Julian Assange is running for a seat in Australia’s senate and he purports to wanting to bring liberty back to the forefront of Australian politics.
The WikiLeaks founder also plans to be a ”fierce defender of free media” if elected to the Senate. He repeatedly advocates that he will not shy from using parliamentary privilege to hinder court suppression orders and other ”excessive constraints” on free access to information. Mr. Assange declared that he ”could be described as a libertarian” and his platform appears to highlight this.
Also, Mr. Assange’s senate platform appears to be littered with many accusations of Australia’s current political climate and how, as he claims, it is continuously disregarding the interests of the citizens. In his run for Senate bid, Assange is keeping ”all possibilities” alive. This includes running as an independent, seeking an alliance with another party, or launching a new party. While support for WikiLeaks is strongest among Greens voters, Mr Assange noted recent polling had shown 53 per cent approval across the spectrum. This is interesting considering he has pending criminal charges looming.
In addition, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of protecting small business and individuals from the power of government and large corporations. As well, with regards to social issues such as same-sex marriage and euthanasia, he acknowledged “strong arguments on all sides”. Even if he is not successful in his bid, it will be impossible for others in the Senate race to avoid offering their thoughts and answering questions regarding the tough issues Assange is bringing to the forefront of his campaign.
Update on Taser Use in Australia
A man was killed in Australia by a police taser on March 18th. The police were responding to a robbery call. The man did resist arrest but it is unclear if he was even involved in the robbery itself or if there was even a robbery taking place.
Australia is facing a dilemma with the use of tasers by the police force. As seen in a past blog, the numbers are astonishing as to how many people are killed or seriously injured by taser use each year in Australia.
A five-year study into the use of the weapons published in 2010 showed 85 per cent of cases involved a person with a mental illness and 28 per cent of those targeted were unarmed.
It is becoming a concern for many Australians that Law enforcement and government departments are accessing vast quantities of phone and internet usage data without warrants. This growing activity has resulted in the Green party of Australia to coin the current atmosphere as equivalent to a ”surveillance state” and insist privacy groups search for tighter controls.
A specific control they wish to see imposed is that of a higher standard of proof before a mobile phone may be accessed for location or other information purposes. The numbers are actually quite shocking and can be viewed at the following link;
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/police-spy-on-web-phone-usage-with-no-warrants-20120217-1tegl.html#ixzz1mnFp9AEZ
The use of tasers in some parts of New Zealand appear to be quite shocking. Since their issue to the police force in March 2010, tasers have been drawn approximately 890 times throughout the country.
Both, Green Party MP David Clendon, a member of Parliament’s law and order committee and New Zealand Civil Liberties Council spokesman Kevin McCormack have voiced various concerns about the weapon.
There seems to be an apparent fear that the use of tasers has become a first, as opposed to a last resort for police officers. Also, it is feared that the deadliness associated with taser use may not be fully understood.
Notably, the New Zealand Civil Liberties Council spokesman Kevin McCormack said the use of Tasers was “inhumane”. This statement should not be completely disregarded considering the battery-powered stun guns fire electric barbs, which penetrate a person’s skin and deliver a shock of up to 50,000 volts.
The Federal Government in Australia will be introducing legislation that will result in Australians being unable to opt out of invasive screening processes in airports.
The screening process which has already been adopted in Canada and the U.S involves a full body scan that is registered on a screen where a full human body can be seen.
Due to the controversy surrounding the adoption of these scanners in the European Union, people traveling in airports within the union are able to opt out of the scanning process and be patted down instead.
Australians are arguing for the same option in their airports. However, if the legislation is passed, they will not have that ability.
Officials claim that the scans are merely generic outlines of the human body, will not be saved and are perfectly safe for the body. Officials also say the scans are essential to the safety of the airports. However, civil libertarians are still opposed to such inability to opt out of the process and compare the process to a “digital strip search”.
Police in Fredericton, New Brunswick are investigating a resident who is accused of defamatory libel due to comments found on his blog. According to University of New Brunswick associate law professor Julia Hughes, defamatory libel as a criminal (rather than civil) offence is something very rare in Canada.
The blogger’s apartment was searched and his computer was seized. The individual has commented and associates the defamatory libel investigation to something he said about a police offer on his website.
From a civil rights perspective it will be interesting to follow the outcome of this very rare case. Considering the investigation was launched by a police officer as a criminal case it is very unique. Also, it may have wide reaching repercussions due to its originating from the internet. For instance, should bloggers have the same freedom of press as a journalist enjoys? There are a lot of questions being raised here.
This case may lead one to think that criticizing the police may result in them being criminally charged while not necessarily having free speech as a defense.
“The court said yes, it does infringe free speech, but if it gets grave enough or serious enough, if you really have this objective intention to defame . . . to untruthfully demolish their reputation in the public eye, then you ought not to be able to bring yourself under that free-speech protection,” said Hughes (Fredericton Gleaner).
Located in Canberra, the capital of Australia is the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. This “embassy” was established in the 1970’s by Australian aborigines as means of being politically recognized. It is a controversial conglomerate of buildings and tents outside the Parliament house. However, this assemblage is not officially recognized by the Australian government.
On January 26th, Opposition Leader Tony Abott made comments directed at the tent embassy. Most notably he was accused of saying the embassy may no longer be relevant. However, Abott claims he only meant that Australia has come a long way in regards to its treatment of aborigines and has no intentions of removing the tent embassy.
In reaction to the original comments, protests broke out and turned violence. Aborigine protestors are adamant that it was peaceful until the police arrived and only then did it become violent. All accounts of the incidents seem to very different.
The Aborigines in Australia have only experienced rights to land since 1990’s. Aborigines have become Australia’s most disadvantaged minority, with much shorter life expectancies and high imprisonment rates. Even thought there was approximately one million aborigines in Australia at the time of British settlement there are now only about 470,000.
A female doctor who brought forth an argument that requiring permission from two doctors for an abortion to be performed in a hospital, is discriminatory and prevents her from giving what she calls essential medical care, may be seeing some progress. The claim, which dates back to 2008, was transferred to the Labour and Employment board by the Human Rights Commission. The province of New Brunswick has since argued the Board does not have jurisdiction to hear the case. If this is found to be valid it may result in a a full hearing on abortion policy.
An article concerning this topic from CBC News is attached.
Henk Tepper, a New Brunswick potato farmer is being held in a Lebanese prison on the request of Algerian officials. This happened while Henk Tepper was in Lebanon on a trade mission. It now appears that the RCMP gave sensitive information, including personal information, to the Algerian authorities which may have led to the arrest. The RCMP did not tell Tepper that they gave the Algerians this information.
To learn more visit CBCNews.
Attached is an article from a civil liberites group in Australia. It is written by Professor, George Williams. The article explores the legal enactments in Australia following September 11th. The ten years following September 11th, Australia enacted approximately fifty anti-terrorism related laws. The number of laws are quite large compared to other countries. A study by Canadian Professor Kent Roach found that ”Australia has exceeded the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada in the sheer number of new anti-terrorism laws that it has enacted since 11 September 2001”.
Many scholars have recently been giving these fairly new laws a lot of negative attention. It has been said that they reveal a lack of human rights safeguards in place in Australia. Also, that they too readily undermine democratic freedoms. It is an interesting insight.
http://www.cla.asn.au/0805/index.php/articles/articles/hyper-terror-laws-strain-australia#more9932
