When confronted with the C-word, Gore Vidal has a simple response.

“There doesn’t have to be a conspiracy,” he says. “I’ve met these people. They all think alike.”

So it is with the Haneef case.

The shenanigans of the last weeks stem less from a conscious plot than from the collective inability of many senior political and media figures to comprehend why civil liberties should matter.

No matter how draconian and arbitrary the anti-terror regime becomes, most Canberra politicians simply cannot imagine the laws impacting upon them or anyone they know. And if you’re confident you’ll always be the one wielding the stick, what’s not to like about detention without trial, secret dossiers, closed-door character assessments, etc? Such measures get the business done. Sure, the occasional foreign doctor might lose his job, his flat and his reputation…but it’s not as if he’s really one of us, is he?

As for the watchdogs of the media, while journalists might think of themselves as Woodwards and Bernsteins circa 1972, too often they resemble that duo as they are today: powerful and privileged insiders with a cosy relationship to the political class.

Can you picture, say, Greg Sheridan or Glenn Milne handcuffed and shoeless in the back of a divvy van? No? Neither can they – but they can certainly envision themselves in Kevin Andrews’ chair. They can imagine reading secret files; they can’t imagine being the subject of one.

Obviously, the Haneef matter looks quite different depending upon which side of the security grill one stands. As Dr Waleed Kadous from the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Advocacy Network explains, the case has left many in the Islamic community thinking “there but for the grace of God go I.”

And it’s not just Muslims who feel that way.

Consider the case of Peter Beattie. Like so many Queensland Labor Party activists, Beattie became politically active during the protests against the South African rugby union tour in 1971.

At one protest, Queensland police beat up Beattie so badly that he was taken to the orthopaedic ward of the Royal Brisbane Hospital with suspected spinal injuries. He later wrote: “Even though I was the one who had been assaulted, I was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. […] I will never forgive or forget [being] ‘verballed’ by the police who manufactured the most incredible statements about the whole thing.”

It’s often forgotten that Joh Bjelke-Petersen responded to anti-Springbok demonstrators by declaring a State of Emergency. Had the current anti-terror laws been in force, Bjelke-Peterson could – and certainly would – have applied them to Beattie and his friends. They were, after all, voicing support for the ANC, an outfit that openly employing terrorist methods.

Of course, Beattie’s changed a lot from his protesting days: like all the other state premiers, he signed off on Howard’s anti-terror legislation in 2005. But it’s surely no coincidence that the most outspoken of the Labor leaders on the Haneef case was one who had personally experienced something similar.