Fifty years after Canada’s most recent police state imposition, two academics warn about the repressive history of laws brought in to cope with ‘emergencies’. Citizens must not give governments powers that are certain to be abused by later suspension of civil liberties, police crackdowns and, with today’s and tomorrow’s technology, electronic Big Brother surveillance.A new rights-eroding law would increase the reach of police and spooks into our lives at the expense of our withering rights, says author Paul Gregoire writing for Sydney Criminal Lawyers. The Frankenstein legislation would enable five-ways open slather access to all phone calls, emails, data and even metadata.
For all those politicians (and the media) who posture at being “tough on crime” and who bring in mandatory sentences to appear to be “smart” legislators telling magistrates and judges how to make decisions and pass sentences, hear this plea from a real live criminal lawyer dealing with the consequences of such irresponsible political action in the Northern Territory…
Statistics show that more deaths occur in the police-prisons workplace than in the supposed highly dangerous industries in NSW. But deaths in police-prisons facilities are ignored in workplace health and safety analysis. For the sake of police and prison workers, at the very least, the impacts of deaths in such facilities must be formally referred to the workplace regulator for proper investigation, analysis and downstream action.
Tasmanians have lost the right to their own images: their driver licence photos been handed over willy-nilly by the state government to the federal security apparatus…in advance of proposed new national laws being passed to make the spooky ‘facevault’ legal. CLA Director Richard Griggs has empowered people to protest through a new website www.deletemyphoto.net
The Tasmanian government is having another crack at introducing Australia’s worst – and most expensive, for citizens – anti-protest laws. The High Court threw out their first attempt. Now an ‘openly deceptive’ government is trying to sneak in laws which would instantly turn minor peaceful protest almost anywhere in Tasmania into a major crime. You can sign the e-petition.
The Tasmanian government is again reneging on a promise, this time over a proposed new protest law, introducing massive penalties to restrict genuine protest by concerned citizens along with draconian provisions for police to enforce. Indpendents in Parliament must reject this ‘outrageous law’, CLA’s Tasmanian Director Richard Griggs says.
It’s time to end the unfair practice of the same police force investigating shooting deaths, alleged stun gun abuse, police car chase fatal accidents and major complaints about police behaviour. CLA believes citizens will never get justice from police ”internal” affairs probes until the “internal” bit is replaced by independent investigators and other representing a civil liberties and human rights viewpoint. The time to change is now.
If your local police are in a chatty mood, do you have to converse with them? Peter Karasavas was unnerved by an unusual approach he witnessed, then experienced as a pedestrian. Federal MP Andrew Wilkie has warned we’re headed towards being a police state – is this what the future looks like?
