National takes another step towards tyranny

Earlier in the month, the British government proscribed Palestine Action, a peaceful protest group, as a terrorist entity, over their effective protest action against British support for Israel's campaign of genocide in Gaza. Since then hundreds of people have been arrested for "supporting" them, some for simply holding a Palestinian flag. Its an appalling act of tyranny from a regime desperate to shut down criticism of its support for a genocidal regime. And now, the National government wants to bring that tyranny here, with a secret "consultation" on the Terrorism Suppression Act aimed at making designation easier and outlawing speaking in "support" of terrorist entities:

New Zealanders who publicly express support for terrorist groups could be charged with a criminal offence, as part of secretive proposals being considered by the Government.

[...]

The coalition Government is eyeing reforms to the law, with limited consultation currently taking place behind closed doors with a handpicked selection of groups and experts.

In a copy of the consultation document seen by Newsroom, the Ministry of Justice said the Government had agreed to progress “targeted amendments” to the law, which had not been substantively reviewed since its enactment.

The document said existing offences in the law “don’t capture the full range of behaviours or activities of concern that are part of the contemporary threat from terrorism”, and needed to be updated.

Among the changes being considered were making membership of a terrorist entity a criminal offence, creating new offences to capture public expressions of support for a terrorist act or designated entities (such as showing insignia or distributing propaganda), and modernising definitions for terms like “material support” to capture new online forms of support.

The consultation document also raised the possibility of a streamlined designation process, saying the current decision-making system was lengthy and the designation period was short.

You can read the consultation document here. Its odd that the NZCCL - Aotearoa's premier civil liberties organisation - was not consulted. But then, the whole point of this sort of "targeted consultation" is to exclude opposing voices, and insulate the process from criticism until it is rammed through parliament and is a fait accompli.

As for the merits: criminalising membership of a terrorist organisation does not sound unreasonable, except that such entities don't exactly have membership cards, and all the ways in which membership actually matters - recruiting, training, financing, providing material support, or enhancing the ability to carry out terrorist acts - are already all crimes. As for "public expressions of support", what is happening in the UK at the moment, where virtually any sign of opposition to Israel's genocide in Gaza or support for Palestine in general is being treated as support for a terrorist entity - shows the danger of that. And while the New Zealand government would claim that it is "different", its past actions show that they are not. Just this year, a government minister denounced an opposition MP as "support[ing] terrorism" over Gaza, and I recall him saying similar things about environmentalists opposing coal mines. These are the last people I would trust with stronger anti-terrorism powers.

The Ministry of Justice did not want to hear from Aotearoa about its secret plans. But you can tell them anyway. Read the discussion document, and send your feedback to nationalsecurity@justice.govt.nz by Friday 8 August 2025. While you're at it, tell them that in a democracy, consultations about fundamental civil liberties issues are public, not private.

SIS "evidence" isn't, again

Back in 2016, then-Internal Affairs Minister Peter Dunne cancelled a New Zealand woman's passport, claiming she was a terrorist. The basis for his decision was a secret briefing by the SIS, which claimed that if she was allowed to travel, the woman would "engage with individuals who encourage acts of terrorism". The Supreme Court has now ruled that that decision was unlawful and invalid:

In its judgment released today, the court found the minister did not have reasonable grounds to believe the woman intended to facilitate an act of terror, and the briefing paper provided to the minister by the SIS was not fair, accurate, or adequate.

The judgement said Dunne's reliance on the woman potentially travelling to Syria to join a terrorist group fell short of the requirement under the law that the person be an actual danger to a country, not just a potential one.

The judges also found the law required there be evidence that the passport holder intended to travel and facilitate in a terrorist act, and Dunne did not have reasonable grounds to believe this - a higher standard than just suspecting it.

So, once again, SIS "evidence" turns out to be a tissue of lies and assertions when subjected to independent judicial scrutiny - just as it was in the Zaoui case. No wonder they kept the entire trial under a cloak of secrecy.

