THIS JUST IN
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Re the leakage: I've just spent all day listing to, among other people, Moana Jackson and others working on the defence.
They are very clear that whoever is leaking a) isn't them and b) is trying to rescue the police and c) is wrecking the chances for a fair trial on the remaining charges.
I have to say I'm feeling bad about some of the things I have said earlier about suppression of information, because I have a new-found appreciation of how a fair trial depends on letting that information come out in its proper context, the court. The public interest in fair trials is actually more important than the public curiosity.
(It's also been a very draining, disturbing, down-the-rabbithole day in terms of what I've learned about the extent of SIS and police surveillance, but that's another story.)
Apropos terror laws: we need to take a sanguine look at the country we live in and ask ourselves about the reality of the threats we face. We have to ask ourselves, exactly what real and present threat these laws address, and whether the sacrifice in our civil liberties is worth it. More and more, I feel that it isn't. Discussing hypotheticals - what if some hypothetical group X tries to commit act Y - is all very well but we have to consider the likelihood of these scenarios as well as the possibility. Monkeys might fly out my butt, but I don't feel the expenditure on reinforced underwear is warranted.
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Wait. You're happy with a law that doesn't catch terrorists until after they've committed their act? You don't want to, y'know, catch them before they set off their bomb?
Yes, I am. I don't want to be "safe" from the infinitesimal chance of being killed in a terrorist bomb if the price for that is a law that throws people in jail for bad poetry.
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The Terrorism Suppression Act didn't create a new offence of committing a terrorist act
Thanks Graham - I saw it defined such an act and that it did create an offence of terrorist bombing.
Why these offences are neccesary when we have laws against murder, arson and criminal damage does rather escape me, really.
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(It's also been a very draining, disturbing, down-the-rabbithole day in terms of what I've learned about the extent of SIS and police surveillance, but that's another story.)
Stephen - If you have the time I'ld love to hear about that.
David Langes - "New Zealand is positioned like a dagger pointing at the heart of Antarctica" comes to mind on our level of threat.
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Shep, it was a symposium with Nicky Hager, Jane Kelsey, Moana Jackson and David Small, organised by the Postgraduate Student Associate at VUW. I am going to blog about it tomorrow, because I took a lot of notes and I don't want them to go to waste, but (irony) the whole thing was recorded and I understand it will be up on the PGSA website soon.
Right now thought I really, really need a drink.
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The thing that's really niggling at me (amongst all the other things that I'm concerned about with this case...) is the whole "we had to use the TSA in order to get a warrant to bug/video/listen in to people's private conversations - because otherwise we wouldn't have been allowed to do that" from the police.
Now I'm not entirely sure whether that's an assumption that people have made about the police's reasoning behind using the TSA, or if that's a paraphrase of a direct quote from the police - but if it's the latter, then that really worries me.
Because what that's saying is "we wanted to get evidence about a bunch of people in a way that the laws of New Zealand don't normally allow (bugging etc). The only way we could do it is by invoking a very very serious law (the TSA), that deals with a very very serious crime (terrorism)."
As we all know, the Solicitor-General felt there was not enough evidence to meet the high threshold required to authorise prosecutions under the Act, which means that whatever evidence the police obtained during their year-long bugging operation wasn't sufficient to show that the Urewera 17 (and their mates) were actual, you know, terrorists.
So we have a number of people (who knows how many) whose private conversations have been listened into for a year by police. Nothing any of them has said is sufficient for them to be charged under the TSA. Their right to privacy has been breached, some of them have been remanded in custody for a month, and those 17 individuals will most likely never be able to travel overseas without tremendous hassle if at all.
I'm veering away from my point here - let me pull myself back to it...
My point is... it feels to me as though the TSA has been used to justify a fishing expedition in which our individual right to not have the police listen into our private conversations has been breached.
It's all back to front - to me, it seems wrong that the police were able to invoke the TSA in order to get evidence that they hoped would convict people under the TSA. Seems to me, you shouldn't be able to use the TSA to bug people unless you already HAVE a bunch of evidence which VERY strongly points in that direction anyway.
Otherwise you're using a law that may not actually apply to your suspects in order to gather evidence in a way you normally wouldn't be allowed to do in New Zealand.
And that, to me, is wrong, wrong, wrong.
