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Australia moves to bolster anti-terror laws
SYDNEY: Australia is to step up its war on terror again by expanding its key intelligence agency and bolstering anti-terrorism powers under new laws approved by cabinet, Prime Minister John Howard has announced. Coming in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings which claimed more than 200 lives, Australia's new laws would allow suspects to be detained by police for questioning for up to 24 hours rather than for an initial period of four hours under current legislation.Howard said more agents would be recruited for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), which would undergo significant expansion. "By the end of this year we will have put ASIO in a situation where it has a greater capacity than it's had at any time since it was formed, greater even than during the Cold War," he said. Howards said he had told ASIO director general Denis Richardson the government would provide anything he needed to improve the running of the intelligence agency. The new laws would also allow people to be prosecuted for being members of terrorist organisations, including those not currently on the official list of outlawed groups. Under the proposed changes, it would be an offence to train with organisations such as Afghanistan's Taliban. "At the moment, it's only an offence to be a member of a listed terrorist organisation," he said. "In future, that will be extended to include not only listed terrorist organisations but also an organisation that is in fact proved to be a terrorist organisation even though it may not be listed." The government also wants to bar people from making money by writing about or selling their stories about their training with terrorist organisations, Howard told the Nine Network's Sunday program. "I think most people regard it as pretty offensive that somebody can be associated with a terrorist organisation which has killed people (or whose) associates may have killed our people in Bali, and then they go and write a book about it," he said. "I think that sticks in the craw of most Australians." Howard said new laws approved last week by the federal cabinet would go before a meeting of government MPs for approval on Tuesday. Australia significantly strengthened its counter-terrorism laws last June in response to the Bali bombing in October 2002 in which 88 Australians were among 202 killed. But the government complained that the demands of the opposition parties and civil libertarians forced it to water down the rules preventing federal police from adequately interrogating French terror suspect Willie Brigitte.
Posted by: Steve White 2004-03-28 |
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