Stilgherrian » law enforcement

Newtown Festival fenced in

Stilgherrian — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:50:24 +0000

Encased in a steel cage and with people prevented from choosing their own drinks, yesterday’s Newtown Festival ceased being a true community event and became yet another “officially-sanctioned party.” It’ll never be the same again. But why should it be that way?

Story is, the police gave festival coordinator Sue Anderson three choices: fence in the event and ban BYO alcohol, pay them to provide 30 officers, or… no festival at all. With user-pays policing apparently too expensive, she went for the fence.

Sue tried to spin the decision. “It’s only a fence,” she claimed in The Drum Media Official Guide to the Newtown Festival 2006. And she said there’d be a variety of drinks to buy on site.

Wrong on both counts.

A fence isn’t only a fence. It’s also pig-ignorant private security staff unable to open their mouths fully. It’s a surly “Move to the next gate!” instead of a smile and a “Hi folks, the queue’s shorter just over there.” It’s bag searches and do as you’re told.

It’s only a fence in the same way that Israel is only building a wall — one of the most powerful symbols of exclusion society has devised. No longer is it Our Community gathering in Our Park. It’s just those community members who are acceptable to an authority following an arbitrary set of rules. Sure, it was all-in this year, but the mechanisms are now in place to clamp it down further.

A fence and a “voluntary” gold coin donation is just one step short of yet another Ticketed Day Out.

Beer? Some choice!

The promised variety of alcohol simply wasn’t there.

The beers? Two. VB or Carlton Draught. Both lagers — even though Newtown is probably the most ale-conscious part of Sydney. Both from CUB. Both shit.

The spirits? Vodka Smirnoff Red, UDL Vodka, Lime & Soda, and UDL Vodka & Orange. In other words, any spirit you like — as long as it’s vodka. And as long as it’s canned lollywatershitevodka.

Sue, none of this is your fault. You were pressured into compliance. It’s a shame you felt you had to do this.
Bar Shakespeare (nee Coopers Arms Hotel) chose their wares cluelessly. But despite this, the event was a success. Well done.

Why fence us in?

The rationale is police perception that the festival “sits on a knife edge” and “could go crazy at any moment”. There were “quite a few incidents” last year, we’re told, including a stabbing outside the Courthouse Hotel.

That’s unfortunate. But if someone commits a crime it’s their fault, whether they’re tanked up or not, and regardless of where they got pissed.

However my main problem with police pressure to fence the festival is that it’s financial blackmail. Do things our way, or don’t do them at all.

“User-pays policing” is a disturbing concept. I’m guessing it was forced upon hard-working boys and girls in blue by politicians avoiding actually spending our taxes on services. Again. Perhaps if we’re talking about for-profit events there might be some justification… but no, actually!

Banks and bookmakers are for-profit, but police investigate thefts and frauds committed against them. Owners of expensive cars or properties are likewise supported, though you could argue that they attract theft through ostentation.

Why should a community event — something so perfectly normal as a spring festival, the whole point of which is for youngfolk to burn off hormonal energy and, yes, have a few beers on a sunny Sunday afternoon — have to pay extra for policing?

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Explain your allegiances!

Stilgherrian — Wed, 30 Aug 2006 12:12:35 +0000

“I’m in hiding! I don’t want to be asked by Australian law enforcement agents whether I’m an Australian first and a Catholic second or vice versa,” writes Father Bob Maguire. Bob says that asking whether Australian Muslims put global Islam before local loyalty reminds him of the way Catholics were persecuted in the 1920. “That atmosphere is not good for clear thinking. You and I need to maintain the right to think deeply and clearly before we ratify political decisions to destroy lives and property.”

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Fed Police chief proposes “Reprogramming”

Stilgherrian — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 09:30:24 +0000

You probably missed it, but last week Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty actually proposed forcibly “reprogramming” people’s political beliefs.

Speaking on ABC TV’s Lateline on 8 March, Keelty says we should look at techniques which have been used “successfully” in such bastions of human rights as Indonesia, Singapore and Pakistan — even referring to it as “best practice”.

Keelty equates reprogramming people to convincing an informer to give evidence, and says this is the next step… to re-program somebody who has a belief or holds a belief. It has already been discussed with the government in the context of anti-terrorism control orders.

Commissioner Keelty, just in case you’ve forgotten Articles 18 and 19 of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, here’s a refresher…

Belief: a Basic Human Right

The UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was signed and ratified by Australia.

18.1 Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion…

18.2 No one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice…

19.1 Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

19.2 Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

The UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights expands upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it does have provisions for “limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others”.

But the key word is necessary. Not convenient or useful, but necessary. You may only restrict human rights if there’s no other method at all for preserving our safety. There’s a burden of proof there, and Keelty hasn’t even begun to address it.

Who’s Belief?

The dangerous question, of course, is who chooses what political beliefs we “should” have.

Keelty was careful to call his proposal “de-programming” — making a distinction between the bad “brainwashing” or “programming” done by Them and the healthy “de-programming” done by Us.

But whether a change in belief is “forward” programming or “reverse” de-programming or sideways “re-programming” is simply a matter of your political beliefs and how you want to spin it.

Spin 1: Make it sound community-minded

Keelty admits there might be a PR problem here. He says we need to…

“…be very careful as to how we present those operations, not only back to the Australian community, but to those within the community who might otherwise take up the the cause because they see one part of their community being disenfranchised or mistreated by the authorities.”

Quite.

So he tries hard to make it sound humane, twice mentioning that you might “turn” someone using “somebody who’s influential within the community. A respected imam, for example” — once more reinforcing en passant the propaganda that terrorist = Muslim.

But in the end Keelty is quite pragmatic:

“The best scenario would be… the one that is likely to yield the best results.”

And what is best? Well, this technique…

“…also opens up the opportunity to get information that would otherwise not be available.”

Spin 2: Make it sound medical

Commissioner Keelty also tries to equate his “de-programming” to treating drug addition. After all, it’s “healthy” if we’re treating a “sickness”.

“People who believe something that the wider community doesn’t believe in and certainly doesn’t understand and when you get into the realms of suicide bombers, that is something that is so foreign to, I guess, our way of thinking that somebody who is in that position has to not be thinking rationally. So if I guess the extension of that is if they’re acting and thinking irrationally, then how do we convert that behaviour and bring it back to rational behaviour? In a sense, that is a sickness.”

Except for one tiny problem.

The health model is about getting the best result for the patient, based on the medical opinion of qualified doctors. That’s not the same as getting “the best result” for policeman who are after “the opportunity to get information”.

The full transcript of the interview makes interesting reading.