Anti-terror law back before Parliament, but faces opposition
The bill will also:
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- Criminalise travel to, from, or via New Zealand with the intention to carry out a specified offence in the Terrorism Suppression Act 2002
- criminalise planning or preparation for a terrorist act (and apply warrantless powers of entry, search, and surveillance to that offence)
- more clearly criminalise weapons training or combat training for terrorist purposes
- criminalise wider forms of material support for terrorist activities or organisations
- extend the control orders regime so that individuals who have completed a prison sentence for specified offences related to terrorism may be subject to the regime if they continue to present a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activities.
The government plans to have the bill passed by the end of the month.
The shock wave caused by the ISIS terrorist attack in West Auckland has frightened us all and while that fear is legitimate, it must not cloud our judgment.
We all want answers as to how an extremist who was on the Government’s radar managed to manipulate the refugee protocols to the point they were able to commit their violence while the rest of the security apparatus sat on their hands.
But the rush to pass the new anti-terrorism laws is the exact same fear that drove us to enact the original terrorism legislation that has proved to be so hopeless.
The Urewera terror raids show us how easy it is to abuse terror powers and how they inevitably end up being used against Maori.
These new terror powers enable the State to arrest and prosecute you for thinking about planning a crime, that’s an enormous empowerment of the State and with our previous history of how those terror powers get misused, I want to see the checks and balances before we hand over such enormous thought crime powers.
Let’s not forget that even if was illegal to plot a terror attack, this ISIS extremist was charged with a weapons crime which was longer than that charge so the issue is how did he manage to manipulate the refugee laws.
This was a bureaucracy screw up, handing the State even more terror powers won’t solve that.
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Not going to criminalize “thinking” about planning
But “planning”
This planning stage is currently contained on the crimes act. Conspiracy to commit crime.
Then there is the pen ultimate and anti penultimate crimes of attempting to commit crime – also currently in the crimes act.
Tuhoe exposes police over exuberance in how they behaved using 2002 Terror laws- so bad were the police the Solicitor General vetoed police prosecutions under that legislation.
Dot Com raids were another example of police abuse of existing law.
The big danger is warrants without Court sanction.
Arrests can now be made where a fluid situation renders getting a court warrant meaningless.
But pre-planned raids without court approval – now that is a dangerous tool to give any outfit – especially police who luck deep in the forest of the culture of “rule of police over rule of law”
Been there. Done that.
🙂
I don’t think the Minister of Justice knows how to read and comprehend what he reads?
But the Minister of Everything has so much to read! Be kind and hope it rubs off back onto the hoi polloi (fallback guys since Pericles – about 400BCE – uses it in a positive way when praising the Athenian democracy, contrasting it with hoi oligoi, “the few” )
If these new laws existed at the time of the Urewera raids that lot would still be in Jail.
It is a good excuse to get these laws in the book. Surely non of these laws will ever be used here. Never. Guaranteed. Only against evil people. Are you scared yet? You should be.
Are you suggesting we are evil – I’ll make a complaint against you – ‘ not nice’ speech.
no i am suggesting that it won’t be you who decides what is evil, but the police. 🙂 are you scared yet?
So right wing party could call worker strikes economic sabotage or terrorism put unionists on a list and apply this law?
any left wing party could do potentially the same.
Why not declare all the bikie gangs in Australia terrorist organisations and decline to accept the incoming flights of 501s.
Joseph – You for next PM!
Decline them, the woke love criminals, and so do the neoliberals building the prisons and creating ‘charities’ and ‘non profits’ expanding on the back of crime.
Weirdly people who seem to not be criminals and helping people out of poverty don’t seem to get any funding because they are not so good at networking with government officials and getting their name on increasingly woke enquiries.
Why warrantless searches? What they can’t wait a short period for justice?
Most terror attacks in NZ seem to be planned over years… so we don’t need warrantless searches becoming the new normal and then using this law to do it to those who are not terrorists.
Nobody wants a police state NZ, nor probably the police after the Nicky Hager and his daughter debacle where there seemed to be a lot of political pressure to find out the source, kangaroo court style. If that required a warrant (and not sure if accurate, heard police deliberately targeted a new judge from South Auckland who was not likely to know that Hager was a journalist), and the on-going illegal fishing actions by police, such as bank record requests from Bomber, well outside the law, with poor results for Bombers, credit and bank searches).
NZ is so woke, they can’t seem to use existing laws properly. AKA they detain all sorts of people like Ashley Peacock for autism, but can’t detain someone who says they want to harm Kiwi scum and keep grabbing knives, have modified their documents etc.
It shows how pathetic and self serving and stupid the law changes and targets were after Tarrent, which did nothing to prevent Samsudeen’s attack and in fact made a mockery of it.
In addition the government apparently changed the law so that those registering a gun, then can be searched without a warrant. This has then ballooned out the illegal gun trade, which is counter to what the police were after and makes NZ a less safe place going forward. In particular because ACT now stand on 13% on the back of that, and growing.
Use existing laws wisely, stop allowing all these high needs, entitled people coming to NZ. Samsudeen family were probably wealthy, his father was some type of government official/mayor and his mother ran a small business. He managed to pay for a NZ student visa and to fly to NZ, before quitting his course within a month and claiming refugee status. His original claim to refugee status was declined in 2012 but overturned by the immigration and protection tribunal in 2013. This was being challenged in 2021 before he tried to kill 7 people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahamed_Samsudeen
NZ needs to go towards the Australian method where people are detained while their immigration status is being processed, in particular if they are violent, depressed, suffering PSD or any security risk.
The safety of the public is clearly not held in high esteem, and they seem to be using these terror attacks to destroy civil liberties for NZ citizens not protect them from foreign nationals trying to do us or other residents, harm.
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