I'm in the same camp as Stephen Judd with the monkeys flying out of one's butt thing. (heh) If the price we as a nation have to pay to "protect" ourselves against the (IMO) teeny weeny threat of "terrorism" in this country, is a gradual and insidious loss of our rights to privacy, our civil liberties and our freedoms to express ourselves and engage in legitimate protest, then I for one think that's way too high a price to pay. (See USofA as a perfect example of where I do not want to end up...)
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I've had a look at Part 11A of the Crimes Act and it seems to me that the requirements for a warrant in the case of a "serious violent offence" and in the case of a "terrorist offence" or more or less identical. Graeme - please correct me if there is a substantial difference that I've missed?
So why could they not get a warrant against an offence of "conspiracy to murder" or criminal damage, arson, etc?
And how did they get a warrant given that the Solicitor General couldn't find any grounds to charge under the TSA? Was the evidence the police presented to get the warrant (which would not have include any evidence from the actual wiretaps) misleading, or did the judge misinterpret the Act?
Sadly, there seems to be no mechanism to appeal an interception warrant after it's issuance? Not least because the existence and nature of the warrant and its justification are suppressed?
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Nice. Thanks webweaver for saving me time.
"The public interest in fair trials is actually more important than the public curiosity."
Nice also.
Thing is, though, Kyle is living proof of the fact that you throw the T-word around enough and people actually start assuming it must be signifying something real out there, whatever the relevant legal opinion might say to the contrary.
I wonder Kyle: Would you scoff in derision at the suggestion that the unavailability of the evidence is quite convenient for the police because they thus won't be humuliated by how absurd that evidence actually is? While enough NZers have uncritically accepted their suggestions about terrorism, none of which have been substantiated.
Because I privately scoff in derision at your apparent belief that the police are not basically an arrogant, conservative, bullying organisation with enough power to think they should have more and should exercise for the "betterment" of this society.
But that aside, I think something we should really keep in mind (even if the law may be unable/disinclined to acknowledge it) is that there's a major major difference between one or two people doing something terrorist-like (ie committing arbitrary violence in the name of their ideals -- which is the only possibility I'm even slightly -- very slightly -- inclined to entertain in the current NZ situation) and a "culture of terrorism" whereby partaking in such activity (and accepting its concequencies) is a norm among a certain demographic.
Because I think public conceptions of the two scenarios have been clouded in recent times. And they're very very different.
Clouded by cops and irresponsible media, incidentally. (And as for the discussion of who actually said what, give me a break. The cops knew they only had to drop the word, for god's sake.)
Moana Jackson is a stunning example of a culture of patience and reason that belies this pathetic sensationalism.
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Kyle is fear-mongering. Webweaver has the word. Despite the obfuscation, it's all very simple.
There are no terrorists in NZ. If there were, existing legislation is enough to deal with them. What we have here are people up on charges who have virtually no chance of a fair trial, not with the prime minister and the solicitor-general making public pronouncements about the 'very disturbing activities' they've been up to, based on unexaminable and untested evidence.
Oh, and you'd need to know someone's got an interception warrant against you to appeal against it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the spooks and cops tend not to let you know they're spying on you.
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Oh, and you'd need to know someone's got an interception warrant against you to appeal against it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the spooks and cops tend not to let you know they're spying on you.
Indeed, but in this case I think the police have more or less stated that they evidence that was so gathered. But there doesn't seem to be a process to (even after a trial) bring the justification of these warrants into the open.
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Nicky Hager, Jane Kelsey, Moana Jackson and David Small
I doubt you will agree with me Stephen, but as some one who is centre-left and spent a bit of time confronting Police in demos etc perhaps you might consider my views well meaning, these people are mad. I find it really disturbing the amount of influence these people have on the left.
And I find it really disturbing that there has been so much benefit of the doubt given to crazy people with guns - all because the spout left wing causes - and a corresponding demonisation of the Police.
But I am reassured that the Labour Party has much the same opinion.
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As a visual artist, I'm very aware of the way perception works. You don't see what is objectively in front of you. Your brain constructs a picture out of the signals it receives along the optic nerve using expectations based on its previous experience.
Unfortunately, it's not just artists who exploit this (and related brain functions) to mislead the public.
Bandying about terms such as 'terrorist' and 'very disturbing activities' creates images in people's minds. Some of those people will be jurors.
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Kyle, do you want laws that catch criminals before they've committed their act?
Umm, yes. I don't have a problem with conspiracy crimes, or attempted murder crimes etc.
And I suspect the familes of victims of terrorism would probably tend to agree.
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Neil, in philosophy there is such a thing known as the argument from authority. Usually this is invoked to discount the type of argument that goes 'I'm right because I'm the professor of such-and-such'.
However, what it says is that you look at the argument, not the person making it. This means we don't give something any extra weight because the person saying it happens to be, say, the solicitor-general. It also means you don't discount an argument simply because the person making it is an idiot.
You weigh an argument on its strengths.
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Kyle, conspiracy to murder is a criminal act, as is attempting such. Please stop constructing straw men.
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Oh, and isn't interesting that the SG used Graeme's possible defence as an example of why the TSA is 'incoherent'? I thought planning was covered.
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One problem with conspiracy, is that whilst the plan doesn't have to be far advanced, the conspiracy has to be around a specific crime - conspiring to assassinate some politician isn't enough - you need a target. If you're planning to murder, it's down to Clark or Key and you're going to flip a coin on the day, there probably isn't a conspiracy.
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I'm loath to dispute with Graeme, but surely if I make arrangements to obtain a gun, go to Wellington, climb to a suitable vantage point and shoot the first red-headed person I see, that's conspiracy to murder?
If on the other hand, I mutter vague threats about wanting to kill gingas, that isn't?
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Because I privately scoff in derision at your apparent belief that the police are not basically an arrogant, conservative, bullying organisation with enough power to think they should have more and should exercise for the "betterment" of this society
I scoff at you, blindjackdog, and the hypocritical chardonnay liberalism your ridiculous anti-police rant typifies. Yeah, the cops are all corrupt, power-crazed rapists and bullies, but the moment someone breaks into your house and pinches your Noam Chomsky 1st edition, who you gonna call?
I'm with Kyle. We know NOTHING more than we did a week ago. And yet, because no charges are laid under the TSA, suddenly the Police are incompetent/corrupt/puppets of the State, and all that was happening in the Ureweras was basket-weaving and organic cooking classes.
And I'm actually quite concerned by some of the opinions expressed here - So it'd really have been better for the police to wait until AFTER a terrorist event had occurred than to act to prevent it occurring in the first place? really? I'm sorry, but that's just FCUKED.
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Kyle said:
Umm, yes. I don't have a problem with conspiracy crimes, or attempted murder crimes etc.
And I suspect the familes of victims of terrorism would probably tend to agree.
And I say...
I suspect you might not be entirely right about that, Kyle. Take, for example, the group "Peaceful Tomorrows" which is:
...an organization founded by family members of those killed on September 11th who have united to turn our grief into action for peace. By developing and advocating nonviolent options and actions in the pursuit of justice, we hope to break the cycles of violence engendered by war and terrorism. Acknowledging our common experience with all people affected by violence throughout the world, we work to create a safer and more peaceful world for everyone.
one of whose goals is:
To call attention to threats to civil liberties, human rights, and other freedoms in the U.S. as a consequence of war.
They're not the only 9/11 families of victims group to state that the post-9/11 actions by the Bush government are "not in my name", either...
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It's all back to front - to me, it seems wrong that the police were able to invoke the TSA in order to get evidence that they hoped would convict people under the TSA. Seems to me, you shouldn't be able to use the TSA to bug people unless you already HAVE a bunch of evidence which VERY strongly points in that direction anyway.
I think that's how all warrants work isn't it? You get a warrant under the arms act, because you believe someone is breaching that act. You get a warrant under the crimes act, to pursue someone under the crimes act.
Thing is, though, Kyle is living proof of the fact that you throw the T-word around enough and people actually start assuming it must be signifying something real out there, whatever the relevant legal opinion might say to the contrary.
Or you could read what I actually said, which wasn't anything about whether there was terrorism out there at all.
To summarise, my argument was, that there has been no evidence come to light in the past week to bag the police. We are still in a state of unknown about what people actually did or didn't do, and the solicitor general's statements don't change that.
The people who can answer that question are those that have read the 100 or so pages of intercepted material. As far as I know, that doesn't include anyone posting here.
I wonder Kyle: Would you scoff in derision at the suggestion that the unavailability of the evidence is quite convenient for the police because they thus won't be humuliated by how absurd that evidence actually is? While enough NZers have uncritically accepted their suggestions about terrorism, none of which have been substantiated.
Well, the Solicitor General said that the police were right to bring these matters to his attention. That could mean that the evidence collected was indicating terrorism, or it could mean that it wasn't.
