Max’s Granny

MAJOR ALERT: The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2025 just passed the House of Representatives with full bipartisan support from both Labor and the Liberal/National Coalition. This bill makes ASIO’s controversial compulsory questioning powers PERMANENT and significantly broader. Here’s exactly what it does (and why the viral video is largely spot-on): • ASIO can now issue a “questioning warrant” against ANYONE - including people who have committed NO crime and aren’t even suspected of one - if the Attorney-General believes they have information relevant to security matters (espionage, foreign interference, promotion of communal violence, sabotage, etc.). • The warrant is signed only by the Attorney-General. No judge or court approval required. • You can be detained and forced to attend secret questioning sessions. Refuse to answer questions, give false/misleading info, or fail to show up? Up to 5 years in prison. The ancient right to silence is completely removed. • Strict secrecy rules: It is illegal to tell anyone (including family or friends) that you were questioned or even that a warrant exists. Breaches can be prosecuted. • Applies to minors from age 14. While parents/guardians must technically be notified for questioning sessions, the secrecy provisions mean many parents still might not know until after the fact. • Your lawyer can be present (mandatory for kids), but their role is heavily restricted. They can be removed if the presiding authority decides they’re “obstructing”, and notes/materials can be confiscated or controlled. The bill also expands the range of “questioning matters” ASIO can investigate and removes the old sunset clause that would have killed these powers automatically. These powers have existed since 2003 but were always temporary. This bill locks them in permanently with only minor extra safeguards. The bill is NOW in the Senate. It has not yet become law. If you care about civil liberties, right to silence, or warrantless detention of non-suspects, now is the time to contact your Senators. Full bill text & explanatory memo available on the Parliament website. Link provided in the first reply. What do you think, dangerous overreach?

Beirut during the Israeli invasion of 1982. Hezbollah didn’t even exist back then. Hezbollah was later founded as a resistance during the brutal and barbaric Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.

On this day in 1835, one of Europe’s worst monsters, King Leopold II of Belgium🇧🇪, was born. During his rule, he declared Congo as his personal colonial possession and proceeded to commit horrific genocide upon the Congolese people. 8-10 million Congolese died during ‘personal rule’, with violence as a mechanism of organising production. Through mercenaries, prisons, forced starvation, and executions, Leopold II turned Congo into a concentration camp, using Congolese as the labour to extract vast profits from the rubber quotas imposed on the population. The profits were used to build Belgium’s grand buildings and landmarks, while Congolese were exterminated systematically through forced labour, mass killings, and famine. While the metropole of Belgium’s empire flourished, while Congo became an extraction machine. Workers who failed to meet the quotas were mutilated, having their hands cut off. These workers included children. Villages were punished collectively. Women were held hostage until men delivered rubber. Failure meant mutilation, flogging, or execution. Terror was the incentive structure. Pain replaced wages. The Congolese people never saw the profits, only the oppression of being used as slave labour. Belgium has still not offered a formal apology to the Congolese people for the genocidal atrocities committed against them… Because doing so would acknowledge a fundamental truth; that European capitalism was not born from ‘innovation’, ‘free trade’, or ‘liberal values’, but through barbaric destruction of global south nations and the looting of their resources for profit.