When I first arrived in Auckland, tired, poor, and as part of a huddled mass yearning to breathe free, a customs dog took exception to my handluggage, which was a small day pack.

I had the same thing happen, a very excited beagle jumping up at my backpack. It made…

As an employee (admin/medical) of the armed forces, traveling to Port Morseby from Australia in a group of other NZ + Aus armed forces personnel.... having hand luggage searched for knitting needles and toe-nail clippers.... whilst having the rifle over the shoulder completely ignored...

Great tale, but thoroughly believable. A…

When is a New Zealander not a New Zealander?

When they're a Somali Refugee who has had a NZ Passport for years, that's when.

Good old TV3 news last night had the very troubled women who holds a NZ Passport as a "Somali" and finished with the Korean born golfer…

When they're a Somali Refugee who has had a NZ Passport for years, that's when.

Good old TV3 news last night had the very troubled women who holds a NZ Passport as a "Somali" and finished with the Korean born golfer…

Stumbled onto a bit of the repeat screening last night. Thought it was a documentary for a second, which shows how far the goalposts have moved since the last time it screened.

Yes indeed. "Holy crap, the Government can zoom down to street level!"

Unfortunately, not my own story, but relayed to me by a friend....

As an employee (admin/medical) of the armed forces, traveling to Port Morseby from Australia in a group of other NZ + Aus armed forces personnel.... having hand luggage searched for knitting needles and toe-nail…

Enemy of the State.

Stumbled onto a bit of the repeat screening last night. Thought it was a documentary for a second, which shows how far the goalposts have moved since the last time it screened.

I presume it was a drug dog, not sure what it thought it had, the bag had never had drugs near it as far as I know

When I first arrived in Auckland, tired, poor, and as part of a huddled mass yearning to breathe free, a customs dog took…

Ah, wouldn't that be nice.

Yes, outdated movie cliche obviously. In fact the new cliche is that you can't hide from the all-seeiong eye of national security, a-la Enemy of the State.

In the States you can pretty much start a new life with a new name wherever you want – at least that's the film cliche. Check into a hotel showing your Disney Club card, you know...

Ah, wouldn't that be nice.

In this USA, everyone from your cellphone provider to…

Coming into Auckland is the only time I've had trouble at an airport, and even then no-one was particularly unpleasant; we just wasted an hour having our luggage pored through by a fairly apologetic customs agent.

I had the same thing coming back into Auckland in 1995. As much as…

And both Brisbane and Auckland seem to have a variance in attitude towards anyone with a non Western face. I'm often arriving with folks from Asia and am appalled and embarrassed at the way they are treated by Immigration, MAF and the Police.

There's not much rhyme or reason to…

Coming into Auckland is the only time I've had trouble at an airport, and even then no-one was particularly unpleasant; we just wasted an hour having our luggage pored through by a fairly apologetic customs agent.

try having a bunch of stamps in your passport from known terror warned (©…

I had no problems entering and leaving Heathrow a couple of weeks after the…

But this seems an apposite thread in which to say: holy shit.

The common denominator with countries that hassle visitors seems to me to be speaking English.

English speaking and western just to add another qualifier. The most unpleasant nations in my experience to enter (and I've traveled a fair bit) are 1) USA 2) Australia (especially Brisbane) and c) NZ if…

And the Atlantics Jeffrey Goldberg punks the Transport Security Administration , leading to a series of posts and…

get yourself a temporary British passport over the counter

British Visitors Passports had photos and were valid for travel to a range of European countries. If the UK had joined Schengen, you wouldn't even need one as there would be no border checks.

The common denominator with countries that hassle…

I also had to stand in the perspex cubicle that blows jets of air at you in the hope of picking up explosives residue.

Sounds like low-level kinky.

I've told this story before but the Polish High School Girl who had the entry visa for the USA while travelling to the home via LAX & LHR with her host family…

Funny thing is, LAX was vile long before the current panic.

My first experience of the joys of LAX came in 1983, transiting thru to London. It was being rebuilt for the '84 Olympics and was mostly shut. We were herded off NZ1 into a big thing that looked like…

Funny thing is, LAX was vile long before the current panic. My first experience of it was being herded into a dirty transit "lounge" with no shops or anything en route back from London with a four-month old baby. I was flabbergasted by that.

I already told the story about…

Agree, LAX is essentially an interrogation chamber with aircraft runways. Was SFO any better?

Much — getting searched there was positively pleasant. I went via LAX to San Francisco because the person I was travelling with had Qantas air points, but next time I go back to California, it's absolutely…

Transferring at LAX, that happened in a hot, non-air-conditioned room that, of course, really stank, and there was a queue and a guy barking instructions

God, I've been in that room. Smelly and over-crowded with one tiny TV and a couple of snack machines. I was horribly hungover at the…

1. The rapid progress towards a track-and-trace society in Britain seems to some extent a reaction to the fact that for so long it was such a messy bureaucracy. Because it took so long to get a passport, you could stroll in to…

from the Guardian:

People who fail to tell the authorities of a change of address or amend other key personal details within three months will face civil penalty fines of up to £1,000 a time when the national identity card scheme is up and running,…

Eg, if you were vigorously pursuing a policy of airport screening, you wouldn't employ minimum wage drones…

I thought Stephen's point was that Israel is at least as, or more, vigorous than the USA in its response.

