President Obama addressed the serious issues of civil rights versus the safety of citizens in an address to the American people. The President was responding to the leaking of NSA secrets and military data (by now Russian based contractor) Edward Snowdon whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/01/17/remarks-president-review-signals-intelligence Can something be true even if Julie Bishop says it’s true? Australia’s Foreign Minister, on her current visit to Washington, took up President Obama’s theme. “Intelligence gathering,” she said, was “about saving lives” (The Guardian 23/1/14). The trenchantly conservative Australian newspaper, not surprisingly, editorialised in ‘Obama smart on intelligence’ (theaustralian.au/opinion/editorials/obama-smart-on-intelligence/story-e6frg71x-1226805430910 ), that the US President ‘has been wise to largely ignore the lunar Left’s clamour for what would amount to the crippling of America’s intelligence gathering capabilities.’ I argued in a letter to the editor: Many of the same arguments advanced by Snowdon and Assange are mirrored by the ‘lunar Right’, in particular in Australia, by the Institute for Public Affairs. Until recently at least the extreme libertarian faction of the IPA has been running a vociferous campaign against the use of meta-data by the intelligence services (link to Henderson’s column). Like the lunar Left they have failed to note the parliamentary and government supervision of ASIO, the existence of the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security, and the need for these organisations to obtain warrants to delve into this meta-data. (danbymp/published-articles/1932-protection-of-australians-is-our-first-duty.html) The IPA-faction has parroted many of the Snowdon-Assange lines on the hyped perils of the use of this meta-data to prevent terrorist attacks. One IPA humourist in particular, mocked the intelligence services’ concerns with some of Al Qaeda’s advice to home-grown terrorists to use pressure cooker bombs. Citing simplicity, Al Qaeda advised that a pressure cooker with explosives and ball bearings and other steels shards could cause maximum civilian casualties. Of course the terrorists at the Boston bombing and recently in a bus in the Israeli town of Bat-yam used precisely such devices. (timesofisrael/thwarted-israeli-bus-blast-similar-to-boston-bombings/ ) I hope the IPA will officially announce the calling off of its campaign to prevent the judicious use of meta-data by the intelligence services in their efforts to counter terrorism. (danbymp/published-articles/1904-libertarianism-gone-mad-the-ipa-and-our-security.html ) I look forward to the Australian editorial denouncing the lunar Right as it has the lunar Left. (picture) Chris Berg and Simon Breheny of the IPA compared Al-Qaeda to ‘Mad Magazine’ (appropriately Mad runs the cartoon Spy vs Spy). It’s unlikely the victims of Al-Qaeda’s pressure cooker bombs felt the same way.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Jan 2014 04:38:43 +0000
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