Originally posted by STANGIt was a tongue-in-cheek reference to some of those activist, ugly Americans who, so self-aware of how things should be, decide to run to foreign countries (example of a foreign country, not that far, alphabetically from America: Australia), to protest legitimate business practices/policies of legitimate businesses and/or governments, all in the vain hopes of obtaining legitimacy and/or recognition from established activist organizations (example: Greenpeace).
You can walk on water ?
Sound familiar?
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt/stories/s1463699.htm
Last Thursday morning American activist Scott Parkin was put on a flight to Los Angeles after ASIO handed the federal government an adverse security assessment in relation to the 35-year-old founder of the Houston Global Alliance.
For some time, the alliance has been campaigning against the presence of western troops in Iraq, and highlighting the role of Houston conglomerate Halliburton, which has been awarded many a contract in Iraq by the US government.
Scott Parkin’s barrister is Julian Burnside, QC.
Julian Burnside: Scott Parkin is an American political activist who has spent a long time advocating non-violent protest, and has recently been very vocal in his criticism of the American invasion of Iraq, and in particular the involvement of Halliburton, with its close connections with Dick Cheney and the clear knowledge that Halliburton is getting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues from the invasion of Iraq.
Damien Carrick: What sorts of activities has he been engaged in both here in Australia and back in the USA?
Julian Burnside: Well in the USA he’s been involved in various protests in which he’s done fairly imaginative things such as dressing up in a pig suit and calling himself ‘Hallibacon’ and things of that sort. In Australia, he was involved in the protest at the Forbes dinner held at Circular Quay, and he was giving a few workshops for various activist groups. For the most part, he was here on holiday. He was just chilling out with friends at various places but he was, because of his track record, asked to do things here and there.
Damien Carrick: Now I understand that he was removed from Australia following an adverse security assessment; what does that mean?
Julian Burnside: What it means is that a competent authority, presumably ASIO, assessed him as an adverse security risk. They told the Department of Immigration and automatically the Department of Immigration cancelled his visa. That means that he was automatically detained under the Migration Act, and he was held in detention until he could be removed. Under the Migration Act his detention was at his own expense, and his removal was at his own expense, and he’s received a bill for about 12-grand for being locked up in solitary and his own air fare and the air fare of two guards.
Damien Carrick: This adverse security assessment, what does it mean? What would be the basis of it? Does this mean that he is a security risk in the sense that he’s advocating or promoting violence or involved in any kind of violent action?
Julian Burnside: We just don’t know. We simply do not know. We don’t know what ASIO takes into account, we don’t know how they process it, we don’t know whether they got their facts wrong, and we don’t know what standards or values or criteria they applied to whatever facts they worked on. We simply do not know, and the Department and the Attorney-General will not tell us.
Damien Carrick: So is there any way of questioning what is in that adverse security assessment?
Julian Burnside: We are trying to do that. The difficulty that confronts us, potentially, is that the Attorney-General has got power under the National Security Information Act to certify conclusively that revealing the contents of the report would adversely affect Australia’s national security interests. And if he certifies that, then any court hearing our challenge will have to hold a private hearing in which the court considers whether or not to allow the evidence to be produced in court. And in that process the statute directs the Judge to give primary weight to the conclusive certificate of the Attorney, which looks (and it’s never been tested) but it looks as though it gives him the chance to stymie the process of examining the basis for the report.
Damien Carrick: But presumably the court would be able to examine perhaps in camera or in private, what the assessment says, so at least it will be subject to some kind of scrutiny.
Julian Burnside: It may be. It may be. We don’t know, because the Act also permits the litigant and his lawyers to be excluded from the court. So what goes on in the closed court without our presence is anyone’s guess. Now we don’t know if it will play out that way but it’s a matter of concern that the legislation permits it to play out that way.
Damien Carrick: Now one person who has been briefed about the contents of the assessment is Opposition leader Kim Beazley. He’s satisfied that Scott Parkin should have been removed; what store do you put in Kim Beazley’s assessment?
Julian Burnside: None at all. ASIO were not prepared to show the report to the leader of the Greens, and it’s not clear that Mr Beazley was shown the report. He was given a briefing – that’s a different matter. We don’t know how much he knows of what went on. In addition, we don’t know whether Mr Beazley was given the underlying facts on which the report was based, nor do we know whether he had any opportunity or even desire, to check whether the facts were accurate. Now any assessment like that depends on two things: the first is what are the facts, and whether those facts are accurate; and the second is, what’s the process of assessment? How do you go from the facts to the conclusion that this person is a risk? What’s the standard which is applied? Now we don’t know whether Mr Beazley was told anything about that. We do know a couple of things though: we know that Scott Parkin did not break the law; we know that he was not involved in anything violent; we know that he doesn’t advocate violence; so we’re left wondering, what on earth is it that makes him apparently a security risk?
Damien Carrick: And what do you think that might be?
Julian Burnside: I’ve no idea. And the one possibility of course is that his open political opposition to the war in Iraq and to the involvement of Halliburton might put him in the unpopular camp in the eyes of the present government in Australia and certainly in America. I’m a little reluctant to think that it would be as plainly political as that, but it’s possible and the difficulty is, when you’ve excluded other possibilities, like he’d broken the law, which he hasn’t, or he’d been advocating violence, which he hadn’t, once you’ve excluded those possibilities, then you’re not left with very much else. And it looks just like bare-faced political censorship.
