Police stifle democratic dissent and democracy itself

GPJA is not surprised at the abuse of police powers evident in Sunday’s newspaper the Sunday Star-Times with revelations that police have paid people to infiltrate and spy on groups involved in community activism.

They have shown on so many occasions they have little respect for protest activity.

The police Special Investigations Group has paid an informer $600 per week to provide details of the various groups’ activities and the personal lives and loves of those involved. Animal rights groups, the Save Happy Valley anti-mining group and anti-war groups have been targeted.

There is no justification for the police action. It is an abuse of power and a threat to democracy.

Dissent is the oxygen on which democracy thrives. Police are using the enormous resources and wide state powers at their disposal to undermine democratic dissent and are thereby stifling democracy itself.

These latest revelations follow the appalling botch-up by police in their decision to spend $8 million on a surveillance operation in the Urewera which revealed nothing but a load of hot air and alleged technical breaches of firearms laws.

We would welcome an inquiry into these police threats to dissent. As a country we criticise other countries for demonising dissent and yet our police are doing their best to follow the likes of China or Burma where dissent is not tolerated.

Since 2001 police and state powers have been dramatically widened to spy and undermine at will. This creeping state power is a threat to our civil liberties. A list of these laws and their effects follows:

Date and Law What it does Needed to meet UN obligations?

2002

Terrorism Suppression Act

• Originally introduced into Parliament as the Terrorism (Bombing and Financing) Bill in April 2001 (pre 9/11) but subsequently changed through a supplementary order paper…

• Criminalises a number of acts relating to terrorism.

• Facilitates designation of individuals as terrorists.

• Additional obligations and powers given to SIS (Security Intelligence Service), GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau) and police.

• Surveillance obligations placed on banks, financial institutions and lawyers.

Needed to meet UN obligations? Partly

2003

Government Communications Security Bureau Act

• GCSB was finally placed on a statutory basis after existing in limbo since the mid 1950s (founded under different name) (GCSB’s primary role is the collection of foreign signals intelligence through the Waihopai satellite spybase in Marlborough and the Tangimoana base near Palmerston North. Information is fed directly to the National Security Agency in the US.

• GCSB’s key functions are all, more or less, associated directly with surveillance – that is, deciphering, translating, examining and analysing foreign communications. It is given broad powers to spy on foreigners (ie, ‘foreign communications’ emanating from a ‘foreign organisation’)

• It was created under the Royal Prerogative in 1977 in total secrecy and functioned that way until it was exposed publicly. Not permitted to spy on NZers. However able to intercept the communications of international organisations in which New Zealanders may be involved…

• No warrants to spy are provided for, indeed they are impossible to implement, with satellilte spying. GCSB spying is wide open to abuse.

• The intelligence agencies (SIS and GCSB) are exempt from nine of the 12 privacy principles of the Privacy Act. To put it bluntly, the spies can function outside the laws of NZ with impunity and no one can know about it, not parliament, not the public, no one outside the closed intelligence establishment.

• GSCB is subject to oversight by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, and Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee but this is token only. Parliament has no real idea what’s going on.

Needed to meet UN obligations? No

2003

Crimes Amendment Act

• Originally introduced into Parliament as the Crimes Amendment Bill (No6) 1999 – with proposed changes being largely non-controversial. (pre 9/11) However, in November 2000, Supplementary Order Paper No 85 to the bill was introduced – and dubbed the “cyber snooping bill”.

• Significantly increases state surveillance powers, by exempting major state agencies from the new ‘computer hacking’ provisions in the 1999 Bill.

• The bill supposedly ‘strengthened privacy protection’ (eg by creating new computer hacking offences) but now exempted the police, the SIS, and the GCSB) although provided supposed “safeguards” requiring specific authorisation.

• New law does strengthen the level of privacy protection in some areas (eg, the unauthorised interception of communications by third parties now applies to any form of ‘interception device’, not just ‘listening devices’)
Needed to meet UN obligations? No

2003

Counter-Terrorism Bill

Enacted as amendments to the Crimes Act; the Summary Proceedings Act; the NZSIS Act among others.

Does three things -

(1) Dramatically expands police powers to ‘lawfully intercept’ private communications where terrorist offences are suspected.

(2) Greatly extends the ‘lawful use’ of tracking devices (which formerly had been limited to serious drug offences)

(3) Creates a legal duty on individuals to assist the police (when they have a warrant) to access computer data.

Needed to meet UN obligations? No

2003

Border Security Bill

• Enacted as amendments to the Customs & Excise Act and the Immigration Act.

• Intended to ‘enhance border security’ provides for sophisticated pre-boarding checks on anyone intending to travel to NZ.

