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Project SafeCom News and Updates 23 October 2005
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Project SafeCom
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Oct 22, 2005 17:58 PDT
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Project SafeCom News and Updates 23 October 2005
NOTE: NEWSLETTER BREAK (more below) - with our apologies to you all, this
will be the last newsletter for a while....
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¤ - In this Edition - ¤
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. A 'forced' newsletter break
2. Govt urged to close Port Hedland detention centre
3. Immigration dept says no to detention centre closure call
4. Bird flu fear grips Baxter detainees
5. Epic refugee play eclipses esoteric offerings
6. Anti-terror laws: RAR Members Alert
7. Secret codes reveal a printout's origin
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-|| This is the Project SafeCom Newsletter - also published
-|| as the RAC-VIC Newsletter (Racvicnews) since July 2004 by
agreement
-|| with RAC Victoria, which endorsed that their news service be
-|| managed by Project SafeCom. More information about us below.
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1. A 'forced' newsletter break
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NOTE: NEWSLETTER BREAK
With our apologies to you all, this will be the last newsletter for a
while because we're needing to work on administration issues, the Annual
General Meeting coming up in November and a re-orientation following that
AGM, planning for 2006 etc.
The break is NOT connected to any notions of "no news" or
"a lesser need" for the newsletter, especially not because
draconian terrorism legislation looms darkly in Australia this month - on
the contrary, it's forced upon us by organisational and planning
work.
Please read the RAR Members Alert below, and consider to engage your
group, organisation or alliance, or just yourself and your friends
immediately with this issue. Remember, the TAMPA drama and the ensuing
horrors were NOT about refugees but about Australian politicians trying
to establish a dictatorship by elected government and the exclusion of
scrutiny and review by Australian courts and the judiciary, and about a
horrific thrashing of International Civil and Political and Human Rights
Conventions in this process. Viewed in this context, the terrorism
legislation is just "the next step" for our mini-dictator John
Winston Howard.
And, if you're nervous and unsure about who your real enemy is, read
Bruce Haigh's remarks on our website:
http://www.safecom.org.au/haigh1.htm
So, from here on the newsletter will not be a daily event for a while.
Some good tips and links for your own news-surfing may want to start by
'playing' on the Project SafeCom Search page:
http://www.safecom.org.au/search.htm
... the National News pages at Fairfax:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/index.html
and
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/index.html
... and the main location for all breaking news stories from the AAP Wire reports:
http://www.news.com.au/breakingnews/0,10123,29277,00.html
I hope to be back some time in November or early December. There may be occasional other notices through this newsletter listing for you as subscribers during that time.
regards
Jack H Smit
Project SafeCom Inc.
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2. Govt urged to close Port Hedland detention centre
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ABC ONLINE NEWS
Wednesday, October 19, 2005. 12:07pm (AEST)
A Western Australian state Labor backbencher is calling on the Federal Government to close the Port Hedland detention centre in the state's north.
The Member for Central Kimberley-Pilbara, Tom Stephens, says with Canberra's decision to keep the Nauru centre open for only two detainees, there is no need to maintain an empty facility in WA.
He says as well, the Port Hedland detention centre is an eyesore.
"Dominating the landscape with its ugliness, it's right in the middle of a residential area and ideally should be returned to that community so it can be put to use ... for public purposes, ideally for public open space, and of course the big pressure on Hedland at the moment is locations upon which to build increased residential units available for the resources boom," he said.
The ABC has contacted the Department of Immigration for a response.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200510/s1485709.htm
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3. Immigration dept says no to detention centre closure call
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ABC ONLINE NEWS
Thursday, 20 October 2005. 09:35 (AWST)
The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) has rejected a call to close the Port Hedland detention centre.
The state Labor Member for Central Kimberley-Pilbara, Tom Stephens, has also described the centre as an eyesore.
The department says the presence of the facility in the town acts as a deterrent to possible illegal immigrants.
Department spokesman Clayton Boundey says the centre will remain.
"The centre has been mothballed. However, it continues to be part of the contingency capacity at detention operations. Parts of the facility are currently being used by DIMIA as an administrative base for officers working in the area," he said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/items/200510/1486555.htm?northwestwa
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4. Bird flu fear grips Baxter detainees
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The Advertiser
By NIGEL HUNT
22oct05
DETAINEES at the Baxter detention centre fear they will be the first in Australia to be exposed to the deadly bird flu.
