1984 cometh?

WARNING: The following post was written in a state of disbelief and anger. The author reserves the right to avoid actual reasoning and simply express horror.

Apparently, the Federal Government's planning to use deprogramming to turn terrrrrists into good guys.

No doubt there is a good legal argument to be made for why this may well violate the prohibition of torture, with lots of thrilling mentions of jus cogens norms and the torture convention and, for the jurisdictionally confused, cruel and unusual punishment.

I'm more bothered about the concept of deprogramming and the implications it has for personal autonomy. Are the actions of a deprogrammed person (assuming, with a quarterweight of salt, that it's possible) their own? Should the government be actively interfering in a person's ability to make their own decisions?

Doubtless, one could advance an argument based on the need to prevent harm - thus justifying a certain degree of government intervention. But harm prevention can be done by other means. Locking them up, for instance, which the government hasn't had qualms about for innocent people, never mind terrrrists.

I find it absolutely mind-boggling that someone would seriously advocate attempting to change a person's ability to make decisions. Whether one likes those decisions is irrelevant - this is an attempt to interfere with who they are and their right to self-determination. Fair enough to limit what people say, but how they think?

Furthermore, isn't it also often said that terrorists use brainwashing/(de)-programming to induce others to think and act in certain ways (think Patty Hearst as the paradigm example)? This is repugnant, irrespective of who advocates it. A government that should know better surely shouldn't come out with these dystopian ideas.

On the other hand, I have been puzzling over a provision in the Victorian Human Rights Charter for a while - the ACT has something similar. Amongst the usual pointlessness of stating that only humans have human rights (my guinea pigs will be very disappointed) and the provision that allows Parliament to ignore anything in the Charter (very useful), there is a delightfully Orwellian statement.

Apparently, the Charter guarantees 'freedom of thought'.

Maybe not for much longer.