"Justified but unlawful"

That is the finding of the High Court on the first nine days of New Zealand's lockdown, when we were all "ordered" to stay in our bubbles by the Prime Minister on television. Which is fairly unsurprising. We've known since Fitzgerald v Muldoon that you can't legislate by press release, and that the Prime Minister saying something doesn't give it legal effect. In this case, the order was eventually given legal effect, in the form of formal orders issued under the Health Act (the legality of which the court has upheld: it turns out that the Health Act quarantine power really does apply to everyone in the country all at once). But for those first few days, until those orders were issued, the lockdown order was unlawful and had no legal effect, which meant that it also breached our freedoms of association and movement (because justified limitations must be prescribed by law). At the same time, it was also a justified and proportionate health response, and this was recognised when the legality of the subsequent orders was upheld. So basicly the government's problem here is failing to do its paperwork properly. Which is understandable given the speed at which things were happening, but does actually matter when you're a government.

What does this mean in practice? Anyone prosecuted in those first few days for breaching lockdown has an easy appeal. Apparently that is unlikely to affect many people, but it still matters. There's no issue of potential liability for business closures because, unlike the instruction to stay at home except for essential travel, they actually had an order legally closing all premises. But the chief effect is to remind the government that we are not a monarchy, and that the Prime Minister cannot purportedly order us around from a podium like a King. When they want us to do something, they actually need to pass a law or use some other effective legal instrument. And hopefully in future they'll remember that.

More tyranny in Australia

The boycott is a fundamental tool of protest. By choosing who we buy from, we can send a message, and hopefully change corporate behaviour. Historically, boycotts have been effective, for example over apartheid in South Africa and Israel, in forcing divestment from Myanmar, and in ending bus segregation in the USA. Which is probably why Australia's increasingly tyrannical government wants to ban them:

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has accused environmental activists of "economic sabotage" and "indulgent and selfish practices" and says the government will look at legislation limiting potential damage to businesses.

Mr Morrison also said secondary boycotts were affecting small businesses providing services to industries such as mining companies, and the government would seek to protect them as they had farms in the wake of animal rights protests.

"We need to progress cautiously, but if it's not OK to have secondary boycotts being run by unions - and we got rid of those a long time ago - then it's not OK for environmental - not environmental, these are anarchist groups, and that's what they are - to be able to disrupt people's jobs and their livelihoods and to harass in the way that we've seen down in Melbourne, it's ugly and I don't think it's good for our country," Mr Morrison told radio station 3AW on Friday.

He also wants to crack down on protests, all to support Australia's dirty fossil fuel industry. Which sounds like another reason to boycott Australia until they start behaving like a civilised democracy again.

Getting what he asked for good and hard

The Auckland University Students' Association has had enough of bigots taking their money to spread hate, and are moving to disaffiliate them. Voluntary student membership campaigner DPF is outraged by this. But bluntly, this is what he asked for. AUSA is now a completely voluntary association, an incorporated society under the Incorporated Societies Act 1908. It is, in law, no different from your local rugby club - or the National Party. And like those other groups, it has rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression and no obligation to support or promote groups or viewpoints its members disagree with. It might have done once, when membership was compelled by law. But it certainly doesn't now, any more than the National Party is compelled to support the Coal Action Network or the Animal Liberation Front or the Communist Party of Aotearoa. And if DPF doesn't like that, he has only himself to blame. He got exactly what he asked for, and now he can suck it.

Australia's war on dissent

Since Tony Abbott became Prime Minister of Australia there's been a progressive move (driven by the Liberals' coal-industry supporters) towards labelling environmentalism as terrorism. but now its hit a new low, with the inclusion of "alternative music", "left-wing activism" and environmental protest in the government's new "Radicalisation Awareness Kit" aimed at warning teachers about potential terrorists:

The Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Terrorism Michael Keenan launched the Radicalisation Awareness Kit in the form of a 32-page booklet on Monday.

Through a series of examples and fictitious case studies, the booklet aims to illustrate the circumstances which can lead young people to become radicalised.