• Law also intended to ‘reduce identity fraud’, an increasingly serious problem. Partly.
2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act • Makes all telecommunications personal or otherwise) capable of interception by State surveillance agencies (police, SIS and GCSB)

• New obligations are placed on (TELCOs) telecommunications companies and internet service providers (ISPs) who must ensure that their services and networks have interception capabilities.

Needed to meet UN obligations? No

2004

Maritime Security Act 2004

• Establishes a framework that ‘will reduce the risk of security incidents affecting merchant ships or port facilities’.

• Law also enables NZ to fulfil its obligations under a post-‘9/11’ international agreement for maritime security –detection of alleged an ‘security incidents’ involves greater surveillance (eg, of “Greenpeace’ vessels involved in protest action)

Needed to meet UN obligations? Partly

2004

Identity (Citizenship and Travel Documents) Bill

• Enacted as amendments to the Citizenship Act and the Passports Act. Government claimed it was needed to have appropriate legislation to implement international Conventions relating to suppression of terrorism and people smuggling.

• New powers given to Minister of Immigration to cancel a passport, or other official travel document, on national security grounds.

• This could be done on the basis of classified information (eg, from foreign and domestic intelligence sources)

• People appealing against a cancellation are denied access to this information. They would be limited to a summary only, which did not disclose sensitive information. (These were the procedures which were so abused during the legal challenges mounted by detained Algerian refugee, Ahmed Zaoui)

Needed to meet UN obligations? Partly

2005

Review of Terrorism Suppression Act 2002

(review was required after three years)

• This review was a farce because the public had no information ion which to comment. Eg there was no government report and no media coverage; no terrorists had been apprehended under the law, (as far as anyone is aware)

• CAFCA (Campaign against Foreign Control of Aotearoa) made a submission which included the comment: "We can find no requirement in UN Security Council resolution 1373, regarding actions to be taken by member nations to combat international terrorism, that basic human rights should be suspended, that the rule of law should be suspended, that intrusions into personal privacy should be increased, or that nations should forego other important provisions in law designed for the protection of the citizens."
Needed to meet UN obligations? No

2006

Aviation Security Amendment Bill

• Provides aviation security officers with the power to search for and seize items prohibited or restricted from being taken on aircraft;

• Enables the screening and searching of airport workers;

• Provides a power for aviation security officers to search passengers’ outer garments and undertake pat-down searches and requires airlines to deny carriage to passengers who refuse to be searched;

• Enable foreign in-flight security officers to enter and depart New Zealand and enable New Zealand to deploy in-flight security officers, should the Government decide to do so in the future.

• Provide a general regulation making power to ensure that the law is able to respond to new aviation security matters in a timely fashion.

Needed to meet UN obligations? No

2007

Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill

This bill provided four major changes –

(1) The definition of a terrorist was widened to include someone who, for political reasons, causes “serious disruption to an infrastructure facility, if likely to endanger human life…”

Effect: There are many examples of protest activity and civil disobedience from past events such as the 1981 Springbok tour, which could now be classified as terrorist. A better definition would be the UN definition of “criminal acts, including those against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public…”

(2) New Zealand now automatically adopts the UN list of terrorists and terrorist organisations.

(While this list currently is restricted to groups such as Taleban and Al Quaida this will inevitably expand. It is the US which dominates the compilation of such lists)

Effect: New Zealanders working to support liberation struggles, democracy and human rights overseas can now be charged with supporting terrorist organisations.

Under the new law it would have been illegal to provide support for the African National Congress in the fight against apartheid or for campaigns to have Nelson Mandela released from jail. This new law can easily be used against New Zealanders supporting Palestinian groups such as Hamas despite Hamas being democratically elected to power in the occupied territory of Palestine. Previous legislation allowed support and assistance to organisations provided it was “for the purpose of advocating democratic government or the protection of human rights”. This safeguard has been removed.

(3) New Zealand has given up its right to make its own independent assessments of terrorists and terrorist designations.

Effect: Without the ability to make our own independent assessments we become captive to shonky, prejudiced, politically motivated overseas assessments such as those relating to Ahmed Zaoui. (Previously New Zealand adopted UN designations “in the absence of evidence to the contrary”. This safeguard has been removed.

(4) The courts have been removed from considering designations of terrorist or terrorist organisations. Previously if the Prime Minister designated a terrorist organisation then this was reviewable by the High court after three years.

Effect: Independent scrutiny of cases is no longer available. The PM is judge and jury. The US wants arrangements such as these because governments are then more open to direct US pressure. All it takes is a phone call from the US embassy to the PM’s beehive office…At least with the courts there would be some semblance of independent scrutiny.

This assumption of power by politicians over court processes is demonstrated most clearly by the US with its treatment of Guantanemo Bay detainees and the CIA’s “rendition” programme whereby suspected terrorists have been clandestinely transferred around the world for torture. In both cases the courts have been sidelined.

Needed to meet UN obligations? No

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