Israel's got an ongoing and unquestionably real threat, though. The US may or may not have. Israel's also developed these measures through decades of suicide bombers and the like. Which…

As is the case with fingerprints and photographs, we will require DNA records to be destroyed where charges are dropped or where suspects are found not guilty.

Please point to where anything any of you has said contradicts that.

I thought Stephen's point was that Israel is at least as, or more, vigorous than the USA in its response.

Careful there, Simon, you're making me homesick.

that explains the swarms of Italians everywhere here

You get rather used to bag and car checks by, often, machine gun toting polisi or guards.

Careful there, Simon, you're making me homesick.

consequently I went to the dodgy corner shop and picked one up for £1.

Here in the world's most illogical country you are required to register your pre-paid via a bit of software on every SIM before it works. The thing is you can send back any sort of information…

- 20,000 died in the Musket Wars
– 2,700 died at Gallipolli

Not to sanction your flagwaving friends' logic, but neither of those were a single deadly surprise attack on a purely civilian target in peacetime, as a hypothetical American might quickly point out. They're still terrible wounds on our…

told me that NZ had never suffered an attack with 3000 deaths

– 20,000 died in the Musket Wars
– 2,700 died at Gallipolli

Matthew, have you been to Israel?

At minimum your bags are searched on entry to any public building – hospital, shopping mall, whatever. There is an active secret police and censorship regime – trifling in comparison with its neighbours, but onerous compared to most Western democracies. And there is unlimited…

I've observed many times that if Israel, Spain, or even the UK, responded to their historic (in Israel's case on-going) terrorist situations with the same vigour

Matthew, have you been to Israel?

At minimum your bags are searched on entry to any public building – hospital, shopping mall, whatever. There…

I'm currently trying to get a CCTV in place at…

I'm not sure whether it's because of terrorism or not

The ID card thing? No, it isn't, it's been going on for over a century. It's how the state was modelled, on the French and German models of bureaucratic control. Foucault writes splendidly on this.

And does Italy have arbitrary detention in a military prison, without trial or legal advocacy?

During our terrorism decade you bet we did. And we do for mafia crimes too, on and off. Plenty of snooping there too, the extent of the freedom to do so changes in waves depending…

Gio, that's not a result of terrorism, though.

I'm not sure whether it's because of terrorism or not, but Italy has suffered a lot more terrorist incidents in the past 50 years than the USA has, so it's not out of the question that it relates to terrorism.

A colleague who goes there every year will finish telling a story about Italy with the phrase "it's very Italian" as an explanation. And then…

I realised that NZ's attitude to the kind of surveillance society that the UK is building is exemplified in the legal requirements for toll roads, where any…

I'm surprised OTOH at how in the US the whole surveillance thing – which goes so much more against their ethos and tradition of government – doesn't seem to have shocked the conscience quite as much. But maybe I've got this thing completely wrong.

No, you've pretty much got it…

DNA samples of about two million Kiwis should be destroyed or transferred to a secure authority to avoid possible abuse from the dizzying pace of technology, the Privacy Commission says.

The DNA samples taken from a heel-prick test of…

Incidentally, when I called to register for an NI number I was told not to worry- they would have all my information on file since…

Seriously. O2, Vodafone, Orange, etc. Put your £10 in (for £10 credit on the phone), plug it in, make calls. Easy. Totally untracable. Just BYO handset (not hard – expansys.co.uk)…

Letters to the Telegraph
Creeping identity cards

Sir – From today, the Government is issuing what it calls "ID cards for foreigners". These will affect students and those marrying Britons.

Over time, residents from outside Europe will be fingerprinted and have to…

I am one of many many people in NZ who has been troubled by obscene and/or threatening text messages sent from an unregistered prepaid phone.

Or simply allow any mobile user to killfile a phone number easily.

I suspect that if criminals want untraceable phones, they will simply steal them.

It won't solve the problem. It'll deter people who casually misuse phones, but unless there are stiff criminal sanctions for on-selling a phone without updating the register it won't matter a damn.

No doubt it wouldn't solve every problem, in much the same way that a vehicle register doesn't help…

I think the registration of your name and address when you buy a cellphone is necessary, and I wish NZ had a similar system. I am one of many many people in NZ who has been troubled by obscene and/or threatening text messages sent from an unregistered prepaid phone. And…

It doesn't matter that these…

And people ask me why I never go back

+1. I tend to pass these stries through my 'scaremonger' filter, because The Right aren't the only ones who think the world is going to hell in a handbasket. But really, FFS.

this wouldn't be quite so bad if the UK…

Besides of which, there isn't really a culture of…

The really interesting (scary) thing for me, was that when this information was first released (maybe about six weeks ago now?), all the reporting couched the ID card system within the immigrant debate. Meaning that very few UK residents that I spoke to…

For a start councils have been told they are not allowed to use anti terror powers to snoop on people so scratch that one.

