VICE reports Australia's spy agencies are rolling the government into passing laws that force them to accept illegally obtained evidence And allow anyone affiliated with a spy operation to break the laws with immunity from prosecution.
Islamist jihadis are being used to sell the legislation.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Attorney General George Brandis and ASIO director general David Irvine have been keen to link the laws to the threat of Australian jihadis fighting overseas. However the Bill does not mention Islamists or jihadis at all--instead they contain a mountain of radical changes which include:
There were no members of the public to witness the "public" meeting, held in a room that smelt like rubber stamps....
this is a cultural war. Islamism cannot be negotiated with, it can only be met head on.
The Abbott Government is getting everything wrong here... They are giving up the basic democratic freedoms that separate the West from the rest. Osama Bin Laden and his co-fascists are forcing us to change our way of life, more than we are forcing them to change their ideology.
That is a win for them.
Instead Abbott should name the enemy and target legislation at fascist Islam, naming it specifically - not remove basic rights wholesale from everyone else.