I have read the concerns expressed by the public and your writers/columnists on the 'anti-terrorist' centre that would be set up in Malaysia in close cooperation with the US government.

Despite US Secretary of State Colin Powell's and Ambassador to Malaysia Marie T Huhtala's reassurances that human rights would be protected, we have the US current experience in war-mongering against Iraq and North Korea and support for Israel war efforts against the people of Palestine as indicative of where the US is going with these assurances outside the US.

In addition the 'home security' concept of their president has endangered and eroded the civil liberties of their own citizens in the form of increased surveillance and infringement of privacy in the name of security and anti-terrorism.

We have very little protection of our civil liberties and the culture of human rights is not embedded in our institutions and the government. This makes issues of surveillance almost non-existent as a human rights discussion.

What I would like to see written, investigated and discussed now are these issues. Interested groups should try tracking a group like the Union for Civil Liberties (UCL) in the US where they have developed effective tools for engaging the public and government on related matters.