THIS JUST IN
385 Responses
First ←Older Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 16 Newer→ Last
-
surely the recorded conversations are only parts of a larger conversation?
-
The Conversation
-
An interesting point from Collins yesterday.
It seems police sought to use the TSA because they used it as the basis for many of their interception warrants. Collins did say they looked but there was no other statute that would have allowed them the approach they took.
You say that like it's a bad thing. It's supposed to be hard for the police to get inception powers, and it's only ever justified when something really terrible seems likely to happen.
If the police were invoking the act merely to use those interception powers, which is an inference one might draw from Collins' statement, that would be a Bad Thing, and precisely the kind of abuse we have seen happening in other jurisdictions (eg in the US with their PATRIOT act).
-
The Police did not emphasise the terror charges aspect - that was the media and people like Harawira.
That's a fair point, the Police only used the TSA for interception and search warrants and attempted to lay charges under it. If only the accused, their supporters and the media had all STFU and accepted that quietly, there'd have been no drama.
-
there'd have been no drama.
you mean, "other than heavy-handed nationwide search and seizure under spurious pretences"?
-
Tim, was that meant sarcastically or not? I honestly can't tell.
-
You say that like it's a bad thing. It's supposed to be hard for the police to get inception powers, and it's only ever justified when something really terrible seems likely to happen.
Actually Stephen I was just adding information with no inferences whatsoever. You may be reading a little too much into what I wrote.
Though FWIW I guess this means any evidence/intercepts gathered in this manner will now be inadmissable in Court. That's another can of worms in and of itself.
-
I know online polls are usually pretty meaningless, but this one on Stuff.co.nz is remarkable (so far):
Were police justified in seeking to lay charges against those arrested in last month's raids under terrorism legislation?
Yes, they had real concerns, but the law failed (2796 votes, 90.8%)
Yes, but the Ruatoki raids were badly handled (96 votes, 3.1%)
No, firearms laws would have been sufficient (122 votes, 4.0%)
No, and heads must now roll (64 votes, 2.1%)
Admittedly, without evidence made public you could almost vote for all four of them (I chose no. 3), but it does suggest the "terrorism" label has an audience all too willing to believe.
PS Apologies to Campbell Live for my earlier post: they did cover the story properly. CloseUp started to, but then had an urgent appointment with a medium (which I didn't watch, so I've no idea if said medium had a useful angle on the story, grilling dead terrorists perhaps).
-
Tim, was that meant sarcastically or not? I honestly can't tell.
Sarcastic. Reasonably highly so. Sorry.
-
WH,
The mere fact [Mr Broad] chose the Terrorism Suppression Act means he should resign.
I wish Tariana Turia would resign. Not because she did anything wrong during the "terror raids", mind, but because she is a twit.
-
The best comparison able to be played out on 9-noon was rather than terrorism was going to a supermarket. Seriously Braod wasn't able to think about senarios related to the crime only going shopping. Was he dumbing it down or is that where Braods at?
-
The reason I asked about the defence having any opportunity to scrutinise the "evidence" before it went to the SG (waaay back in this thread) was because I was interested to know if the SG had made his decision based solely on what the police provided, without any submissions from the defence as to explanations, mitigation, etc.
On Nine to Noon this morning Broad said that the interception warrants were granted by the High Court Judge under both the TSA and the Crimes Act. I'm not sure on the legal ins and outs of that, whether it means some types of surveillance were under the TSA and some under the Crimes Act.
Broad also said that none of the surveilled material would now be able to be used which suggests either a) it was all only relevant to charges under the TSA, not the Crimes Act and/or b) the juicy stuff was only gathered under the warrants from the TSA, not the Crimes Act. Am I way off track with that?
Does anyone else feel a Nicky Hager book coming on?
-
I'm just queuing this up now.
-
merc,
If I were a playwright, I would write this as a play and take it from town to town. Personally </conspiracy, drivel alert> I think the Police were set up.
-
On Nine to Noon this morning Broad said that the interception warrants were granted by the High Court Judge under both the TSA and the Crimes Act. I'm not sure on the legal ins and outs of that, whether it means some types of surveillance were under the TSA and some under the Crimes Act.
