Posts by Matthew Poole
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If a protest organisation (e.g. Greenpeace) were engaging in illegal behaviour (trespass, criminal damage, etc) to make a point, would any money raised by that organisation be "proceeds of crime"?
No, that would not make that money "proceeds of crime".
To quote the relevant section of the Act, In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, a person has unlawfully benefited from significant criminal activity if the person has knowingly, directly or indirectly, derived a benefit from significant criminal activity (whether or not that person undertook or was involved in the significant criminal activity).
That you have assets and are a criminal does not make those assets the proceeds of crime. If the assets were stolen, then yes, they would be, but donations are, by definition, given willingly and thus cannot possibly be the proceeds of crime.
If Greenpeace raises $30k or more by way of criminal activity, then they've got it coming.As for the terrorism angle, which I'm sure will be your next recourse, that doesn't fly either. For one thing, as I've already said that would require changes to the Terrorism Suppression Act just for it to be possible to designate Greenpeace as a terrorist organisation. Plus, once that designation hurdle is passed there's provision in the Terrorism Suppression Act for forfeiture of all their assets anyway. That's a much broader power than the one given in the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act, which allows only for the forfeiture of assets that were acquired with the proceeds of crime.
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You can see how one might be a bit worried that some copper with the wrong end of the stick might show up one day and take all my stuff
Actually, no, I can't. The copper has to go to court and convince a judge. They can't just decide, of their own accord, that your income is illegitimate and then seize your kit. And before they can convince the judge, you get a chance to present your side of the case.
OK, so those invoices were just emailed PDFs, and some of the companies no longer exist (we'll believe it wasn't your fault, thousands wouldn't :P ), but can you muster not a single testimonial that you actually do consulting work to foreign companies? Or local ones? Remember, balance of probabilities. It's not a huge hurdle. Also, the police would have to be presenting evidence that the income was from illegal activities. It's not illegal to have lots of money coming into your bank accounts from overseas sources, or even terribly dubious. No judge is going to take that alone as evidence that you've been doing anything wrong. It doesn't prove anything, except that you've been getting paid money from overseas, and all that it's really useful for is indicating what kind of lifestyle you could reasonably afford if the money is actually legit.
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Maybe it's just me, but I'm actually not particularly incensed about the changes to the asset forfeiture regime. My stance on civil liberties is pretty liberal, but this one just doesn't get my neck hair up. When you're trying to get at people who are frequently involved in violent crime at high levels, the requirement to pass muster with a jury before the state can seize assets that a reasonable person would conclude were bought with "dirty money" is a ridiculous hurdle. Tainted jurors, anyone? Intimidated witnesses?
Maybe it's my anti-Rodney streak, but I don't consider property to be worth that much protection. Liberty? Absolutely. Property? Not so much. As I said here, I cannot conceive of a situation where a person who actually has come to own their assets through legitimate means could not prove so to the satisfaction of a balance of probabilities test. It has to pass muster with a High Court judge, which is a pretty good check.On the new surveillance powers for a range of agencies, according to Warren Young, deputy head of the Law Commission and the author of the Bill, it's meant to prescribe the use of existing powers not grant new ones. If that's true, this is a perfect example of why urgency is bad and the public consultation process is good. To quote from that article, says Chester Borrows, "if that was the intent, the submitters' views meant the bill was obviously so unclear that it would need to be amended."
Consequently, I'm going to reserve judgement on this one until we find out if the intent has been clarified. Be thankful that National didn't rush this one through under urgency (Craig, I don't care who was in charge when this one was drafted, National are the ones who love playing urgency and they're the ones in power now), when it seems that there's quite significant divergence between the drafters' intent and the likely way the Bill would be interpreted by the courts.Not happy about the DNA thing, but at least the profiles aren't held if no conviction results. That would really be inexcusable, whereas forced taking of samples without a court order is merely of the same order as fish that's been lying on a Mediterranean beach for a week.
That immigration bill is still that awful? Fuck! No surprises that Labour aren't doing anything about it, when Goff is such a crypto-fascist and it's a Labour bill in the first place. I guess it's too much to hope for Act to be a proper liberal party. Where are the Maori Party? The Greens are a given, but because they're a given they don't attract much notice to these issues.