But one surprising example cites the power of the alternative music scene and environmental activism in the radicalisation process.

The case study in the 'Violent Extremism' section tells the story of a girl called 'Karen' who becomes involved in the "alternative music scene, student politics and left-wing activism" when she leaves home.

'Karen' ends up sabotaging logging machinery and being arrested "on numerous occasions" while becoming "totally cut off from her family".

"It sounds like something that's been dreamt up in the cigar room of the Institute of Public Affairs. There's no resemblance to the way that people in Australia feel about their environment and the need to stand up to protect it.

The message is clear: lefties, greenies, and those who don't like INXS are UnAustralian terrorists. Its a perfect example of how Abbott has hijacked the (bullshit) war on terror to turn it into a war on his domestic political opponents. But now that Australia has a new Prime Minister, hopefully this bullshit will stop.

Mass surveillance is about control, not terrorism

When word first broke that the NSA was spying on everyone's internet use and phone calls, President Obama was quick to defend the practice, saying it was "to keep the American people safe" - the implication being that it was about terrorism.

He lied:

I can tell you that everybody that attended an Occupy Wall Street protest, and didn’t turn their cell phone off, or put it — and sometimes even if they did — the identity of that cell phone has been logged, and everybody who was at that demonstration, whether they were arrested, not arrested, whether their photos were ID’d, whether an informant pointed them out, it’s known they were there anyway. This is routine.

The NSA's mass-surveillance is not about terrorism, it is about control. And in a democracy, that is a very, very dubious idea.

Absurd

The latest absurdity from the British panopticon surveillance society? Arresting someone for planning a water fight:

A man will appear before magistrates next month for allegedly trying to organise a mass water fight via his mobile phone.

The prime minister said last week that the government would investigate whether social networking platforms should be shut down if they helped to "plot" crime in the wake of the riots.

The 20-year-old from Colchester was arrested on Friday after Essex police discovered the alleged plans circulating on the BlackBerry Messenger service and Facebook.

The unnamed man has been charged with "encouraging or assisting in the commission of an offence" under the 2007 Serious Crime Act, police said.

I'm wondering what the offence supposedly being encouraged here is. Having fun, perhaps? Being young in a public place? Or are the British police really trying to argue that any large gathering of people is a criminal conspiracy? If so, I'd like them to do something about those 650 people meeting in Westminster...

An authoritarian kneejerk

Over the weekend, 250,000 people marched against cuts in London. A small number of them engaged in violence (though its worth noting that of the 149 people charged, only 11 are accused of violent disorder; the other 94% were arrested after a peaceful sit-in). The government's response? Threaten to ban "troublemakers" from going to protests.

This contravenes the rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of expression in the European Convention on Human Rights (and translated into UK law by the Human Rights Act). While those freedoms can be limited to protect public order, the barrier to do so is very high. In order to pre-emptively ban expressly political speech, as is being considered here, the police would have to have cast-iron evidence of violent intent. In which case, they can already support a conspiracy charge, and do not need this sort of political control order.

So why is the government pushing this scheme? Because they regard anyone who protests against the unjust status quo as a "troublemaker" who needs to be silenced. They are pushing this scheme precisely because they do not accept our right to protest. And that is not acceptable in a democracy.

Intrusive and intimidating

Earlier in the year, as an attempt to pre-empt the student party season, the police in Palmerston North created a "party register", encouraging people planning parties to tell them the time, date, location, and expected attendance. And now its going national.

This is grossly intrusive. While the register is voluntary, police here are clearly trying to create an expectation that all events will be registered with them (though doing so apparently doesn't "legitimise" a party. Which is a very odd concept). What next? I'll have to inform the police if I eat dinner or take a dump?

In case the police have forgotten, we have freedom of association in this country. It is no business of theirs if I hold a party. It is no business of theirs how many people I invite. It is no business of theirs what they drink. They should not be trying to intimidate the public into giving up those rights. Telling the police what we are doing may make things easier for them (in the same way that omnipresent surveillance or forcing us all to live in little boxes might), but it is not a hallmark of a free and democratic society. Instead, it is a step towards the opposite.