CCTV and Mass Surveillance
Big Brother now knows your name. Listen to Civil Liberties Australia’s Vice-President, Tim Vines, speak with Perth Indymedia Radio – RTR 92.1 FM about the expansion of CCTV with facial recognition
Category: Human Rights
Open prisons to new ideas for all to benefit
Prisoners should undergo health, mental health and education level checks on entry for baseline measurements to check how rehabilitated they are when eventually released, CLA proposes in a detailed submission to the Queensland Productivity Commission’s current major inquiry into prison reform.
Verifying virtuality could scorch the planet?
Should we be worrying about rights and liberties issues broader than the mainstream problems and opportunities? CLA member Silke Hesse introduces a consideration from left field about whether or not we’ll have a planet left to inhabit as a society. What do you think?
Never-ending inquiry into religion to keep on keeping on
The federal government is likely to keep inquiring into religious freedoms in the new parliament from May 2019, because it can’t make up its mind how to reconcile giving priority to Christian religious beliefs in a secular society mandated by the Australian Constitution. The latest of many inquiries has just reported, and it at least had the good grace to quote the sensible observations of CLA.
Spooky MPs raise the bar on monumental hypocrisy
The chair, Andrew Hastie, and deputy chair, Anthony Byrne, of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security have issued a truly historically hypocritical media release in which the parliament’s most repressive committee claims it stands for ‘the ability to report freely on national security’ as ‘vital to our democracy’. What about on-water incidents with boats and refugee claimants? What about ASIO reporting restrictions? What about the Witness K/Collaery secret trial at the moment? We haven’t heard a word from either of the two PJCIS heavies standing up for the media’s right to report ‘freely’ on those issues.
DFAT: Report on 2019 Annual NGO Forum on Human Rights
Forums between civil society organisations and the government departments provide excellent opportunities for robust, two-way exchanges of thoughts and opinions. The February 2019 DFAT forum saw some sharp exchanges as NGOs tried to hold the government accountable for seeming human rights abuses. But, as CLA Director Eloise McLean reports, much responsibility for how Australia respects human rights now rests with the ‘action’ agency, the Department of Home Affairs.