Sorry to bother you all with internal Australian politics, but this has to be discussed. Now the minister for immigration is saying that the Australian Federal Police intercepted a chat room conversation in which Haneef was told to leave Australia by (they say) his cousins before his knowledge of the bombing plot was uncovered.
Kevin Andrews also says that critics are soft on terrorism. And here's the nub of the matter. We aren't soft on terrorism - that is a (excuse my French) fucking stupid thing to say. Does Andrews really believe we critics want a bombing in Sydney? We aren't soft on terrorism, we are hard on rights. If he had evidence of Haneef's involvement in a plot, then why was it not brought out in court? It need not have been open court if there were security issues. In camera proceedings are permitted under special circumstances, and if public knowledge of the details of an investigation might jeopardise it or people, that is a reason to hold them.
The point is that Haneef was held illegally. I do not care if a judge decides on the basis of evidence presented that there is a case to answer and an accused is liable to be a danger to others, and so incarcerates him or her. But it has to be legally done! Using and abusing ministerial discretion to override the legal process is the worst kind of Star Chamberism. The reason why judges are needed to make these decisions is because of the fact that political agendas drive politicians, and that is a very bad way to run a society.
And one more point - we are not at war against Indians, Muslims or Asians in general. We are in conflict with a non-national group, which makes it not a war but policing. And so we cannot decide to hold someone without due process. Eventually, if allowed to continue, we will find reasons to incarcerate communists, any Muslim, citizens in general or anyone that the government has reason not to like. Remember the communist hysteria of the 50s?
Australians do not do that. It is not the Australian way. Given that Howard and his government are all about AUstralian values, they might do worse than reviewing the basis of our society - the Rule of Law. It does not involved being as arbitrary as the ones we are opposing.
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Would the intercepted conversation have been admissible in court? It goes without saying that you don't want governments to start short circuiting the legal process, but part of the problem, at least in the UK, is that the law is struggling to keep up e.g. what to do with a foreign national who has undeniable connections with jihadi groups but hasn't committed an offence (yet) but can't be deported to his home country because he will certainly be tortured by the security services. You can't say it's a short step from detaining Haneef for a few days, on the one hand, to leaving someone to rot in the legal limbo of Guantanamo for years on end - the two situations are light years apart. Surely the question is (a) whether the authorities did have something concrete on Haneef (we'll see) and (b) whether their actions are open to judicial or public scrutiny (which is what this is?) - if there really was good reason to suspect him then protesting about a few days in custody seems, to put it mildly, idealistic; if there wasn't then someone should fess up and resign. btw it seems the real problem here is the breakdown of trust between western 'liberals' and their governments, but that didn't happen because of the treatment of terror suspects
Piffle. You've been done over. Get over it. Any fool could see this coming.
I can't believe how naive the opposition to this process has been.
As John said, if they had anything, however circumstancial or weak the evidense was, then show a judge and have him detained. Do it in secret if you must, but the purpose of a judiciary is to decide these matters. Otherwise he is an innocent man, in captivity because the governmental party requires it. That is not a good precedent.
Let me get this straight. The Australian authorities originally decided that Haneef was a threat to security so they held him in custody. Then they realised that he they didn't have the evidence that he was a threat, so they released him. Now they're claiming that he might be a threat, so they decided to kick him out of the country, to go wherever.
Either he's a potential threat, in which case he needs to be kept under observation, and investigated further until a conclusion can be reached as to his relationship with terrorism, or he's innocent, in which case he shouldn't be thrown out of the country.
If Haneef is a terrorist, then I'm not keen on him wandering freely around the world. If he's not, then I don't see why he should be restricted from going anywhere, even Australia. I think Howard and co. owe either Haneef or the rest of the world an apology.
Well, they owe Haneef an apology anyway.
Bob
To be held without charge, with faulty evidence as the sole *legal* motivator is bad enough. But now, all of sudden, we're being told "new" information, which, naturally points to Haneef doing something nefarious.
Johnathan, here's the problem. Has anybody linked Haneef to anything nefarious? Has anybody detailed what precisely his terrorist connections are, what he was supposedly doing to aid the Islamists? We have a SIM card which turned out to be completely wrong. We have a relative involved in a terrorist act, and maybe, just maybe, we can call that some sort of link, but sufficient to toss a man in jail without charge?
Come on, Johnathan. Imagine your second cousin being suspected of pedophilia. Do you think the authorities should have the power to detain you because your relative is a dangerous guy? Let's go even further and say they claimed to have evidence linking you to your second cousin's nefarious child porn habits, perhaps claiming you gave the guy a laptop. They detain you under suspicion of being involved in child porn. Then they discover the evidence was faulty, but rather than simply let you go with an apology, they still keep you on a sex offender registry because they question your character.
That's what has happened to Haneef. We have faulty (or rather, non-existent) evidence. We have a pretty strained familial link. We have the claim that the guy was leaving the country (though, I'd be honest, after being accused of being involved in international terrorism by Australian authorities, my first thought might be my own liberty, and I'll wager anyone, particularly of the "wrong" ethnic background, would probably be thinking the same). Now suddenly we have this new and never-before-heard-of chatroom evidence, which apparently wasn't good enough to have a judge keep him in jail, but magically appears when the guy, back in the mother country, suddenly decides "Hey, I think I want to fight these bastards."