They fear Indonesian fisherman being caught illegally fishing in Australia's northern waters will unwittingly transport the virus to Baxter, near Port Augusta.
There are now more than 130 Indonesian fishermen being held at Baxter, 19 of whom arrived last weekend.
Dozens more are expected over the next fortnight as Customs continues a blitz on illegal fishermen in Australian waters.
A two-week air-and-sea operation that ended this week resulted in the seizure of 31 boats and 59 Indonesian fishermen being charged with offences.
The 31 illegal fishing boats apprehended have been towed to Broome, on WA's Kimberley coastline, and many of the fishermen are expected to be flown to Baxter before being deported to Indonesia.
Baxter sources have told The Advertiser that detainees expressed their fears to management at a meeting this week and were assured that the Indonesian fishermen had been screened before arrival.
Bird flu has killed six people in Indonesia and more than 60 in Asia since 2003. Migratory birds have spread the virus to Europe.
Authorities are bracing for a pandemic if the virus mutates to enable its spread between people.
A recently released Baxter detainee, identified only as Sam, said yesterday detainees and some guards were concerned at the risk.
Sam said fears had been heightened because of the number of fishermen being placed in Baxter and that many had been deported and reapprehended.
"Everyone has been assured that they are not carrying the disease," Sam said,"but with some of them returning so soon, how can they be so certain?"
Sam said detainees had recognised two of the 19 who arrived last weekend. "One held his fingers up to indicate he had returned three times," Sam said.
"They are fed well, paid while they are here, given new clothes and shoes to take home, then they arrive on another boat in rags."
A Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs spokesman last night said the "health and wellbeing" of all detainees was assessed to identify any health issues, but referred bird flu inquiries to "quarantine and health authorities".
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,16994689%255E2682,00.html
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5. Epic refugee play eclipses esoteric offerings
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The Age
October 23, 2005
The 20th annual festival, the first for director Kristy Edmunds, was seen as too abstract, writes Gabriella Coslovich.
IT WAS an intriguing 17 days, an arts festival with its share of eccentricities and controversies; empty galleries professing to be art, actors in gorilla suits firing popcorn missiles at the audience, live goats, cows and copulating rabbits debuting at the State Theatre.
But in the end, it was a stuffed donkey, its rustic keepers and a rolling flood of desperate, displaced people which most affected audiences in French director Ariane Mnouchkine's outstanding theatre production Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssees).
The 20th Melbourne International Arts Festival was Kristy Edmunds' first as artistic director, but it would be fair to say that it was as much Mnouchkine's festival as it was Edmunds'.
The wild-haired, 66-year-old doyenne of French theatre left the lasting impression in a festival that some felt suffered from too much abstraction, not enough heart.
It all came to an end last night with a boisterous party at the Queensbridge Hotel, the first time in the festival's history that the closing festivities were open to all — not just the A-listers.
While the closing shindig was a democratic affair, there had been rumblings that Edmunds' first program was too obscure.
Esoteric productions such as Saburo Teshigawara's Green, the minimalist theatre of the New York City Players, the crazed antics of Forced Entertainment's Bloody Mess, and the arcane chanting of gothic singer Diamanda Galas, divided audiences and failed to excite critics.
But there was consensus on one count — Edmunds' bold move in bringing Mnouchkine's resonant production about the plight of refugees to Melbourne. With its 11 shipping containers of equipment, getting the production here from its last stop in New York was the classic logistical nightmare.
Logistics and financial risks aside, if you had to choose one theatre production that spoke uncompromisingly about our times Le Dernier Caravanserail (The Last Caravan Stop) was it.
Partly inspired by the Tampa affair and the Australian Government's incarceration of asylum seekers, the six-hour, two-part show featured stories collected by Mnouchkine at the Villawood Detention Centre, the French Red Cross camp at Sangatte, and through talking to refugees in Indonesia and New Zealand.
"Harrowing" was the verdict in the queue to the ladies' on closing night. Imagine, then, how it must have felt for the young Afghan men who were also there — Aslam Kazimi, Arif Ruhani and Ali Mullaie, recently released from detention on Nauru — watching elements of their lives unfold on stage.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/arts/epic-refugee-play-eclipses-esoteric-offerings/2005/10/22/1129775997151.html
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6. Anti-terror laws: RAR Members Alert
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Over recent weeks we have become increasingly concerned about the proposed anti-terrorism laws. The Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 departs radically from established and fundamental rights and freedoms, including:
• the presumption of innocence
• freedom from arbitrary arrest
• freedom of political association
• the right to privacy
All those who have fought for the rights of refugees are aware of the kinds of abuses that can occur because of the arbitrary misuse of power, exercised behind closed doors. Too many of our refugee friends disappeared behind the razor wire for too long, and it was only the vigilance, persistence and raised voices of refugee advocates which finally exposed the horrors they have been subjected to.
