September 08, 2007
If APEC is a gabfest with dress-ups then the several hundred million dollars in security, which involves a further erosion of our civil liberties, stands for surveillance society.

Leahy
The clampdown on civil liberties is way over the top, the restrictions extend far from the key venues and the squashing of the legitimate expression of dissent is extensive. There was even a security ban on the cafe at the Museum of Sydney in Bridge Street placing cutlery on its outdoor tables and the police could inspect the contents of reporters' notebooks.
Adele Horin in the Sydney Morning Herald describes the surveillance thus:
Parts of the city look like a war zone, wreathed in five kilometres of fencing wire. Helicopters buzz, jumpy police bark at motorists. Riot cars tear through the city; the new water cannon lies in wait. Some city workers are forced to shuffle like prisoners through a series of chook runs. Laws are passed to give police extraordinary powers to search, detain, confiscate. There is a fenced-off "restricted" zone and a wider "security" zone.Worst of all, the right to march and protest is curtailed. APEC is disrupting the lives of 4 million people for a week in the interests, we are told, of a greater good. But a protest march that may disrupt the city for a few hours - for the legitimate purpose of expressing dissent - is deemed unacceptable.
Then there were the dog squads, the water cannon, the prison buses with their blacked out windows, the snipers on the roofs, the helicopter night patrols etc etc.
All this was for our protection from the subversives of The Chaser and their attempt to storm the Security Zone masquerading as a motorcade of Canadians.
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Gary,
all of the talk of violence and confrontation around APEC has come from the police and the Government.
It would seem that in John Howard's comfortable and relaxed Australia, agitation of any kind--eg., to end the Iraq war or see real action on climate change--- has become a national security issue.
Is it any wonder so many laughed when the Chaser boys drove their three-car convoy into the heart of APEC-land and nobody twigged until they turned around.