cold comfort

This morning, Alexander Downer, our Foreign Minister, was on the Today show. He was on to talk about the latest Bali bombings and one thing he said was that there was no intelligence about this latest bombing, and that no-one saw it coming, basically.

Hmmm. Now I sort of feel like what I posted last night about Bali and ASIO and Australian intelligence agency information seems kind of a bit too true. Which is unfortunate. I know that we can't stop bad things from happening and that there will be terrorist attacks on all sorts of locations and people. But you'd still think that an intelligence agency would have some idea about things and you don't really want the Foreign Minister admitting that they had no idea on national television.

Just a bit worrying, really, all things considered.

But it really does raise the question of how terrorism within Australia could possibly be dealt with appropriately when these sort of things happen, and whether or not the anti-terrorism laws will actually be effective. Unless the plan is to lock every Australian citizen up and ask them, "Are you a terrorist?" and release them when they say, "No, of course not!" (as if a terrorist would say, "Why, golly gosh gee whizz, how ever did you guess! Of course! Hurrah! I'm so glad you knew," and put their wrists out for the handcuffs to be snapped around).

The laws just seem to cater to stupid things, really. Or stupid people... Like how much trouble you can get in for leaving baggage unattended or something like that. Does that have any implications for when you've done the grocery shopping and turn away from the cart to put a bag of shopping in the boot of the car? What about not claiming your luggage the second you spot it on the luggage carousel at the airport? Meh... stupid stuff. Besides, the guys who blew themselves up in Bali kept their "baggage" with them at all times.

So do we outlaw backpacks because they're potentially something a terrorist could use, subsequently making all school students suspects for ASIO questioning? Hmmm... the truth is out there, but the bollocks is in the politician's heads...