Obviously, this invites serious questions about why the SIS is so bad at its job, and why Ministers persist in relying on their "evidence" when it so obviously and so publicly gets it wrong whenever tested. And it invites serious questions about the quality of the "security assessments" they apply to visa applicants, and whether those assessments are also similarly unfair, inaccurate, and inadequate. A serious government, and a serious opposition, would be asking those questions. But given the way these things normally go, instead we'll see legislation to prevent judicial scrutiny of such decisions, rammed through under all-stages urgency, with the full support of the Labour Party.

Monstrous and illegal

In September 2021 Ahamed Samsudeen was killed by police after stabbing eight people in an Auckland supermarket. Samsudeen was a former refugee who seems to have been turned into a terrorist by the SIS and police (at the least you can say that their treatment of him did not help the situation, and it seems to have made it considerably worse). After an attempt to prosecute him for terrorism collapsed in the face of the inconvenient fact that he hadn't actually broken the law yet, the government tried to deport him, but were barred from doing so by international human rights law. But now the government has a "solution" for this "problem": simply ignore that law:

The government is looking into whether it will change the law to make it possible to send would-be terrorists, or refugees who have been serious offenders, back to their home countries.

[...]

Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi said the government is talking to other countries about how they deal with deporting protected people - those who face the risk of persecution in their home countries.

"We're currently in a phase where we are asking some experts for some feedback to the proposals. Some of that includes talking to other countries about the regimes that they have in place to relocate people. It's not as easy as it sounds and obviously, that was one of the sticking points with the individual involved.

"So we haven't come to a final position yet. But we have, I guess - in comparison to where we were in September last year, we've advanced a lot of the policy discussions."

The most obvious problem with this is that it is blatantly illegal under international and New Zealand law. While the Refugee Convention allows people granted refugee status to be deported back to persecution when they have been convicted of a "particularly serious crime" and so constitute a "danger to the community", or where there are reasonable grounds for regarding them as a "danger to the security of the country", they are still protected by the the Convention Against Torture and the ICCPR, which forbid deportation to torture and death. Those protections are recognised in sections 130 and 131 of the Immigration Act, and beyond that by the affirmation of the right to life and the right not to be subjected to torture or cruel treatment. While the former can easily be changed, the BORA rights are considered non-derogable by the courts (reflecting international law on the issue), so if the government wanted any change to stick, it would have to either directly amend the BORA, or write a nakedly explicit "fuck the BORA" clause into the Immigration Act. Both are obviously constitutionally improper. And even then, it would just move the problem from New Zealand courts to the United Nations (either the Human Rights Committee or the Committee Against Torture, depending). So, this isn't actually a "problem" they can solve, unless they want to turn us into an outlaw regime like Australia which pisses on international human rights law.

Secondly, what is the "problem" they are trying to solve? Looking at their chosen example, its not "people who have been convicted of crimes", but people who haven't been convicted, people who haven't actually committed crimes at all. Which gets us into issues of punishment without trial, which again is simply not the sort of thing countries which respect human rights do. Aotearoa likes to think of itself as one of those countries, and Labour likes to think of itself as a party which supports that. But clearly the current government haven't got the memo, because faced with some legally inconvenient people, their "solution" is simply to get rid of them, and bugger legal process or human rights protections. Which is the sort of mindset you'd expect from someone like Putin, not a New Zealand politician.

What the government is proposing is simply monstrous and illegal. It should not proceed. But beyond that, it exposes a sickness at the heart of government, a mindset of convenience and expediency and a disregard for fundamental human rights. A government infected by such a sickness should not be allowed to continue. Instead, it should be removed from office at the next election.

Building themselves a petard?

The government's Counter-Terrorism Legislation Bill is expected to pass its third reading today. The bill weakens the definition of "terrorist act" and creates a new offence of "planning", which would do exactly nothing to stop attacks like the most recent one and shows the government took exactly the wrong lesson from the Urewera raids. There's lots of criticism that the law is over-broad and will criminalise too much, and if politicians need to be convinced, I'd like them to consider the following scenario:

A political party leader is running for election on a platform of racism and being "tough on crime". They frequently use threatening and intimidatory language in their speeches towards the intended targets of their campaign - people who are not rich and white. They promise to "clean up" parts of New Zealand by "letting police off the leash", promising that those police officers will be armed. They say repeatedly that they want "criminals" to be afraid, dismiss concerns that this will lead to more people being shot by police by saying that only "criminals" should have anything to fear. They release a detailed plan to do this.

