Post-APEC fallout

APEC has ended, but the fallout has just begun.

Events of note, in no particular order:

• Dozens of riot police removed their name tags, apparently in defiance of police policy, ensuring that they could not be identified by potential complainants or in media coverage.  Not a single name-tag in sight in this photo, only the velcro where they should have been.  Ironic that the police were given expanded powers to demand that members of the public produce identification, when the police go to such lengths to avoid being identified themselves;
• A single-seat Cessna aircraft, piloted by a Sydney lawyer, with a filed flight-plan, was intercepted by two F/A-18 fighters and escorted to a landing at Bankstown airport;
• The NSW Police obtained injunctions against the organisers of a protest march, preventing them from even approaching the fenced-off areas;
• Of course, the infamous crew from "The Chaser" organised a fake motorcade and made an utter mockery of the APEC security arrangements.  They were waved through two police checkpoints, reaching as far as the Intercontinental Hotel (where George W Bush was staying) before being sprung - and only then because one of the crew, dressed as Osama Bin-Laden got out of a vehicle and approached police;
• The police said that the Chaser crew were lucky they were not shot by snipers.  I think that the police are lucky the Chaser crew were not shot by snipers!  I want to know what the snipers' rules of engagement were, if they were permitted to shoot unarmed people on the street!
• The Chaser said that police were lucky that they weren't Al Quaeda, and I whole-heartedly agree.  Those vehicles could quite easily have been loaded with explosives instead of comedians, and the police allowed them to drive right up to the front of the most secured hotel in Sydney!
• Police snipers were on rooftops in the city, pointing firearms at people.  The last time I checked, that was a crime, even for police;
  
• A 52-year old accountant was manhandled to the ground by four police officers and arrested for jaywalking, and allegedly assaulting a police officer, then jailed for 22 hours and not permitted access to a lawyer [video of the arrest];
• Two people on the police blacklist were drinking lattes in Hyde Park, when they were arrested by riot police for being in a declared area.  Except Hyde Park isn't actually a declared area.  Oops;
• A media FOI request revealed that police have been spying on "interest-motivated groups" within universities, and seeking the cooperation of the university administration with such spying.  An email from the police reads "[g]iven that next year holds numerous events including state/federal elections, APEC and the ongoing war in Iraq, there is a strong possibility that IMGs will become more active throughout 2007."  The objective of the police was to "monitor these IMG's and identify the current key members."  I'm sure that had absolutely nothing to do with the police blacklist;
  
• Fifteen protesters driving from Melbourne to Sydney were pulled over by police in rural NSW, searched for drugs with a sniffer dog, had their vehicles searched and given roadworthy inspections, and generally subject to harassment and intimidation;
• Police demanded that German tourists delete digital photographs of the security fence.

About the only good thing that can be said about APEC is that nobody died or, so far as I know, was seriously injured.  Although that doesn't seem to be for lack of trying on the part of the police.  Maybe next time, they'll shoot the Chaser team on sight.