You still seem to be of the opinion that international terrorism is some special kind of crime. Can you detail how it's any different than say, international drug cartels or international weapons smuggling? The only difference I see is that nice, white, middle class folks are put at risk, while in other cases it's nameless, faceless, dark-skinned people in far off lands that are the targets.
I mean, imagine how wonderfully well law enforcement would work if we could just detain people on vague suspicions for indeterminate amounts of time, and even after they'd been cleared, we could still cover our asses by giving them the ol' stink eye.
But that's the point. It wasn't, a la Guantanamo, 'indeterminate amounts of time', it was a few days, and the result was that all sorts of people have kicked up an almighty stink which resulted in him being released. This is not some Kafkaesque nightmare. And because the case has become so high profile the evidence against Haneef, if any, is going to come under scrutiny, and if public officials have made jumped to wrong conclusions they should be held to account. The immigration minister, in particular, has burnt his bridges with this chatroom thing. If it turns out to be a bum steer, he has to go.
Johnathan,
A few days or a few months, Haneef's rights were violated, and then the violations continued as the minister and investigative forces in two countries try to cover their own asses. Haneef deserves an apology, he deserves his visa back, or he deserves to hear any real and concrete evidence against him. What's more, the system itself is clearly faulty if a man's liberties can be so easily extinguished. Jailing people on crap evidence, even for a few days, and then refusing to make good on a bad decision, is not exactly a sign of due process.
Your previous posts seemed to indicate that somehow terrorism was some special kind of crime. I've now asked you to back that up. This isn't just about Haneef, but how many countries are dealing with alleged terrorists. It's not just the US, but the UK, Australia, Canada and other countries are trying to bypass cherished liberties, all in the name of public safety, so let's hear precisly why terrorism should get a different classification from, say, serial arson or international drug running.
Johnathan,
what you seem to be forgetting or maybe don't know is that the Australian officials deliberately lied about the evidence in order to be able to detain Haneef. Putting somebody into jail even for five minutes on the basis of a lie is something that can never be allowed in a country that claims to be democratic and governed by the rule of law.
Well it's a good question. Democratically elected politicians will tend to follow the perceived wishes of the electorate - if they are restricting liberties or even trying to bypass the law entirely it's fair to assume they have at least one eye on public opinion. Some people seem to assume that this natural state of affairs will lead, automatically, to 'cherished liberties' being subjected to to the will of the baying populist lynch mob. I doubt it - people do not want to live in a police state, and so the tension between wanting to prevent terrorist atrocities, on the one hand, and not wanting to lose the safeguards of due process, on the other, should lead to a balance acceptable to the majority being struck. It follows that terrorism is a 'special' kind of crime because a majority of the electorate are especially concerned about it. You have every right to argue that electorates are wrong to place a higher value on their own lives than the lives of 'faceless, darkskinned' people who live far away, but, rightly or wrongly, the majority probably does. And to anticipate another criticism, no I don't believe in the idea of 'inalienable' or divinely handed down human rights - what we regard as morally right or wrong depends entirely on our perspective and will change depending on our culture, history, circumstance, and so on. So yes, the majority may decide that what are now cherished liberties can be given up if the security situation changes significantly. I don't think we are there yet, btw, but I wouldn't rule it out on principle, as you, and maybe Wilkes, seem to suggest.
ThonyC - it goes without saying that if a democratically elected official is caught deliberately lying, they have to be forced to resign.
I don't quite understand this justification. Law enforcement now should be based on fads, on what people see on TV? Due process can be suborned because people are more worried about certain crimes? People are incredibly worried about pedophilia. Does that mean there is some argument for detaining people who talk to children they don't know?
Your defense seems to open a window on a kind of law enforcement that can defy all logic, all rational attempts to put crimes in perspective, simply because politicians and the media manage to whip up fears. Can you possibly understand that the very reason due process exists is to protect the accused from what is basically a mob mentality?
Every tyrant who has used public safety as his rallying cry has made essentially the argument you are putting forth, that a specific kind of crime must be deemed separate and somehow more harmful in some fundemental way. From that the tyrant will justify suspension of liberties, because, after all, it's a special kind of crime, and special kinds of crimes require special kinds of powers.
So, apart from the idea that crimes should be judged by how terrified politicians can make us, can you tell me what makes terrorism different than international drug cartels?
I'm arguing precisely the opposite - the wisdom of crowds, not to mention the contempt in which politicians are generally held, will prevent governments from being able to whip up fears and generate a 'mob mentality'. (Needless to say, the USA post-9/11 was an exceptional case - but perhaps understandably so). One of my all-time favourite Blair quotes was that 'climate change is the most serious threat we face - even more serious than the threat of terrorism', which naturally made everyone roll their eyes, change the channel and cheerfully assume we could safely forget about both. Or to put it another way, I really do believe in democracy. You can fool some of the people some the time, etc, but give it time and everything will sort itself out.
