Australian Police Chief Seeks Terror Reporting Ban

DJMajah writes "News.com.au reports that Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty has called for a media blackout on reporting of terrorism investigations and cases before trial in a speech to the Sydney Institute last night. Although he doesn't believe public institutions should be immune from public accountability, he goes on to say that public discussion should be delayed until information is made available by the courts or legal proceedings are complete. This all comes after last year's widely reported case of Dr. Mohammed Haneef who was detained then later deported from Australia on evidence described as weak — and seen by some, including Haneef, as a conspiracy."

Comments

It's just not fair!

[hyades1]

Those poor Australian police. All that open, free society stuff is just so darned inconvenient when you want to make sure some guy's enjoying the attentions of an Egyptian torturer before news of his arrest is published.

If I was Osama, I'd be laughing myself sick watching these clowns destroy that nasty, evil free society I hate so much. I couldn't do a better job with another hundred planes.

Re:1984

[MightyMartian]

Yes, the current government merely wants to set up a list of forbidden sites that you have to opt into to view.

Sorry, but these pack of freedom-hating political hacks ain't that much different than Howard's bunch of freedom-hating political hacks.

Halt to criticism of Keelty

[nbauman]

Here's where Keelty gets to the point:

He also called for a halt to criticism of public institutions.

He's calling for an end to criticism of government institutions, specifically himself. This is particularly inappropriate given his record of incompetence and false charges against Mohammed Haneef.

Wouldn't we all like to be protected from criticism of ourselves and our incompetence.

Re:1984

[Jesus_666]

That's true - for regular trials. But here we have trials for nebulously defined "terrorism", which you can just randomly (from your perspective) end up in with no proper charges raised against you. They're putting people to trial because they feel like it and just being the defendant in such a trial means that you'll probably be regarded a terrorism risk by many nations.

It's scary enough that they can do that. The process requires absolute and total transparency as far as possible without revealing security-relevant information. Nobody should be randomly tried without everyone knowing about it, especially not in such a potentially life-ruining way. And the people should know about it when it happens, not after the fact.

Secret above-the-law trials are just about the last thing we need. Manipulating data after the fact is easy, hence any special terrorist trials should be broadcasted live. By more then one source.