A Takaka couple, Rolf and Ute Kleine, had to wait a year to find out their home had been covertly searched by Police who took various items and copied their computer drives.
The search took place in January last year, but the Kleine’s have only just received a letter from the Police disclosing it.
At the time, January 2015, the Police were trying to find the author of a letter threatening to contaminate infant formula if New Zealand did not stop using 1080 poison for pest eradication.
While the Police are to be commended for tracking down the blackmailer – an Auckland businessman has pleaded guilty – the way the Police went about the investigation is concerning.
Anti-1080 activists like the Kleines were treated in an unnecessarily heavy-handed manner.
Not only was the Kleine’s home searched without them knowing in January 2015. They were raided again in March. Four unmarked cars pulled into their drive at 7am with search warrants, one for their home and one for Takaka Infusion, their vegetarian teahouse. Rolf was taken to Motueka Police Station and interrogated for six hours. Ute was taken separately to Takaka station and interviewed for four hours. They returned home to find the Police had left their place in a mess.
How many of the 60 “significant persons of interest” the Police talked to during the inquiry had experiences similar to the Kleines? Such behavior was not the way to encourage cooperation from anti-1080 activists to help identify the offender.
Unfortunately, under the Search and Surveillance Act the Police don’t have to provide much justification for covert searches. All they need to do is tell a judge that to disclose the search would “endanger the safety of any person” or “prejudice ongoing investigations”.
The use of this provision against political activists does sound alarm bells.
Even though technically the Police can wait 12 months to inform people their home has been secretly searched there is absolutely no excuse for the Police to wait 12 months in the Kleine’s case. At the very least the Kleines should have been told about the covert January search when they were raided a second time in March and carted off to Police stations.
Not only is it spooky to think your home might be raided without you knowing. If the Kleine’s experience is anything to go by you might lose valuable items without even knowing they are gone. Some time after the March raid Rolf Kleine noticed a five-year-old newspaper clipping was missing from his home. He contacted the Police, and yes they had it, but hadn’t told him they had taken it.
Sigh, I am not surprised, as we have questionable conduct by Police in many cases, when it comes to activists who may be disliked and considered “suspicious”.
But they tend to get away with it, the police, intelligence services and authorities in general. Why is this? It is due to the indifference, the general apathy and also corrupt mentality of the majority of the population in New Zealand.
I have observed this again and again, and when it comes to activists of whatever type, but especially those leaning towards what is perceived as being “left”, too many out there are simply falling in line with herd mentality, with the brainwashed stereotyping that also the media contributes to. They condone what Police and other agencies do, without questioning anything.
The strategy by those in power and in control is clear, they isolate, ridicule, discredit and also openly attack dissenters. The tall poppy syndrome that is so typical for New Zealand does the rest, people dare not speak up and out, if they disagree, that is most, they rather fall into line and support the status quo, as they do not like to stand out like a sore thumb.
Divide and rule is the motto of the elite in power, and fall into line and do as you are told is what most subservient idiots out there do. “Troublemakers” are not wanted. They get stigmatised and thus shut up. Most work for bosses who may break rules and ethics rather often, but they put up with it, as they know they will be out of the door should they dare challenge the hand that feeds them. Similar things apply to government agencies. Who dares or bothers challenging WINZ or other agencies, as they have power and challenging them is a major challenge, that few dare take upon themselves.
Hence we have the society we have, of compliant, often dumbed down and otherwise brainwashed, ignorant people, who will not bother checking how their fellow compatriots are, they do this every day here in Auckland, those office and other workers, walking past the beggars that now fill the streets. “Riff raff”, “lazy layabouts” and “bludgers” are their comment, when asked.
Others think giving a little donation here or there absolves them from further social and other responsibilities.
So with anti 1080 activists having their homes ransacked, with Nicky Hager having his home searched for a day under questionable reasons and conditions, and others also being harassed regularly, New Zealand is that totally hypocritical and dishonest lot of people that are the ones to blame for the status quo.
Do not get me started on trade agreements, and what goes on in China, Saudi Arabia and Iran, where people get persecuted, locked up and even killed if they disagree, but NZers have no trouble trading with them, as it fills their pockets and the fridge from their pay earned as willing mercenaries.
What a shameful place this country really is, if you look behind the surface, it is not a good look at all.
” I have observed this again and again, and when it comes to activists of whatever type, but especially those leaning towards what is perceived as being “left”, too many out there are simply falling in line with herd mentality, with the brainwashed stereotyping that also the media contributes to. They condone what Police and other agencies do, without questioning anything.
The strategy by those in power and in control is clear, they isolate, ridicule, discredit and also openly attack dissenters. The tall poppy syndrome that is so typical for New Zealand does the rest, people dare not speak up and out, if they disagree, that is most, they rather fall into line and support the status quo, as they do not like to stand out like a sore thumb ”.
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I think it has more to do with the findings of the Stanford University mock prison experiments of 1971.
Along with verbal abuse , the experiment was conducted whereby electric shocks were given to mock prisoners , under a mock authority figure. The prisoners pleaded for it to stop yet the mock guards kept giving them shocks until several almost died. It was only until the mock authority ordered them to stop they did so.
People are easily conned into mob behavior and an innate deference to authority figures.
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Germany 1933 – 1945.
I have no sympathy with the so-called anti-1080 movement (it’s based largely on scare-monering, anecdotal “evidence”, and junk science), but heavy-handed police actions against anti-1080 activists are a warning that none of us should ignore.
First they came for…
“it’s based largely on scare-mongering, anecdotal “evidence”, and junk science”
What exactly have you based your unsympathetic attitude on?
I hear much the same sort of thing coming from pro-1080 activists.
Disgusting.
Having had our family been a victim of extreme crime – I have to say the police were extremely professional to our family and I could not fault them.
This kind of police behaviour of unreasonable and covert searches erodes public confidence in police and undermines the NZ police that actually work hard and do a difficult and sometimes thankless job against real and violent criminals.
We are not under Stalin and they should not be behaving like secret police. The police should not be doing covert searches at all in this type of case.
This is Standard Operating Procedure for anti-terrorist and anti-espionage operations. The UK intelligence organisations even have special teams for this type of work. It is highly skilled work.
You’ll find they had a warrant signed by a judge and let’s be frank – these are a pair of nutters who deserve closer scrutiny.
Could not agree more Andrew
Just after I had left for China last March, a cop visited my friend’s places asking where I was, wanting to question me in relation to the blackmail threat. I actually gave the cops my skype and email address in China and when I never heard back from them I assumed they had lost interest in me. Perhaps they had decided to conduct their enquiries at Fonterra Head Office instead, since that is the only entity with staff that have ever been convicted of poisoning babies with adulterated milk formula (remember Fonterra subsidiary San Lu).
But when I visited New Zealand in July I was visited by a cop who must have put a tag on my passport. Obviously I needed to return to China to avoid this government interference in my life (Oh, the irony).
My complaint over this treatment was not over the behaviour of the actual cops involved, who mostly acted professionally, but the very fact that they were wasting police time on a group of people who are against violence to animals, and, unlike Fonterra executive, would not harm innocent babies. I have not been involved in any anti-1080 protests; my protest action has been related to the treatment of animals. My only link to the anti-1080 protests being an article I wrote condemning it for animal welfare grounds.
As it turns out, in spite of Key’s irresponsible rants to the Guardian last March about “eco-terrorism”, the anti-1080 protesters were totally innocent, and the person arrested for the offence was some grubby money grabber. I notice though that there has been no apology from Key.
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