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Actually, I'm starting to get a little more sympathetic to those who have been complaining about some anti-terrorism laws. Here's why.
Let's say I take a murderous dislike to, oh, the two guys who run the corner shop. Let's further say I plot to murder them in a most ghastly and foul manner. Finally, let's say I share this with a journalist friend, detail my plans on a videotape and give this also to my friend who, unbenownst to me, is an undercover policeman. Will he arrest me?
No. Why?
Because I've committed no offence.
The substantive offence would be murder, of course, were I to carry through. But I haven't at this point. The offences capable of being charged prior to the commission of the substantive offence are attempt and conspiracy. At law, the level of activity required to constitute an attempt to commit an offence is a little fuzzy, but it is usually something along the lines of having taken unambiguous concrete steps towards the commission offence, while having an intent to carry it through. My plans with regard to the shop keepers do not rise to this level.
Conspiracy to commit a crime requires two or more people to agree to commit the offence. But my journalist/cop friend is merely a witness, not a conspirator. So no offence there either.
Yet this chap has been arrested for doing precisely the above, differing only in his proposed targets (some ASIO officers) and his motivation (he has one, in my scenario, I don't). So what is he guilty of?
Thought crime, it seems.
Just like the other guy to be recently arrested was charged in relation to the publication on the Internet of unsavoury material. Now that might actually rise to the level of a non-terrorism crime, in that it could be regarded as incitement to commit a crime. But it is still a charge based solely on this guy's speech.
Does all this mean I think these guys shouldn't have been arrested? Hmmm. Not sure. The former policeman part of me thinks maybe it isn't a bad idea. After all, the first fellow's terrorism plans could have been much bigger, and should we risk thousands on the basis of rules that are perhaps more suitable to attempted thefts?
But the libertarian in me worries that we have further encroachments on one's right to think, and speak, what one wishes.
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