Oh, of course there's been discussion, but no law changes as of yet. Last week the Home Office promised action on the abuse of anti-terror laws…

but they do. Incompetent is being nice.

I thought about counting the CCTV cameras from home (E14 – Isle of Dogs)…

Also, I have had some discussions with people from the Office of the Privacy Commission, and in principle Snapper are very constrained as far as sharing their data goes. The issue is really whether they need to collect as much data as they do.

Good on ya, Stephen. I must…

I meant Paul Litterick. Though from what you've linked to there, it looks like his understanding is correct, and mine was not.

I wish that it wasn't true but...

I doubt it. Or rather, unless the law says that explicitly, they will refuse to. Natural justice again...

I have this image of Finlayson in my head. He's wearing a Amnesty pin, he's paid up his liberal elite memberships and still he's fronting jack-boot law that offends the fundamentals of…

Curse my common name – which Paul did you mean Kyle? Mr Litterick or me?

I meant Paul Litterick. Though from what you've linked to there, it looks like his understanding is correct, and mine was not.

Does this mean courts now have to take into account unreal and insignificant risks?

I doubt it. Or rather, unless the law says that explicitly, they will refuse to. Natural justice again...

Ah yup.

My point was, that my understanding of what they're doing differed from Paul's. Paul seemed to be running with "anyone arrested'. My understanding was 'anyone arrested who had a previous criminal record'.

Curse my common name – which Paul did you mean Kyle? Mr Litterick or me?

My…

Presumption of innocence even extends to them, Kyle.

Ah yup.

My point was, that my understanding of what they're doing differed from Paul's. Paul seemed to be running with "anyone arrested'. My understanding was 'anyone arrested who had a previous criminal record'.

many of these systems currently archive footage that has no use today in the hope that future tech will make it much more useful

This article has a suspiciously conspiracist tone, but it's an interesting take on the potential future purpose of our own local photo drivers license – remember…

Does this mean courts now have to take into account unreal and insignificant risks?

That was exactly my thought when I heard the news item about it on the radio.

How far (or near) is it to the infamous 'sus laws' that caused Brixton to explode in 1981?

Last time I went to Europe for work, they were very surprised (and I think also a little annoyed) that I would not accept any…

Does this mean courts now have to take into account unreal and insignificant risks?

That was exactly my thought when I heard the news item about it on the radio.

"Criminals will soon find it harder to get bail as the National Government moves immediately to get tough on law and order."

Indeed; I wouldn't say it's just because it's National though. Editors tend to forget at what point hypothetical people become criminals quite easily.

But combine that with they…

Forget about that – Dunedin's in the process of ramming though a bunch of CCTVs for the Octagon – largely to avoid being responsible for policing the bars they've let expand into the street (one cop walking the beat would so much more good)

Gosh, that's interesting news. It's always…

I've always taken that to mean people with an existing criminal record, being charged with new offenses.

Presumption of innocence even extends to them, Kyle. Unless a person has a history of offending while on bail, they're entitled to exactly the same access to bail as someone who's got a…

So if you're contemplating relocating to London – considered by many a city of opportunity and financial rewards – it may be worth totalling the true costs of such a move.

I smell a Tui billboard.
A friend of mine is firmly of the opinion that so long as he…

Meanwhile, our new Government plans to introduce DNA testing of all suspects in all crimes involving imprisonable offences.

Indeed, I'm hoping the judiciary will frustrate them however with silly notions of natural justice.

Perhaps someone can enlighten me as to how many arrests result in charges let alone are qualified…

our new Government plans to introduce DNA testing of all suspects in all crimes involving imprisonable offences.

Not quite all suspects, but rather those arrested.

I would note, however, that with very very few exceptions (e.g. breach of a liquor ban) that you can pretty much only be arrested for…

"If you can scare people enough, they'll believe anything."?

– Benjamin Franklin.

Definately applies here.

While registering the Snapper is not compulsory, the only way to check one's transaction history, in case of overcharging for example, is to submit personal details to the database.

That's not exactly true. You can successfully register with nothing more than a throwaway email account and a false name. It…

Could they try any any harder to make visiting the US a pain in the ass?

A couple of years ago I had to travel to Auckland just so they could look me in the eye (literally, the meeting took five seconds) because even though Italy is a visa waiver…

The US have just announced a new "not really a visa" requirement for travel there, for nationals of countries with a visa waiver agreement already in place. This includes NZ & AU nationals

Americablog's Chris in Paris was spewing about it last week.

Could they try any any harder to make…

And if that leads to a debate that you can only buy a cell phone with ID, that might be a debate worth having.

That would also require laws saying you can't sell or give your phone away. Then you'd just get criminals offering kids enough money to buy the…

Here in Wellington, the equivalent of Oyster has emerged in the form of Snapper. Not only are regular commuters excluded from regular trip concessions unless they carry this RFID chip, they have to fork out $10…

Yeah, right!

That said, in Sydney earlier…