The year 2012 should be remembered in Australia as the year of the boiling frog. Much of the analysis about the past year will concentrate on things like the nastiness of Parliament, whether the boom is over, and the condition of the federal budget.
What will be missed in all of the discussion about 2012 is something that isn’t talked about too much these days, namely civil liberties.
The number and variety of threats to the civil liberties of Australians during 2012 approached almost unprecedented levels.
If next year the Gillard government succeeds in its aims of regulating the press, imposing surveillance over the personal electronic communications of every person, and making it against the law to offend someone because of their political opinion, Australians will be substantially less free next year than they were this year.
via afr.com
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