No, it means that the warrants were granted under the crimes act to investigate offences from the TSA.
(The TSA did however insert the terrorism warrant section into the Crimes Act)
-
Michael F
You are being unfair to Broad there. He said he was very constrained in developing comparisons because he didn;t want to infringe the evidence restrictions that were in place now the terrorism charges couldn;t be laid.
He admitted the supermarket comparison was a poor one but the best he could do to be safe. No doubt he came up with a brilliantly incisive and relevant one moments after the interview ended - like we all do.
I'm assuming he couldn;t say something like "we couldn't charge them when they were saying 'down with the govt, let's get rid of them, long live the revolution', but when they started saying "how are we going to do that? Blow the beehive!', then we felt we had grounds to move.
I'd raise another question though, the police are probably going to have to destroy all the evidence they gathered (according to Broad). Does this mean we will learn less than we could from the events? Is that a good result either way? Even from only an academic pov this provides a great case study and it would be a shame for it not to be fully examined.
PS Bring back sedition anyone?
-
people with guns with anti-government ideas
Like half the farmers in the Waikato? I bet a lot of them don't renew their gun licenses on time and get nothing more than a polite call from the local firearms officer.
White farmer thinks he can shoot at people intruding on his land - reasonable self-defence
Tuhoe think they can shoot at people intruding on their land - terrorism(Just to be clear, I don't think anyone should be allowed to have a firearm that's intended to shoot at people. But there's a massive double standard here).
-
Question: is there only an offence of "conspiracy to murder" or can one be convicted of planning to cause injury or damage?
-
It looks to me as if the police might have been using the TSA as a simple effortless way to get intercept warrents authorised and then later on down the road they found themselves backed into a corner when they figured out they had to charge people with terrorism in order to present any of the evidence they obtained. It makes me wonder just how many intercepts they've applied for under this legislation and whether there's any way of finding that information out?
-
Silly me. It was the media all along who invoked the Terrorist Suppression Act to get the search warrants for the police to start this whole charade in the first place.
Well what Broad said on Morning Report this morning, was that within two hours of the warrants being served, the media were all over them, so he called a media conference to address it.
And the media who made up lurid claims of IRA handbooks, napalm bombs, and conspiracies to murder George Bush, Helen Clark, and John Key...
Get real. While journalists never reveal their sources, the only place these claims could have come from was the police.
Well that's my question. Does anyone know, or is it just a big assumption? I'm not saying it hasn't come from the police, but everyone is bagging on them for waving around the terrorism flag. Broad indicates that that wasn't just the police - is he wrong, and do people have evidence that they leaked stuff to back that up? Because as far as I can tell he's correct when he says that the release of the warrant wasn't done by the police, that was one of the people that it was served on. And as has been pointed out elsewhere, the police had to put the TSA on the warrant to enable them to charge under that law.
-
Thanks for clearing up about warrants under the Crimes Act vs the TSA Idiot Savant. I am a bit of a dumbo when it comes to these things!
Like Danyl I would very much like to know how may intercepts have been applied for, and how many granted.
-
And the media who made up lurid claims of IRA handbooks, napalm bombs, and conspiracies to murder George Bush, Helen Clark, and John Key...
You can trace it all back to Bomber :-)
-
Well what Broad said on Morning Report this morning, was that within two hours of the warrants being served, the media were all over them, so he called a media conference to address it.
They did dress up as stormtroopers and seal off an entire town - that's always likely to attract a wee bit of curiosity from the press.
-
I'm not saying it hasn't come from the police, but everyone is bagging on them for waving around the terrorism flag.
from the NatRad inyterview this morning I got the impression that Broad would be quite happy with a law that did not have the "terrorism" baggage. That reinforces my perception that the Police were not trying play some sort of scare mongering terrorism card that some are alleging.
-
Rich
There is a conspiracy law but according to Broad it needs a specific target and intent. It can't be a generalised intent to cause murder and mayhem.
Post your response…
This topic is closed.