Accountability of Government agancies

Recently Mick Keelty the AFP commissioner criticised the media over terrorism case coverage.

The Story can be found here and the Audio of Mick Keelty's comments is here.

I can see a bit of What Mr Keelty is saying people are entitled to the presumption of innocence and to be fairly tried in a court of law. Trial by media is a nasty thing and can be manipulate to easily by unscrupulous lawyers. So to this part I agree. The media should stay out of the courts and only report that there is a trial under way, report the crimes and comment on the progress of the case. They shouldn't really be bringing peoples names and emotional arguments about the consequences of the crimes to the public. In depth interviews with family friends and associated people can wait until after the trial. This can help the public find out about what happened and why.

There are several problems with Mick Keelty's comments though.

The first is that the government of the day and the Aust Federal Police were using the media first to blacken the name of the man charged under terrorism laws. This from Journalist Hedley Thomas: "But the facts are that in the Mohamed Haneef case and others, it's been the police and security agencies and the politicians using police information that have smeared the character of the suspects before they've even been charged." Mick needs to start abiding by his own rules. Once the police and others start the media circus the cannot very well expect that no-one else will be submitting information to the media. If the police want a media blackout before trials then they need to abide by them as well.

Next media mostly commented about the handling of the Haneef case and very little was about the actual charges or weather Dr. Haneef was guilty or not. The Media stories were mainly about lack of evidence and subsequent dropping of charges and extended detention before charges had been layed. I think that most Australians disagreed with the extended detention of Doctor Haneef and the way in which the case was handled.

Finally public institutions that apply the rule of law and have control over daily part of lives need to be subject to public scrutiny to keep them functioning properly. Otherwise you slowly move down the gradient of corruption until you have a Secret police that is used by those in power to control the populace. Comments like the following from Commissioner Keelty are absurd and very dangerous. Someone who makes such comments probably shouldn't be leading the AFP.
He also says criticism of the AFP and other government agencies should be limited.

A quote of Mick Keelty-
"We've just got to call a halt to criticising public institutions when it's the same public institutions that we rely upon to keep good governance,".

Media and Public scrutiny should continue, and if these comments are any indication should increase in intensity. Comments like these show that dangerous seeds have taken root in some of the countries most powerful institutions. Maybe it's time for a bit of Weeding.