CIVIL LIBERTARIANS DENOUNCE HOWARD GOVERNMENT COMMITMENT TO UN PRINCIPLES

The government says it wants to act to protect lives:

Philip Ruddock, who is in New York, is to outline the case for stronger anti-terrorist laws in speech to the American-Australian Association tonight.

He will tell the association that the Federal Government has an obligation under Article Three of the UN human Rights Convention to protect human life and that may come at the expense of civil liberties.

Australian Council of Civil Liberties president Terry O'Gorman is none to happy about this:

"He would rubbish and dismiss the UN's controversial but influential report in relation to Australia's detention centres when he was immigration minister," Mr O'Gorman said.

"Now, when he's Attorney-General, he's cherry-picking a particular strand of human rights law in order to try to neutralise the criticisms of civil libertarians and defence lawyers."

Only an idiot would compare the detention of illegal immigrants with an Australian's right to keep on living.