the legal member, would be the ones to supervise the interrogation and to ensure the conditions under which the warrant was issued are met.
TONY JONES: So the suggestion is that a prescribed authority, a magistrate say, for example, would be there for the entire 48-hour period of this detention?
DARYL>WILLIAMS: Well, that's a matter to be worked out yet. We're still in the process of developing the legislation and there are quite a few details like that that need to be addressed.
TONY JONES: Can you give us an example, if you like a hypothetical case, of someone against who those powers might be used, those coercive powers?
DARYL WILLIAMS: I would hope that it would only be used in serious cases against those who have highly relevant information about proposed terrorist acts and if someone were an associate or a supporter of Osama bin Laden's network, they would be an appropriate person.
TONY JONES: There's talk here of getting documents or, as I said before, things, although that's unspecified, from these sort of people. Could it also include, for example, professionals like lawyers, or bankers, accountants or journalists, for example?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, we're not envisaging that there will be particular categories of people either included or excluded. We seek to have a general power to deal appropriately with any person -- whoever they may be -- who may have information that would assist in preventing or hindering a proposed terrorist act.
TONY JONES: So, hypothetically, a lawyer or a journalist could be arrested, mandatorily detained for 48 hours and forced to hand over documents?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Anybody who has information that may assist in preventing a large number of lives being lost or very serious property damage being done would be an appropriate person to provide information.
TONY JONES: But you wouldn't be making exceptions for certain professions -- lawyers and journalists are the ones I've chosen -- there are many others, of course.
DARYL WILLIAMS: I can't understand why you've chose lawyers and journalists but I wouldn't envisage there being exceptions in their cases.
TONY JONES: I've chosen them because they might have information in the form of documents or statements from people who do not wish to be named, for example in the case of a journalist.
DARYL WILLIAMS: Well, we're talking about life and death situations. I don't think the interests of journalism weigh heavily in the balancing exercise that we're engaging in here.
TONY JONES: Lawyers the same?
DARYL WILLIAMS: Lawyers the same.
| Civil Liberties | War on Terror |