Could you demonstrate to my how the wisdom of the crowds has thus far prevented the sorts of judicial and political abuses thus far seen? In the States, at least, it's SCOTUS that has, to a rather sadly limited degree, performed its role as watchdog.
Crowds of people are not defined as being Intellect*N (where N is the number of people), more like Intellect/N. Public outcry for justice in one instance can just as easily be turned to public outcry against justice in another.
The reason we have constitutions and the notions of inalieable rights is because neither the state nor the "crowd" have ever reliably been able to protect abuses against individuals. Since Antiquity, political theorists have known this simple truth about how humans function.
And it is precisely these exceptional cases that most require vigilance and the requirement that the state conform to judicial and enforcement limitations. Due process would have still meant that Haneef was briefly held, but when the evidence was found wanting, he would have been released with no further repurcussions. A lack of due process means that he was held without charge on faulty evidence, and even after he was released, he suffered the consequences of crimes which no one will even publicly and definitely state.
What we have is innuendo and possibly even cooked evidence (this so-called chatroom evidence). The crowd hasn't yet swayed Australian officials, nor forced British police to admit that they fucked it up (if that is indeed what happened, since that's where the fingerpointing is right now). In fact, the state is going out of its to sway the crowd with vague and unevidenced claims (all nicely protected by that other legal attrocity of the state; national security secrets). Maybe the crowd will win out, or maybe the crowd will buy into what are more and more clearly attempts to incompetent investigators and politicians to cover their own asses. In a proper system, Haneef would not have to appeal to either incompetent investigators and politicians or to the crowd, but rather would simply have to say "Charge me or let me go without legal ramifications".
Can you tell mw what's wrong with that? Or does this all go back to this thus far unsupported idea that terrorism is a special crime that allows investigators and officials to trample over civil liberties as they try out "throwing shit at the walls" techniques of law enforcement?
Oh, and I'd just like to apologize to John for cluttering up his blog with this seemingly endless debate.
'I'd just like to apologize to John for cluttering up his blog with this seemingly endless debate.' Agreed.
Hopefully at least we can agree that this all boils down to whether there was any evidence against Haneef - if it really was 'crap', or 'non-existent', or if officials 'deliberately lied', then it is outrageous. At least the public interest in the case should ensure that we do find out, one way or another.
I cannot believe some of the comments here.
Its obvious and reasonable to assume the Federal Police, politicians and anyone else in the case has not lied. Guilty of bungling the case yes but to suggest they would lie you need your head read.
The law courts found not enough evidence to convict him of anything but evidence of bad character, suspicious behaviour, bad associations is enough to deem him a sufficient risk to take back his visa.
The chat room evidence isn't the only evidence against this man and I trust the minister, the Federal Police, the members of the opposition and all the others that were privy to the still secret evidence that influence them enough to support the detention of Dr Haneef.
If Dr Haneef was really a stand up guy he would be understanding of the actions taken in regard to himself by those charged with the protection of the Australian public instead of holding news media stunts back in India accusing the Australian authorities of a conspiracy against him.
It seems there is a bias faviourable to Haneef in the Australia media which is I suppose a sign of strength and health in our society, inclined to protect the human rights of the individual, I just wish for more balance.
Going by the Indian media Haneef is a hero.
I don't know on which planet you are living Glenn but it is exactly the fact that government official admitted that they had lied concerning the evidence on which Haneef was held that led to his release.
What chatroom evidence? After it's revealed that the SIM card evidence didn't exist at all, and after people start asking questions as to why the guy's visa isn't renewed, suddenly there's chatroom evidence, which of course no one is privey to. All very convenient.
So far as I am aware no judge made any statement on Haneef's character, and the only things that anyone has said to impune it is a) he has a relative who is a Jihadist and b) he took steps to leave the country after he had been accused of being involved in failed London attacks.
As to secret evidence, a man has a right to hear the accusations against him, and again, it's all too convenient to make vague suggestions about things "we can't tell you in the interests of security and investigation, but which we assure you would anger you and make you hate Haneef as much as the incompetent investigators in the UK and Australia do."
If Haneef is a terrorist, or is aiding terrorists, then I'll be at the front of the line demanding he brought to justice. But this has all the earmarks of incompetent law enforcement and political interference, and whether or not anyone intentionally lied, a man was accused based on completely faulty evidence.
I don't know how it would be in Australia, but in many countries, illegally obtained evidence is still evidence. The people who committed the illegal acts to obtain the evidence will face prosecution, but that doesn't change the fact that it's evidence. Of course, illegally obtained evidence is usually less reliable (and verifyable) than legally obtained evidence.
Fruit of the poison tree applies in Australia, so far as I know.
Jonathan Vause-"I'm arguing precisely the opposite - the wisdom of crowds, not to mention the contempt in which politicians are generally held, will prevent governments from being able to whip up fears and generate a 'mob mentality'."
42,000 people died in the US in automobile accidents in 2006, and yet no one is trying to whip up fears of auto accidents like they do terrorism. Crowds do not have wisdom.
John Wilkins wrote:
Indeed. A good part of the development of representative democracy was the realization since Classical times that large groups of citizens making decisions is not a recipe for justice or order.