This place has gone mad.  Every time a politician wants to encourage behaviour that would otherwise be considered immoral, unethical, illegal or any other wrong-ness, they’ll do so in the name of anti-terrorism.

The Americans have been doing it for years – they’re experts at function creep.  They’ll offer up some simple, reasonable modification to the rule of law that permits data gathering in specific, narrow ways.  Next thing you know, they’ve driven a truck through the loophole.  The Labor Government is fast learning from the experts.

“I promise we are not interested in the email you send out about who did what at the Christmas party, what this is about is looking at our critical infrastructure,” Ms Gillard was heard to say when interviewed in the Nine Network this morning. 

The devil, Ms Gillard, is in the detail.  How can we be sure you’re not going to keep all the information you collect?  That you’re not going to cross-check the information you find – after all, one swallow a summer does not make, but find a large-enough flock of personal information and you’ll have a veritable heat-wave of privacy invasion.

Julia Gillard, I was reasonably sympathetic to the hope that the new Government would be a new broom, to sweep out the anti-terrorism rhetoric of the previous government.  This is a major step on the path right back to the same festering cess-pool.

I wish you luck convincing the people of Australia this is a good idea.