top 10 civil liberties violations of 2006

I came across this handy list of the top 10 civil liberties violations of 2006 in Australia.

Near the top of my personal list would have to be #9, Freedom of Information and the effect of the High Court’s determination that a ‘conclusive’ Ministerial certificate is sufficient to prevent access to information. The effect of this decision (whether correct in law or not) is that the Government can effectively decide whether or not to release information pursuant to FOI requests without any possibility of the basis for a refusal being examined by, you know, a court.

Also up there is #6, the vast array of terrorism legislation which continues to churn out of Canberra – 41 pieces of legislation so far since September 2001 and no sign of it slowing up any time soon (or of Bin Laden…). To put that in context there were 38 pieces of legislation – total – in the first two years of the Australian federation, 1901 and 1902.

The list was inspired by this US-focused article on Slate, which includes the highly disturbing practice of ‘extraordinary rendition’, that is, government-sponsored kidnap and transfer to countries with reduced or no human rights and civil liberties standards.