Posts by Idiot Savant
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Who's voting against it, I/S? The Greens and the Maori party, presumably?
As I understand it, yes. Both opposed the First Reading.
ACT might oppose it as well. But both major parties seem to think that justice is just something that can be dispensed with if it helps them secure convictions.
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I think we need an explanation of precisely what the SoTA of 2002 does, how it changes things, and what effect it has on our civil liberties. Graeme, that's you I'm calling ...
It's not so bad. It defines a "terrorist act", creates a number of offences (including recruiting for or participating in terrorist groups), and sets up a designation system allowing the government to designate groups as terrorists. Unlike foreign legislation, it creates no special powers of search and detention, so the stuff we're seeing on IndyMedia and some blogs about draconian powers is simple hysteria. Even if the police press participation charges, they'll have to do so under ordinary law, in open court, and the accused with enjoy all the normal rights of those accused under our legal system.
The amendment bill which will get its second reading later in the week is a different story. It will amend the designation regime to give sweeping powers to the PM and remove any real right of appeal (so if Greenpeace is falsely accused of being terrorists, tough shit), remove the current exemption for lawful protest (allowing it to be classified as terrorism), and create a completely redundant general offence of "committing a terrorist act" (redundant because every terrorist act is at minimum also an act of assault, murder, manslaughter or criminal damage). The most objectionable and significant change, however, is that it will allow the use of secret evidence in terrorism trials, making one of the worst features of the Zaoui case an official part of our justice system.
The amendment bill is a crock and should be thrown out. Unfortunately, it will probably pass by a massive margin of 111 - 10. Fundamental human rights? Justice? What are they?
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<quote>As someone quite rightly put it last night....'if not one talks, everyone walks'.
Yep, I find that pretty creepy ...</quote>
Think of it another way: we have a right to silence in this country, and it's the job of the police, rather than the accused and co-accused, to prove the allegations.
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Well, Howard Broad has been quite careful to caveat what he has been saying, and to refuse to answer where it might compromise his investigation, so he's in the clear. OTOH, given the cops are leaking the juicy sewer details to the media, as an institution they don't look so hot.
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Saw Annette Sykes on the late news tonight, and she did have a point: given the distribution of those charged, why was Ruatoki the only place which had its transport links cut and where everyone was stopped, searched,and photographed? Was it because they were brown?
I'm also wondering what's going to happen to those photos. People who aren't actually suspected of any crime, but were just goign about their daily business. Will that evidence be destroyed, or kept around for later? (Was the roadblock a fishing expedition so they could identify more people in their surveilance tapes?)
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Actually, the ammunition is dodgy too - unless of course you have a firearms license. But then I'd also hope that the person who sold it to them was prosecuted as well...
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I'd think that this list of offending trademe purchases would indicate that at least one person likes running round like a soldier...
Which we might want to remember isn't actually illegal.
Looking at that list, there are two dodgy items: a "Sig Assault Rifle" (which I'd hope isn't what it sounds like) and what looks from the description to be a 10-shot magazine for something (meaning it turns whatever it is plugged into into an illegal military-style semi-automatic) (I am assuming here that the person did not have the appropriate type of license). The rest is all fine, though probably of interest to the extent it helps build a conspiracy charge.
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Ok. So you get into a lift and find a cobra, a lion and John Banks. You only have two bullets in your gun what do you do?
Hope you have a license for that firearm, because otherwise you're going to jail?
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Unlawful possession of firearms
And when you actually read it further, that "unlawful posession" means "getting to play with someone else's gun". It's an offence, you see, unless they have a firearms licence (or you do).
Normally, this isn't the sort of thing people check, so they may be able to argue some "good faith" there if they really had no clue that the weapons were illegal.
(I'm presuming here that the person who actually owned the guns wasn't licensed. If they were, then the police are grossly abusing the law. It's not illegal to learn to shoot, and its not illegal to play with guns if you are supervised by a licensed owner).
The restricted weapon / semi-autmatic stuff, OTOH, is another story. This is stuff everyone should know is illegal. If someone offers you the chance to play with their Kalashnikov or molotov cocktails, Just Say No.
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I don't want armed sectarian conflict OR jackbooted wannabe thugs doing whatever they wanted with no public scrutiny or oversight.
How does that fit into your dichotomous world view, I/S?
Perfectly; I don't want either either. It was just a comment that some people seem to be frothing for some real terrorist action, just so they can be "proved right".