We believe that the Anti-Terrorism Bill 2005 will adversely impact on Muslims, both refugees and others, on human rights activists and political dissenters.
The proposed Act seems grossly disproportionate to the potential threat. There has been no explanation as to why the existing anti-terrorism laws introduced since 2001 - themselves wide-ranging and draconian - are inadequate.
The Government is rushing this legislation through the Parliament. The House of Representatives will deal with it in the week beginning October 31. The Senate, which resumes on November 7, has been given just one day to consider it.
TEN DISTURBING FACTS ABOUT THE PROPOSED LEGISLATION
§ Greatly increases powers of preventative detention. A person believed to be 'involved in terrorist activity can be held for 14 days without charge. This step bypasses the judicial system in an unprecedented way.
§ Broadens the definition of a 'terrorist organisation' to the extent that support for liberation movements such as East Timoerese Fretlin or South Africa's ANC could be proscribed.
§ Creates new laws against 'financing terrorism'. What ASIO will deem to be a terrorist organisation will be as open-ended as the definiton of terrorism itself. Under similar legislation in the UK, legitimate Iraqi orphanage charities have been banned and their funds seized.
§ Introduces draconian 'control orders'. Federal police powers will be increased to electronically track citizens, order journalists and others to hand over documents without a court order and undertake random bag searches.
§ Increases police powers to stop, search and question any citizen who 'might have committed, might be committing or might be about to commit a terrorism offence'. - ie. potentially police can stop and search people for what they might be thinking
§ Creates new sedition laws. There would be a broad new crime of 'inciting violence against the community'. Journalists and internet writers who 'communicate inciting messages against Australia's forces overseas' and 'groups who support Australia's enemies' are liable to a seven-year gaol term. Conceivably it will be become a crime to oppose the war in Iraq. There need be no reference to the likelihood of clear and imminent danger for this provision to take effect.
§ Imposes a five-year gaol term for a citizen who reveals that a person is being held in preventative detention.
§ Enables the Australian Federal Police to request and obtain virtually any information on any citizen under the banner of 'national security'.
§ Allows Federal Police to shoot to kill if the officer believes a suspect is trying to escape or refuses to surrender. The police will be able to shoot to kill - not when they feel personally threatened but when they merely SUSPECT that someone may be a terrorist. This is what happened to the unfortunate Brazilian man killed by British police BY MISTAKE.
§ Allows ASIO to spy on citizens for longer periods and remove and retain items from citizens homes - making ASIO more closely resemble a secret police force.
There are many other areas of the legislation to seriously disturb Australians who value established rights and liberties. lnform yourself by going to the following useful websites:
http://www.piac.asn.au/
http://www.nswcccl.org.au/
http://www.safecom.org.au/
ACTIONS
We urge you to write or call your local MP urging them to press for longer time to consider this legislation.
Also, the following parliamentarians who have helped our cause in the past and who may have an important voice:
- Petro Georgiou P.Geor-@aph.gov.au
- Judy Moylan J.Moyl-@aph.gov.au
- Bruce Baird Bruce.B-@aph.gov.au
- Senator Marise Payne senator-@aph.gov.au
Also, three other crucial MPs:
- Senator Steve Fielding from Family First senator.-@aph.gov.au
- George Brandis, chair of the Govt's backbench security committee senator.-@aph.gov.au
- Arch Bevis, the opposition spokesman on homeland security Arch.Be-@aph.gov.au
It is also important to put pressure on State Premiers, to encourage them to revise their previous support for the legislation.
Points to raise in letters:
• The need for more time to discuss this important legislation.
• The need to protect fundamental rights that are part of the Australian way of life eg. the four above.
• The importance of freedom of expression, and of political and religious belief.
• The danger of giving excessive power to police and institutions such as ASIO.
• The grave danger of arbitrary and secret detention.
Once this Bill is passed it will remain in force for ten years. And because Australia does not have a Bill of Rights, the courts will not be able to stop civil rights abuses under this Bill.
