Anti-Spy Bill
Suzie Dawson
Public
Seen by 107
Enough of Spy Bills - it's past time for the pendulum to swing back the other way.
So far the spies have a carte blanche to commit crime and get away with it. Therefore we propose to create a policy restricting them from participating in certain acts and applying criminal penalties if they violate it.
"Spycops" - police and security agents who infiltrate political and activist movements using false or assumed identities - should be prohibited from engaging in sexual relationships with targets, activists, and others they encounter during the course of their work. Known cases include spycops in their 30s and 40s seducing activists as young as 16; covertly taking and circulating nude photographs of sleeping teenage activists; living/co-habitating with activists and multiple instances of fathering children with activists, all while pretending to be people that did not in actuality exist. (Web search "spycops" for international references, or "Thompson Clark Investigations Limited" for New Zealand-specific cases) The penalty for engaging in sexual relations that arise from acts of deliberate deception should be tantamount to criminal rape, as consent would most likely not be granted by their sexual partners, were they aware that it was an agent of the state that is targeting and sexually propositioning them.
Targeting on political grounds is prohibited under international law, it was prohibited in the original charters of the spy agencies, yet multiple police agencies openly state that they are tasked with infiltrating political movements on their Wikipedia pages and elsewhere. This is unacceptable. There must be steep consequences for using police powers for political reasons.
Entrapment is also supposed to be illegal but is a practice that is rife in both the police and private agencies. It is used to create pretexts with which to justify political targeting. ie. if they infiltrate an activism/political group and can 'prove' that they are engaged in some kind of criminal activity then it makes it look like it was OK to target that group in the first place. Where the criminal activity doesn't exist (which is almost always), there are attempts to incite criminal activity (entrapment). These attempts can include resourcing, instigating, facilitating and coordinating the illegal activity. (An example of this would be where a NZ spycop not only set up an illegal animal welfare action and implored other activists to attend but even invited media along to document the whole thing as it happened). This is completely in line with practices of the FBI and others who have long track records of jailing political targets by entrapping them into criminal acts. It is completely immoral and entrapment should be illegal across the board.
There are also numerous instances of journalists and activists having been referred to child services or mental health services by their political opposition. (Dirty Politics by Nicky Hager documents some examples of this but there are countless others). Therefore where child services or mental health services become engaged with someone who is politically engaged in activism, journalism or a related sphere, there must be a TRULY independent body appointed to review these cases and ensure that the referrals are not as a result of political interference and that any treatment or intervention received is both valid and in line with best practices/standard treatments for non-political cases
All police and private agencies should be restricted from inflicting bodily harm or physical interference upon the bodies of any person at any time except in the instance of legitimate self-defence.
There needs to be an outright ban on experimental weapons testing on human beings. Such as was raised by the disclosure that electronic weapons do exist and are "operationally feasible". No weapons that are not approved for public use and known https://decipheryou.com/2015/06/24/hacking-team-directed-energy-weapons-now-operationally-feasible/
Information warfare upon the NZ public must stop. It must be illegal for corporate or political interests to pay agents to assume false identities posing as members of the public and post online content in the favour of their employers. Any such propaganda must be clearly labelled as being paid advertising. Likewise, lobbyists who appear in media as 'experts' or 'opinion writers' must disclose in each program, show or article, who they are being paid by.
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Thoughts? :)
Suzie Dawson Fri 28 Jul 2017 9:31AM
Fantastic suggestions
Tane Harre Sat 29 Jul 2017 9:55AM
This sort of thing should be stopped as well. Why should our police force should be recording protesters, just in case they get out of line, and yet not record our politicians, bankers, etc... (Who have vastly more power to damage the country)?
Suzie Dawson Sat 29 Jul 2017 11:09AM
Yup I have dozens of photos and videos of police surveilling protesters and it all ties back to the same issue of their interference in democratic dissent. Has to stop. They are literally interfering with democracy.
Jo Booth Sat 29 Jul 2017 11:34AM
I'm intrigued to think about this more. The hasty deletion of this kind of photography makes one wonder if these are neutral unbiased non-intrusive photos or if Police themselves realise what they did or do is questionable. I like your ideas @suziedawson and agree there is a chilling effect when the camera is in the face of a peaceful democratic protest - preemptively as an assumption of guilt.
I think rather than being anti we need to point ahead in a clear direction of what we want - and set the
Rights of a citizen out first. Clear a path for unencrochable freedoms. Good input @taneharre :purple_heart:
(I'm not a policy person)
Suzie Dawson Sat 29 Jul 2017 4:45PM
Interesting point you raise Jo - I do believe they know it is questionable because they often lose in Court when they arrest activists at gatherings.
Basically the Police treat protest as a crime but the Courts protect it as a democratic right. You can see this trend across the entire Western World. Protesters from Oakland to New York had charges dropped against them in court and won substantial settlements after being surveilled and harassed and mass arrested by police. Yet the police continue to intimidate the public for protesting...
Colin England Sun 30 Jul 2017 12:19AM
Why should our police force should be recording protesters…
I happen to think that the police should be recording everything that they do and the context that they do them in. If there's a group in NZ that needs to be watched it's the police.
Colin England Sun 30 Jul 2017 12:21AM
Many of these articles cover instances of the police acting out of line.
Tane Harre Sun 30 Jul 2017 12:57AM
I am possibly engaging in doublethink in this case when I don't want the police filming people but at the same time I believe people should be able to film them.... which is tricky. :)
Thinking out loud for a minute;
I think the right of the public to take images with appropriate privacy restrictions is a right.
I think that as public servants police should be able to be recorded in the course of duty.
As people the police naturally have the right to record others in a public space but due to the special nature of the powers they are given over and above normal citizens the right to record in the course of duty should be curtailed so as not to interfere which the higher rights of democratic protest, privacy, and innocence until proven guilty.
The difference to me is that if I take a photo of you smoking a joint in a public space I don't have the power to arrest you and use that photo as evidence against you.
My problems with police having body cameras is that it is just another form of surveillance and they seem to mysteriously turn off quite often.
Colin England Sun 30 Jul 2017 6:47AM
The difference to me is that if I take a photo of you smoking a joint in a public space I don't have the power to arrest you and use that photo as evidence against you.
My problems with police having body cameras is that it is just another form of surveillance and they seem to mysteriously turn off quite often.
Police shouldn't have the ability to turn them off or on. They should simply be on all the time with the images stored both locally and streamed in real time to a secure server. Then we have credible processes as to the accessing of that data.
Tane Harre · Fri 28 Jul 2017 4:12AM
1) Yes.
I would have thought that consent was covered by the the law (128A (6)) in the case of Thompson Clark Investigations Limited but maybe not for police and security agents. Either way, none of them should be raping people.
2) Yes. Although hard to define political.
3) Yes. Although I can't find the word entrapment in a quick search of the law it bloody well should be in there.
4) Yes. I would suggest the ombudsman along with strengthened policy to ensure their independence (after the OIA debacle).
5) Yes. The problem I can see here is the definition of legitimate self defence. It always is eg;"I thought he was holding a knife" and the PCA aren't really up to standard or independant.
6) Yes.
7) Yes. Hard to do but the general idea is fine. I say hard to do because if I was megacorp and wanted pro press I would just create the flower trust and get them to say it without them knowing who they worked for.
I would also suggest better oversight of the intelligence community by a committee consisting of the most trusted individuals in each electorate (with an appropriate mix of Iwi) who have specialised throughout their lives in working for the community.