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? :)
Colin England Mon 31 Jul 2017 12:00AM
Citizens arrests are always problematic and ill defined (for instance holding someone against their will is kidnapping) and I don't believe the police are stupid.
True but the power is there.
I am sure they can turn off their own camera, or obscure it and it still doesn't deal with the problem of them being used as surveillance.
I said you make the camera so that they can't turn it off and if it's obscured by anything other than by accident then there'll be heel to pay.
As for surveillance - if you're in a public space then you're being surveilled by anyone who happens to walk past so no change there. If it's on private property then the police better have a warrant.
Nothings perfect of course and there's going to be breaches but we do the best we can. I still think that it's better for the police to be filming what they're doing.
Suzie Dawson Sun 30 Jul 2017 12:52PM
IP Jo Booth Sun 30 Jul 2017 6:36PM
I've enabled registrations for the interactive online hui editing session on Sunday 6th August from 8pm - be the first to get a free ticket - https://IPnz.live/policyrego
Suzie Dawson Mon 31 Jul 2017 10:04AM
The bucket list grows longer:
https://twitter.com/InternetPartyNZ/status/891809977580621825
https://twitter.com/InternetPartyNZ/status/891812940663459840
Suzie Dawson Mon 31 Jul 2017 10:14AM
More info: turns out 1000 political groups (yes, one thousand GROUPS) have been targeted
http://paper.li/tombfowler/1448144109#/
http://campaignopposingpolicesurveillance.com/2014/09/02/did-spycops-commit-sex-crimes/
https://policespiesoutoflives.org.uk/our-stories/kates-story/
Police Commissioner admitting that his officers deceived activism-related women into having sex with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcu5IGbShxE
Colin Smith Tue 1 Aug 2017 9:53AM
I have just spent an hour writing a whole thought train and then deleted it. My thoughts filter down to these points.
I do not have an issue with Police using surveillance technology, it a very useful assistance to their efforts. We are a party who advocates the use of technology after all.
I have a problem with the “culture” that allows the use of the technology to target individuals who are acting well within their rights in an attempt to stop them expressing those rights.
I have two acquaintances that are in the Police Force and I am reasonably certain that they personally would not want to see the technology used this way.
My gut feeling is that in many ways the Police are simply the unwitting puppets (Cannon Fodder) to stand between and deflect from who is actually perpetrating these assaults on personal freedoms. That way the individuals who are expressing their rights can be shown to attacking genuine law enforcement officers and more easily discredited in the eyes of the public.
Once these individuals who have been discredited have injustices placed upon them then the public are more likely to ignore those injustices “because the individuals asked for it”.
John Minto keeps coming to mind. They had me fooled initially, but gradually I have come around and I now believe he is one of our unsung heroes.
Tane Harre Tue 1 Aug 2017 11:06AM
I write things down and then delete them all the time. I think it is a form or thought and a part of the reasoning process.
I can see that surveillance is useful to police as well but I would be happier with it if it required a warrant at the very least. Things on camera aren't always what they seem and the law is not based in most cases on what actually happened as it is on what people think happened. This affects both sides.
I used to know an officer serving in Australia who shot somebody, his life was torn apart, his career destroyed. A camera would have shown that the man wasn't reaching for a gun but he thought he was and acted in self defence. A camera would have put him in jail for ten plus years.
I also think back to many of the protests that have, in the end, formed the backbone of who we believe we are. The anti-nuclear protests, Springbok protests, Vietnam war, Waterfront, Bastion Point. Surveillance would have doomed these protests. Everyone can be identified. Everyone can be charged. This is currently happening in America where a group of protesters are now facing up to twenty years in prison for felony.
When people protest they often break the law and they do it for a variety of reasons. The law is unjust, the moral outrage is greater than civil obedience, and/or they don't know the law.
Surveillance provides an incredible power imbalance. To quote Cardinal Richelieu,"If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him."
And yes, the Internet Party is a technology party. But it is a technology party because it tries to understand technology. Both the advantages and pitfalls.
A culture (group) can only target individuals when there is a power imbalance between the group and the individual. This is an imbalance I would like to see changed. I should not be required to be a lawyer to exist in society. I should be required to do what I think is right within my understanding of the rules governing my group.
My theory is that the police, politicians, and security services end up in their own groups and their outlook on life is altered because of it. This is further reinforced by the type of people who do these tasks being predisposed toward being susceptible to it.
Police are tasked with dealing with the worst of society. The arguments, the hatred, tragedy. They stick to a small group of friends and each other, and eventually it can become an us and them mentality.
Politicians are surrounded by sycophants and others struggling to take their place. Increasingly they come to live in their own world.
The Security Services are in their own group, are not subject to the laws of the Nation, are given the 'great task' of protecting us from terrorism, no oversight, and no discipline. The prison guards abuse the prisoners all over again, for the greater good of course.
Colin England Wed 2 Aug 2017 12:13AM
I used to know an officer serving in Australia who shot somebody, his life was torn apart, his career destroyed. A camera would have shown that the man wasn't reaching for a gun but he thought he was and acted in self defence. A camera would have put him in jail for ten plus years.
Not necessarily. There's still intent to consider and if he could reasonably have expected the person to be reaching for a gun.
I also think back to many of the protests that have, in the end, formed the backbone of who we believe we are. The anti-nuclear protests, Springbok protests, Vietnam war, Waterfront, Bastion Point. Surveillance would have doomed these protests. Everyone can be identified. Everyone can be charged.
It's a question of regulation. We do allow for protest and so people shouldn't be charged for doing so but they are. Lprent over on The Standard points out that his niece got charged for loitering while she was protesting and it had to go all the way to the high court to get the charges dropped. That requires a regulation that says, quite simply, that protesters are not to be arrested or stopped in their duty (protesting is a duty) unless they're committing a crime.
When people protest they often break the law and they do it for a variety of reasons. The law is unjust, the moral outrage is greater than civil obedience, and/or they don't know the law.
Peaceful protest is allowed. By default doing so is not breaking the law even if they're actually breaking the law. Unless they're endangering people at which point we probably do want the police, or anybody really, to step in and stop them.
And ignorance of the law is no excuse.
Surveillance provides an incredible power imbalance.
Surveillance today can, and should, go both ways. Protesters should have their cameras and drones running.
The Security Services are in their own group, are not subject to the laws of the Nation, are given the 'great task' of protecting us from terrorism, no oversight, and no discipline.
Which is wrong. They have laws governing them as well and they have oversight. Now that those laws and oversight probably need changing after this government so as to them back into line with a democratic nation but they are still accountable to the law.
The prison guards abuse the prisoners all over again, for the greater good of course.
That does seem to be part and parcel of prison systems. It can be changed but it requires serious funding for alternatives to prison and more prison guards for where they're still needed.
I watched a short documentary on one of the Scandinavian countries where the 'prison' for the worst offenders was a small village on a small island in a small lake where the prisoners could mingle and socialise freely. All watched by cameras of course and the prison guards could get there within minutes but the 'freedom' reduced stress and conflict. On top of that they had a highly developed rehabilitation program to help the prisoners to re-enter society when they were released.
Suzie Dawson Fri 4 Aug 2017 11:18AM
UPDATES;
Additional suggestion for adoption
- ban surveillance of and data harvesting of minors - particularly relating to 'databases' that have been shown to exist regarding kids skipping school
Tane Harre · Sun 30 Jul 2017 7:47AM
Citizens arrests are always problematic and ill defined (for instance holding someone against their will is kidnapping) and I don't believe the police are stupid. I am sure they can turn off their own camera, or obscure it and it still doesn't deal with the problem of them being used as surveillance.