Damien Carrick: So you’re basically throwing down the gauntlet to the government saying, if you don’t reveal what the basis of your adverse security assessment is, that leaves the general community with the view that perhaps you’re playing politics here.
Julian Burnside: It does leave you with that unsatisfactory possibility, and in any event, it’s unsatisfactory that a government agency with great powers cannot be held to account for the way it exercises those powers. This case has brought to light the scope and consequences of ASIO’s powers. ASIO has to have wide powers, but it shouldn’t be unaccountable. It’s interesting to speculate whether this would have played out the same way if Scott Parkin, instead of being an American activist, had been a devout Muslim from Iran, or somewhere like that. I wonder if there would have been the same level of community concern, or whether we would have been prepared to assume that that person was involved in bad business and therefore should be kicked out? It’s a dangerous climate that’s developing in Australia, that anything that is anti-Muslim is fairly readily accepted, and of course that in turn is built on the false assumption that all Muslims are either terrorists or possible terrorists. It’s a very dangerous development, and I think as soon as ASIO and other agencies are held to account for the way they exercise the powers, the sooner that climate will dissipate.
Damien Carrick: Julian Burnside, QC.
I put it to Federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, that by not disclosing the details of concerns about any potential politically motivated violence, the government is leaving itself wide open to the criticism that there is no real substance to Parkin’s adverse security assessment.
Philip Ruddock: Well people can assert that, but I don’t know of any assessment that’s ever made public. The fact is that ASIO makes between 20,000 and 40,000 security assessments a year. Very few of those are prejudicial. In the last year 2003-4, they made 44,722 assessments, three of which were prejudicial to the person about whom they were made. But the assessments, whether positive or adverse, are never made known publicly.
Damien Carrick: But I guess what you’re doing is, you’re asking the community to accept that someone’s rights should be severely curtailed without giving any reason for it.
Philip Ruddock: Well what I can say is, if it’s an Australian who receives an adverse assessment, they’re advised that it’s adverse. And they contest it before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal in its Security Appeals Division. And while there is still limitations on information that might be provided if that has relevance to national security, the fact is that there is an independent assessment. They are the assessments on which, say, passports are cancelled for instance, but in relation to adverse assessments given in relation to foreign nationals, we’ve never provided access to our Security Appeals Division. If people want to test those matters they can complain to the Ombudsman, who is the independent officer appointed to look at the administration of the security system.
So those avenues are available, but there are good reasons why security information is not put in the public arena. There are people around who think I should be able to make the decision as to what will be there or not, and some should be, and some shouldn’t perhaps, but the reality is that if you get information for instance from a foreign...
Originally posted by STANGSorry: was that a yes, or was that a no?
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/lawrpt/stories/s1463699.htm
Last Thursday morning American activist Scott Parkin was put on a flight to Los Angeles after ASIO handed the federal government an adverse security assessment in relation to the 35-year-old founder of the Houston Global Alliance.
For some time, the alliance has been campaigning against the ...[text shortened]... shouldn’t perhaps, but the reality is that if you get information for instance from a foreign...
Originally posted by FreakyKBHI disagree and provided an example of an American activist who was recently ejected from Australia on the basis of him being a security risk without further explanation. Now, I agree that America, as a nation under Bush, is a security risk but I don't think the American activist was.
Sorry: was that a yes, or was that a no?
Originally posted by STANGAnd you will do what about the same?
I disagree and provided an example of an American activist who was recently ejected from Australia on the basis of him being a security risk without further explanation. Now, I agree that America, as a nation under Bush, is a security risk but I don't think the American activist was.
Originally posted by scottishinnzEve was the first to eat, but Adam ate also. And since the responsibility for the family rests on the male, it was Adam's fault, and thus he gets "credit" for it.
I thought it was Eve that chose to eat the apple and sin, not Adam, who, I'm led to believe, was relatively blameless in the whole thing.
Originally posted by vistesd
[b]When Adam choose to sin, he condemned the entire human race to hell.
It is essentially a reading back into the story through a much later Christian lens.[/b]
How is that? Please explain.
[b]Second, it is eminently unjust to condemn the whole human race for the actions of one person. How is this sinfulness transmitted from [i]ha adam[/ ...[text shortened]... away from that tree. This they clearly understand and wilfully choose to go against.
Daniel
Originally posted by vistesdMy previous post on this got messed up. Sorry.
Second, it is eminently unjust to condemn the whole human race for the actions of one person. How is this sinfulness transmitted from ha adam to his progeny? Sexually?
Thirdly, do you know what the Hebrew and Greek words translated as “sin” mean?
The wages of sin is death.
The first humans were subject to death before eating of t ...[text shortened]... tov v’ra[/i]) prior to “eating the fruit,” nor any knowledge of consequences for their actions.[/b]
Even today we have illnesses that get passed down from parent to child. The sin nature that we inherit from Adam is the spiritual equivalent.
I'm not a linguist, so I'll trust the translators on this one. The 12 versions of the Bible I looked at all use the word sin in Gen 4:7.
Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in Gen 3:6. Eve bore their first child in Gen 4:1. So who are these 'first humans' you're referencing?
They may not have known the differnece between good and evil, but they did understand the will of God. And God's will was that they stay away from that tree. They willingly choose to go against God's will, and thus sinned.
Daniel