I doubt very much however that it was absurd, the police would have had their legal teams look over it, and they wouldn't have wasted the SG's time if it amounted to nothing, they just would have dropped the whole TSA shortly after the raids, and held onto the Arms Act offences. What would the purpose be in sending absurd evidence to the SG? They'd just run the risk that he'd say "there's no evidence of terrorism here."
And I'll restate again, while none of the suggestions about terrorism have been substantiated, I'm not aware that they've been unsubstantiated yet. All that's happened is that the SG has declined to use the TSA to pursue them, and then he's bagged the law as virtually useless. That still leaves us not knowing whether people were planning/preparing to commit terrorist acts, it just means that they won't be charged under that act.
Because I privately scoff in derision at your apparent belief that the police are not basically an arrogant, conservative, bullying organisation with enough power to think they should have more and should exercise for the "betterment" of this society.
That's funny. I've been arrested twice - once protesting at a national party conference, once after getting sick of being pushed around by the NZ police at the CHOGM protests in 1995. I've laid 14 complaints with the police complaints authority in my life, I've been hit by police batons a couple of times, I've had a friend have her head shoved into a concrete pole while she was arrested. I've been actively involved in the peace movement of which some of the people tied up in this come from since 1994.
I'm not sure you should be making assumptions that I'm not capable of having a healthy dislike for the police as an institution, and indeed some of them as individuals.
But I'd bet money if ten people met the police commissioner and he could spend an hour telling them his side of the story, 9 of them would see where he was, and is, coming from. He doesn't get to do that however, as the law requires him to now destroy that information.
What I still think is a little hypocritical, is how a couple of weeks ago, people were all trooping out the line 'I will wait and see before I make any judgements on the police actions'. No further information has come forward about whether or not the police were justified in what they did, but now it's become a lot more trendy to bag the police.
It's not an easy job, and if they're going to catch flak when they fuck up, which is fair enough, it should be on the basis of being able to present the facts, not on the basis of having an application turned down to charge people under a particular law, which everyone here seems to agree is a crap law to start with.
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If you're planning to murder, it's down to Clark or Key and you're going to flip a coin on the day, there probably isn't a conspiracy.
Well, that's the way to organise your terrorist cell then.
And, Andy, straw men mate. I think there was possibly one person who could've been construed as saying the police should wait until after a terrorist event, but that was beside the point.
The cops used the TSA to get interception warrants because they couldn't get one under the 'serious violent crime' criterion. That tells you something, doesn't it? The evidence they obtained under those warrants wasn't enough to even lay charges, let alone get a conviction.
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Perhaps they are mad, Neil. Mad, and deeply concerned with my civil liberties. I am aware that they are polemicists and agitators, and set filters accordingly.
Meanwhile, the Labour party has presided over extensions of state powers of surveillance year on year, and the best the agencies entrusted with them can come up with is a bunch of firearms offences - which have yet to be proven. Which brings me to:
"benefit of the doubt given to crazy people with guns"
Really? Where's your presumption of innocence? Is it possible that among the people arrested it will turn out some are quite sane, and don't have guns? I think it is.
Likewise, I think it's touchingly naive to believe that the police are unaffected by institutional imperatives, or that they always get it right, or that they wouldn't do something for no reason. We have had abundant evidence over the years that senior officers can and do make all sorts of mistakes. It isn't demonising them to take that into account when assessing police statements.
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And I'll restate again, while none of the suggestions about terrorism have been substantiated, I'm not aware that they've been unsubstantiated yet.
Please unsubstantiate the claim that you've been engaged in terrorist activity, not to mention child abuse and any other icky smear I can come up with.
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I suspect you might not be entirely right about that, Kyle. Take, for example, the group "Peaceful Tomorrows" which is:
Well that doesn't counteract my point webweaver. I'm not arguing for the Patriot Act, nor indeed am I in favour of NZ's anti-terrorism laws. The Patriot Act is a pile of crap.
I was simply saying, would the families of the victims of 911, want the terrorists stopped, and charged with 'conspiracy to commit murder' before the terrorists got on the plane? I suspect the answer is 'yes'. That's arresting someone and charging them before they've committed the act.
That can be done by non-terrorism laws in NZ, and I presume, the USA. Not as easy legally, as you have to prove what someone was about to do, rather than what they did, but it has the advantage of less people being dead.
And I believe there's an appropriate balance between doing that, and civil liberties. We've had conspiracy crimes for ages in NZ, I've never thought of it as controversial.
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