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Deconstructing the Australian Broadcasting Commission
by peptide Monday, May 7 2007, 1:05pm
national /
social/political /
opinion/analysis
The once public Australian broadcaster (ABC) is proving to be a brazen propaganda medium for the government. The latest overt propaganda issuing from ‘our’ ABC is clearly designed to soften public resistance to biometric and other intrusive forms of identification. Senator Stott Despoja is currently debating the uses and abuses of an identification smartcard in the Senate. With that debate in progress and unresolved we now witness BIOMETRIC ID ‘softening’ techniques by the ‘public’ broadcaster, ‘our’ ABC:
Senator Stott Despoja
May 8, 2007. 8:36am (AEST)
Aussies back tougher anti-terrorist steps for airports
A new Australian survey has found overwhelming support for stricter anti-terrorism measures for air travel.
More than 98 per cent of the respondents to the Newspoll survey believe the aviation industry needs to tighten baggage screening and identity checks for passengers, or place greater restrictions on cars and non-travellers at airports.
Andrew Barkly from the security company UNISYS, which commissioned the survey, says the findings reflect a heightened concern on security and a willingness to act.
"When we asked a question about what people would be willing to do, we were surprised to see that people would be willing to provide a biometric identifier - like a fingerprint," he said.
Meanwhile, a record number of international air travellers visited Australia last year.
The Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics has released its aviation statistics for 2006, showing nearly 21.5 million passengers travelled through Australia.
That is an increase of 3 per cent compared to the previous year.
Qantas had the largest share of the market with 28 per cent, followed by Singapore Airlines with 11 per cent and Air New Zealand with 9 per cent.
Almost half of the passengers travelled through Sydney Airport.
From the header, which should read, ‘Some (very few) Aussies back tougher ..’ to the vested interest that commissioned the ‘survey,’ a security company named UNISYS, the ‘report’ reeks of contrived advertising or political propaganda! Note the carefully constructed question of the poll/survey, “ .. what people would be willing to do,” as opposed to the following example question, ‘would you condone the use of intrusive forms of biometric identification, centralised data bases that would be accessed by various bureaus, government departments, private industry and others you wouldn’t dream of sharing personal information with?’
We should never forget that polls/surveys are the most abused and unreliable form of information ‘gathering;’ torturing results is child’s play for any statistician or pollster!
The above ‘news report’ is clearly an inept and transparent construction by the same conservative forces that created the exaggerated ‘terrorist threat that led to the illegal invasion of Iraq and the death of one million civilians. Furthermore, these criminal forces continue to lie, deceive, murder and manipulate in order to implement their ‘New World Order,’ which would make Orwell’s ‘1984’ a utopia!
This short analysis is designed to inoculate and stimulate a questioning response in the reader. It would serve the public interest to become acquainted with the facile tricks of popular propagandists, the mass media, marketing/advertising interests and conservative governments.
Freedom can never be bestowed or stolen, it must be surrendered or forfeited!
We are One.
Addendum:
Over the past few decades Australia has often been utilised as a test/evaluation site for product launches, social management strategies and marketing research by Corporate and other interests. Australia as an affluent (and compliant) society, which mirrors other larger more complex western societies, is the preferred test site. Its tiny, apathetic population of 20 million make it the ideal testing ground for a wide variety of ‘products’ that Transnationals and other interests/governments wish to evaluate. This extended to the proposed testing of the highly lethal Sarin and Vx nerve gas on Australian troops, during the Vietnam war, by our American ‘allies’ – who needs enemies with ‘friends’ like that!
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200705/s1916835.htm COMMENTS show latest comments first show comment titles only
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never entrust to strangers
by discrete - Australian Privacy Foundation Tuesday, May 8 2007, 10:17am
The Australian Privacy Foundation is a wealth of links for those who wish to familiarise themselves with conservative 'big brother' strategies designed to rob us all of our rights. The links include additional information on the Access/Smartcard (ID card!)
http://www.privacy.org.au/Campaigns/ID_cards/HSAC.html
Why blame the ABC?
by Jay Wednesday, May 9 2007, 5:42am
Insofar as the reporter named the source and funding provider of the survey, readers can make up their own minds as to the credibility factor. It is entirely possible that this story was reported in good faith by a junior in the online news department. The "just in" news page is where I go for brief, timely reports, not investigative journalism.
Look at today's Sydney Morning Herald, where a similar report suggests that Australian air travellers are in favour of fingerprinting or biometrics, more extensive baggage screening and electronic bag tagging, and are eager to have to arrive at the airport 30 minutes earlier and pay extra for all of these supposed benefits. So, a day or two later and with a team of hardened reporters, the SMH has failed to shine any light on how this survey could have been rigged by choice of participants, loaded questions or statistical manipulation to produce such alarming conclusions. Or whether Unisys may, by some surprising coincidence, happen to "sell solutions" to all these technological challenges.
It was MediaWatch (an ABC TV programme) which blew the lid off the Unisys/Newspoll propaganda surveys last year, and with any luck they won't let this latest attempt go unnoticed either.
Let's not shoot the messenger.
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s1683102.htm
touch your toes
by watson Wednesday, May 9 2007, 1:49pm
I could start by asking you (Jay) in whose employ, but that is obvious?
So, in the interests of the public, why hasn't the ABC addressed (AND PURSUED) a few 'minor' issues re: the "aluminium tubing" prime minister John (600,000 dead civilians) Howard! Just a couple of oversights, ay!
The traditional ABC would have pursued these matters to the end. Howard is a war criminal, it's a 'lay down mazare,' but where is OUR ABC and its compliment of cringing reporters? You have got to be joking, Jay!
Search your archives and pull the 'exposure of a QLD premier' and other examples of investigative journalism from previous ABC reporters who had some integrity.
If the above instance was a singular event your argument may have some cred but the links provide ample proof of a trend:
'Our' ABC has clearly become a propaganda platform for the conservative Howard government -- isn't that right Mr. Tony Jones?
http://cleaves.zapto.org/clv/newswire.php?story_id=454
http://cleaves.zapto.org/clv/newswire.php?story_id=329
... with integrity?
by jason brown Tuesday, May 15 2007, 2:47am
The author suggests there are no reporters with integrity at the ABC anymore.
Curious, I would have thought this would have prompted some discussion about exactly why this seems to be so.
Could it be that like so many other media organisations, the ABC has had its independence eroded and compromised by politicians of all stripe, braying democracy in public while accepting secret funds from corporate sponsors.
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