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Rich, designating protest groups as terrorist groups would require some rejigging of the Suppression of Terrorism Act, and even that would not be sufficient to meet the requirements of the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act. There would have to be a lot of rewriting of both acts, as they currently stand, to allow protesters to have their assets confiscated.
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Also, I suspect with a bit of tweaking, the government could designate a protest group as a "terrorist organisation" and treat any of their assets (money from donations, for instance) as the proceeds of crime. With this law, they don't need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that any crimes actually took place.
They could do that with or without this law, though, if they were so inclined. I don't in the least buy the argument that this particular change is thin-end-of-the-wedge stuff, if only because there are other ways of achieving the same ends when you have the power to pass whatever law you see fit.
As for renting, of course it's possible. That doesn't mean that it's done, though. You're assuming significant levels of competence on the part of these criminals, too. Given the things that the police have seized in the fairly-recent past (cars, houses, bullion, jewellery, stacks of cash...), I do think you're over-egging this one somewhat. Just because the law has changed doesn't mean that the crims are going to wise up all of a sudden.
Not quite sure what that article from the Guardian is meant to add to this particular debate, either. Didn't see any mention of asset seizures, or indeed of anything related to actual judicial proceedings as opposed to the police just being fascists - which, in the UK, is something of a given when the elected leaders hold the attitudes they do toward civil rights.
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Brickley, Rich, you do realise that asset forfeiture is already on the books, don't you?
Ah yes, the nominally law abiding needn't worry.
In theory, no, they shouldn't. Balance of probabilities cuts in both directions. Does it make it easier for the authorities to get a seizure order? Absolutely. Does it make it harder to demonstrate that your lifestyle was in excess of your income? Hell no. Do you have to now provide some proof? Yes. Much proof? No, not really.
Maybe I'm just naive, but I really have been struggling to work out how someone who's "nominally law abiding" could end up unable to prove that they didn't acquire assets by way of legitimate means. If nothing else they should have records with IRD for their income tax payments. Bequests generally come with associated paperwork, or at least records from the probation of the will. Gifts could be a little tricky, if the giver can no longer be contacted and there's nothing else to support an assertion that it was a gift, but then you come back to the balance of probabilities and if there's one unexplainable asset against an otherwise-legitimate background the balance isn't in favour of that asset being bought with the proceeds of crime.
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Of course, any real organised criminals will have their assets buried offshore and won't suffer any risk of confiscation.
Real property is generally of very little use to you when it's overseas. Cars, houses, blocks of land... All very real, very local, and already regularly targeted by the cops under existing forfeiture rules.
Also, a court order to freeze and seize funds in overseas banks is an option. Unless the assets in question are real property on foreign soil in a country without forfeiture laws, most criminals can't keep their ill-gotten gains out of the hands of our authorities.As for your activists and "brown people", how many of them would own assets worth seizing that they couldn't back up with a proper paper trail? You know, things like employment records, hire purchase/mortgage payments... Those things that people who live in a cash economy find rather difficult to provide.
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I hope this is a typo
No, it's not. Section 6(1)(b) Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009: from which property, proceeds, or benefits of a value of $30,000 or more have, directly or indirectly, been acquired or derived.
If I were a defence lawyer, I'd be arguing that that is interpreted as an individual asset being worth $30k rather than an aggregate value of all assets. It's a bit of a murky definition, IMO. Be interested to know what Graeme and Scott make of it.
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And on the topic of getting outraged this kind of thing completely infuriates me. The reaction, not the teacher's behaviour. I thought we were well past the time when teachers were required to be chaste spinsters, devoid of any and all sexuality.
I don't buy the argument that it's got anything to do with her teaching, either. It has as much to do with her teaching as my interest in heterosexual porn has to do with my involvement in theatre: Abso-fucking-lutely none. It's not like she was posing for Paedophilia Today. -
I suspect that many of those about whom Carr was joking would've found the quip rather amusing. I mean, hell, they're soldiers. There are few groups of people more at home with black humour as a coping mechanism than those for whom potential bloody, violent death is a daily companion. If they can find me some outraged amputee veterans to quote I'll reconsider my position, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen.