DAYS OF INFAMY

Future historians will ask, how did it happen that people can be snatched off the streets in secret, never to be seen again. 

Wasn't this once a democracy? 

They dined at the official residence the night before, these betrayers of the people, the premiers of the Australian states, the Chief Minsters of the territories. 

They signed away the civil liberties of Australians without hesitation. In an official ceremony, no less. 

And nobody held them to account. 

The Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, desperate to hold on to power, repeatedly misused his power as he continued what he thought was clever manipulation of the Australian media. On that morning of shame, he did a softer than soft interview with the execrable journalists on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's breakfast show, where he faced not a single solitary difficult question on the abrogation of the citizen's liberties. 

Then they wheeled out ABC lightweight and doyen of the Insiders Barry Cassidy to agree with them that the civil libertarians didn't have a leg to stand on, not when we were talking about terror. 

Not in the wake of so many incidents overseas. 

The introduction of jail  without charge, without oversight. It wold come back to haunt them. 

"What they don't tell you," Old Alex said at an afternoon gathering on the Sunshine Coast, sunny one day, perfect the next, "is that if anyone thus jailed dares to speak about what happened during those fourteen days, they will be jailed. Again.

"If a journalist writes about what happened, they will be jailed."

No one will be able speak out about the abuses that will no doubt occur under what could be called summary detention.

Not one journalist bothered to ask about this obvious backward step, giving the power of life and death to a secretive parallel police force.

The future was already being trucked in. 

What happened if a person was tortured during those 14 days, and died as a result of their treatment?

No one could talk about it? No one could write about it? 

If every mentioned in any official report, it would not be for public discussion. 

"That's not right. That's not the Australia I know," came a response. 

But it was the Australia they were now all living in. 


THE BIGGER STORY:

This morning, the Islamic State’s semi-official news agency, Amaq, took credit for the Las Vegas massacre, which killed 58 and wounded another 515. The likely killer, identified by police as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada, was not known to be a supporter of the Islamic State, or indeed a Muslim of any type. For now, the only evidence that the Islamic State was involved is its own assurance—first a press release announcing that a “soldier of the Islamic State” executed the concertgoers, and a follow-up for the baffled, explaining that he converted to Islam months ago. The FBI has stated that it doesn’t believe the attack was related to international terrorism.

The sun has barely risen on Las Vegas, and there may be blood still slick on the Strip. Speculation about mass shootings in the hours after they occur is not just a fool’s game but an impatient fool’s. Evidence will be forthcoming, and these assertions by the Islamic State will be tested against reality. But already I hear a familiar chorus of doubt: The Islamic State will “take credit for anything,” it says, “even hurricanes.”

The vast majority of the Islamic State’s claimed attacks were undertaken by men acting in its name, often after leaving short video statements confirming their intentions. The Amaq news agency is the preferred venue for the initial claim, usually within a day. (Sloppy reporters sometimes mistake the rejoicing of online supporters, meteorological or not, for an official claim.) If they were really so promiscuous with their claims, we would long since have ignored them, as we do claims from other yahoos who have tried to take credit for atrocities authored by others. The idea that the Islamic State simply scans the news in search of mass killings, then sends out press releases in hope of stealing glory, is false.

Terrorism suspects could be interrogated for up to 14 days before being charged under a major shake up of Australia's terrorism laws being proposed by the Turnbull government.
And it would be an offence to possess "instructional terrorist material" and to make terrorism hoaxes under two new laws that will be considered by state and federal leaders at a special terrorism-focused Council of Australian Governments meeting in Canberra on Thursday.
The proposal to hold suspects for 14 days without charge and the two new offences are the three key proposals that will be examined at the special meeting, but a broad range of other counter-terrorism issues will be discussed.
The Turnbull government believes the recently foiled plot to blow up a plane in Sydney serves as the best example for the shift to a nationally consistent 14 days detention regime.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says "we must use every technology we can" to keep people safe.
He wants driver licence photos provided to build a national system to identify people.
This is in addition to a federal law allowing terrorism suspects to be held without charge for 14 days; making it illegal to possess instructional terrorist material; and broadening the scope for Australian defence forces to target and kill terrorists, even if they're not in a combat role.