CITIZENFOUR (the Edward Snowden story) screened in Sydney this evening, ahead of its release in Australian cinemas on February 12th. What an amazing film. Yeah, it’s a documentary, but it felt more like a spy-thriller from the edge of my seat. As the film unfolds, the (real-life) revelations about global surveillance are of red-pill proportions – both on and off-screen – and change forever your perceptions of the world we live in, even when you’ve been interested in this area for some time. Take Glenn Greenwald’s reaction, for example. No spoilers, except to say that Big Data is watching you.

The avant premiere and Q&A was presented by Senator Scott Ludlam, our strongest parliamentary voice in Australia against the Surveillance State. He was questioned at length by the Aussie audience, about recent plans by our right-wing government to introduce mandatory data retention for all Australians. Of course we suspect that the reason for doing this is more about business than security, and after seeing CITIZENFOUR, it’s clear that the NSA, a partner of our spooks in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, has got us all under their eye already. Our boys can tap into that dragnet, for genuine National Security reasons. But the NSA too collects a lot of information that doesn’t assist national security.

Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam presents CITIZENFOUR by Laura Poitras

Senator Ludlam’s remarks this week in parliament, suggested that the government’s version of Mandatory Data Retention is a pretty ineffective tool of surveillance, since it doesn’t capture data from offshore mail services, like Gmail. Nor does it retain online chat, on platforms such as Facebook. But it is good for driving us away from Australian ISPs (Internet Server Providers), and catching people who illegally download copyright material.

The package is stamped ‘National Security’, but the contents monitor consumers; not terrorists. And this tool serves to police legislation that relates to the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). There is a clause that more or less obliges the governments of member States to protect each other’s corporate interests. In fact governments can be sued by overseas business entities, if they are seen to legislate in a way that harms trade.

We must see of great significance, concurrent moves to make copyright violation no longer a civil, but criminal matter. That would mean that our government would have to pursue breaches, rather than an individual plainiff, as has always been the case. In the longer term, metadata retention may be used to monitor and restrict what we buy online, especially if a foreign corporation in a member state claims that our choice – of pharmaceuticals, for example – harms their business. Word is, that US business entities actually write the legislation you need to join the TPP, and USG rubber stamps that, before passing it on to applicants.

Scott Ludlam will be talking in more detail about these issues on Thursday evening at another Sydney event, Politics in the Pub, in a session entitled ‘The Meaning of Metadata’. Joining him for an explosive expose and one-hour Q&A, will be National Security journalist and ex foreign affairs policy advisor, Dr Philip Dorling; as well as Samantha Castro, former spokesperson and National Council member of the Wikileaks Party and co-founder of WACA (the Whistleblowers, Activists and Citizens Alliance). The event will be viewable on the Politics in the Pub website on February 7th.

In the wake of a High Court break-through concerning Operation Sovereign Borders, AUSTRALIANS ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS to refugee specialists, Dr Joyce Chia and Dr Lucy Fiske, live at Politics in the Pub. Joyce Chia works at the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW, and Lucy Fiske is a Chancellor’s Post Doctoral Fellow at UTS.

In this highly candid Q and A session, we hear heart-breaking accounts and questions raised about children in detention; how Australia’s actions may influence those of other countries, and importantly, what federal Labor should be doing to oppose the Abbott Government’s appalling treatment of asylum-seekers and refugees.

Australians are becoming increasingly skeptical about the Government’s claim to be “Saving Lives at Sea”, given that two asylum seekers have died on Manus Island, and that self-harm has become commonplace, even among children. In February this year, asylum seeker Reza Barati was allegedly murdered by detention centre staff, two Papua New Guinean Nationals who worked with the Salvation Army, and G4S Security respectively.

This month, vigils were held Australia-wide for another Manus Island detainee, Hamid Kehazaei, who died of blood poisoning from a cut foot…

With countless reports of neglect and unsanitary conditions, and the torture of seemingly endless detainment, one might well ask what quality of life the Australian Government is offering as an alternative to drowning at sea? Refugees are after all, the people Australia pledged to keep safe – not drive to the depths of despair, criminally neglect or murder.

Read Dr Joyce Chia’s article in the Guardian – ‘High court verdict spells the end for Australian immigration detention as we know it’ – to see what kind of changes the High Court is likely to impose, so as to insure that ‘protection’ is what Australia is really giving.

Starring the questions of the audience - Politics in the Pub - Q&A on Refugees

After learning that the very legality of ‘Operation Sovereign Borders’ is on the line, we wait with fond anticipation the outcome of a refugee case currently before the High Court, and the upcoming challenge to the Australian Government, concerning the refoulement of Tamils to Sri Lanka.

If Julian Burnside QC is correct, Australians can look forward in the longer term, to seeing Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott in the dock, in the Hague. We’ll soon see if the High Court deems Operation Sovereign Borders to be illegal. Then comes the case of the Tamils…

Tensions grow again in Gaza with Israeli official reports of “attack tunnels” being repaired by Hamas, and calls for EU troop deployment in the region. Countless tunnels have been dug under Gaza, often with bare hands, to smuggle food, medicine, gas, building materials and other items, all of which remain scarce since the enclave was “put on a diet”.

Water too, of the drinking variety, has been in direly short supply, with access limited to a few hours a week. That there has been a long-term need for “smuggling tunnels” is supported by the medical reports of Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, who noted back in 2009 that one child in three had stunted growth, due to prolonged malnutrition and starvation. He stated:

“As a result of the Israeli siege, there has been widespread development of anaemia among children and women due to malnutrition as a result of siege and poverty. Stunting, where a child is more than two standard deviations shorter than what it should be, is sharply on the rise. In 2006, around 13.5 percent of children were stunted. In 2009, 31.4 percent under age two were stunted.

In other words, every third child is less developed than he or she should be. And stunting does not only affect growth. It also affects brain development and the ability to learn. This is a direct consequence of malnutrition.

Remember, this is not caused by drought or natural disasters, but a deliberate, man-made lack of food and water, imposed, planned, and executed in the most detailed way by the Israeli government. They even calculate how many calories to let in to Gaza to avoid outright starvation, but to “just” cause malnutrition since that goes under the radar of human rights abuses.”

Antony Loewenstein on Gaza at Politics in the Pub

According to Antony Loewenstein, in a recent talk at ‘Politics in the Pub’ in Sydney, and Noam Chomsky on numerous occasions, liberal Zionists and the younger generation have become increasingly uncomfortable with the actions of the Israeli State and its US backers.

There has been little dispute that Gaza’s tunnels leading into Egypt are for the purpose of smuggling live-saving supplies. Whether those that lead to Israel are for the purpose of attacking Israelis “in their beds” is questionable.

“I think we can handle the truth and I think those of us who bother to dig a little deeper, deal with the complexities and see past the spin, will find a way to share that truth and make it heard.”

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Sydney archivist Cassie Findlay talks about the global attacks on Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and Wikileaks at “Politics in the Pub”, September 21, 2012.

Archivist Cassie Findlay speaks out for Assange, Manning & Wikileaks