Some quotes:
"We must also recognise . . .the need to draw a distinction between 'terrorists' and those who are simply objecting to injustice as they see it. In his day, Mahatma Gandhi was certainly called a terrorist. So was Nelson Mandela . . .
" . . . in responding to violent antagonists, democratic communities must do so in a way, as far as possible, consistent with the defence of civil liberties."
- Justice Michael Kirby
" . . . all measures to counter terrorism must be in strict conformity with the relvant provisions of international law, including international human rights standards."
- UN General Assembly, Human Rights and Terrorism (13 February 2002)
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7. Secret codes reveal a printout's origin
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Sydney Morning Herald
By Mike Musgrove in Washington
October 22, 2005
It sounds like a conspiracy theory, but it is not. The pages coming out of your colour printer may contain hidden information that could be used to track you down if you ever cross the US Government.
Last year an article in PC World claimed printouts from many colour laser printers contained yellow dots across the page, viewable with a special kind of torch. The article quoted a Xerox researcher as saying the dots contained information useful to law-enforcement agencies, a secret digital "licence tag" for tracking criminals. The content of the coded information was supposed to be a secret, available only to agencies looking for counterfeiters who use colour printers.
Now, the secret is out. On Tuesday the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco consumer privacy group, said it had cracked the code used widely in Xerox printers - translating a printer's serial number and the date and time a document was printed. On Xerox printers the information is in yellow dots, a millimetre wide and visible with a magnifying glass and a blue light.
The foundation said it had identified such coding on pages printed from nearly every big manufacturer, including Hewlett-Packard, although its team has cracked the codes for only one type of Xerox printer.
The US Secret Service acknowledged this week that the markings are there, but played down the use for invading privacy. "It's strictly a countermeasure to prevent illegal activity specific to counterfeiting," said a spokesman, Eric Zahren. "It's to protect our currency and to protect people's hard-earned money."
It is unclear whether the codes have been used in an arrest. And no one would say how long the codes have been used. But Seth Schoen, the foundation technologist who led its research, said he had seen the coding on documents produced from printers at least 10 years old.
A Xerox spokesman, Bill McKee, confirmed the existence of the hidden codes, but said the company was simply giving help to an agency that asked for it. He said the program was part of a co-operation with government agencies, competing manufacturers and a banks, but would not provide further details.
Mr Schoen said the information could be a threat to people who lived under repressive regimes or had a legitimate need for privacy. He said it reminded him of a Soviet Union program to record sample typewriter printouts to track the origins of underground, self-published literature.
"It's disturbing that something on this scale, with so many privacy implications, happened with such a tiny amount of publicity," Mr Schoen said.
The Washington Post
http://smh.com.au/news/technology/secret-codes-reveal-a-printouts-origin/2005/10/21/1129775960584.html
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-|| This is the Project SafeCom Newsletter - also published
-|| as the RAC-VIC Newsletter (Racvicnews) since July 2004 by agreement
-|| with RAC Victoria, which endorsed that their news service be
-|| managed by Project SafeCom. More information about us below.
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-||- Project SafeCom info
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Online archives of our News & Updates: http://lists.topica.com/lists/safecom/read
Project SafeCom has operated a "virtually full-time" operations office since TAMPA. At Project SafeCom, an Incorporated Association in Western Australia, we exist from donations, the sale of some items via our website, and from memberships. You can make a donation by transferring funds to our account at Bendigo Community Bank Kulin, BSB Number 633-000. Account name: Project SafeCom Inc., account 115643900, or by sending a cheque or money order to our address below.
P.O. Box 364 - Narrogin WA 6312 - Phone 0417 090 130
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LINKS:
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ROYAL COMMISSION Petition: download it, print it, put it out - everywhere around town: http://www.safecom.org.au/royal-commission.htm
The bLog - FIXING AUSTRALIA: http://www.safecom.org.au/fixing-australia.htm
What's New - this page lists all the new additions to the website - hundreds of pages: http://www.safecom.org.au/whatsnew.htm
Project SafeCom events page: http://www.safecom.org.au/events.htm
The Reading Room: http://www.safecom.org.au/readings.htm
The Project SafeCom shop: http://www.safecom.org.au/products.htm
Our Baxter page: http://www.safecom.org.au/baxter.htm
Project SafeCom's No War position: http://www.safecom.org.au/no-war.htm
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