So far, so ordinary. We've had such politicians in the past. We have such politicians now. Its ugly, despicable politics, but sadly normal in our country. But the government's new law seems to make it a crime.

How? Look at the definition of terrorism as amended by the bill. An act is a "terrorist act" if it is carried out for one or more purposes that are or include advancing an ideological or political cause and with the intention of intimidating a population or unduly coercing a government and if it is intended to lead to one or more specified outcomes - one of which is the death or serious injury of one or more persons. Now look at the politician. Advancing a political or ideological cause? Check - that's literally what politicians do. Intimidate a population? Check - its well-established that "a population" means specific communities, rather than everyone. Specified outcomes? Check. While engaging in the usual equivocations (because in NZ not even a "tough on crime" platform lets you glibly dismiss police shootings), its clear that this policy will lead to deaths and injuries, so insofar as the policy is intended, the deaths and injuries are. If the politician is elected and the policy enacted and someone is shot, that shooting is arguably a terrorist act (which isn't as weird as it sounds, insofar as historicly most terrorism is state terrorism, carried out by those in power to keep people in line).

So, moving from "induce terror" to "intimidate" is a problem for politicians, because while no politician credibly intends to induce terror, plenty of them intend to intimidate, and some build their entire political brand around it. But it gets worse. Because the new "planning" offence criminalises "planning or other preparations to carry out [a terrorist] act, whether it is actually carried out or not" and covers acts "too remote to constitute an attempt to commit an offence". The key question is "if the act was carried out, would it be a terrorist act"? Policies are pretty remote, but they're absolutely plans. And it seems that if framed in an intimidatory context, they are arguably covered by the law.

[Yes, there's an "advocacy" clause, but its not clear how it interacts with the new planning offence, or what degree of planning is required to be allowed to infer intent from what people are saying publicly. And obviously, where government Ministers are concerned, they're not advocating, but doing.]

I do not for a moment believe the politicians intend this, and I do not for a moment believe they will ever apply it in the context suggested above (because politicians always intend for the law to apply to other people, never themselves). But its the law they're passing, and we should hold them to it. With private prosecutions if necessary.

Getting out

Twenty years after it invaded, the US is finally leaving Afghanistan. What's surprising is that it took them so long - its been clear for over a decade that their presence there was pointless and just pissing people off. But imperial pride leads to exactly this sort of stupidity.

Their invasion has achieved nothing. When the US invaded, Afghanistan was a failed state, riven by civil war. And when they leave, Afghanistan will still be a failed state, riven by civil war. While Al Qaeda is gone, it was simply replaced by other terrorist factions elsewhere. Those have since declined, but the continued occupation of Afghanistan didn't have anything to do with that. Instead, it was just an effort by the US to avoid admitting defeat.

The good news is that to the extent that US occupation and torture are drivers of terrorism, any decrease in the US footprint will probably make the world a safer place. Now, if only they'd do that elsewhere.

(And meanwhile, there are still 40 prisoners languishing in Guantanamo. Only two have been convicted in the US's kangaroo court "military commission", another seven have been charged but never tried, and three more might be charged. As for the rest, they have never been charged with any crime, and are basicly being indefinitely detained without trial by the US. This continued injustice is a suppurating sore, and it needs to end immediately).

The first test of control orders

Over the weekend we learned that Turkey plans to deport a New Zealand woman and her children who had fled Syria after previously joing the Islamic State. Which means that Andrew Little's tyrannical Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Act 2019 - rammed through under all-stages urgency on the basis of an outright lie that we were about to be flooded with returning terrorists - will probably get its first test. So how will it work?

The woman is a "relevant person" in terms of the Act. Despite not being convicted of any crime, merely being deported on an allegation of terrorism means she qualifies. Which means a court will be able to make various orders restricting her rights. The sticking point for the government is likely to be that the court may only make these orders if she "poses a real risk of engaging in terrorism-related activities", and even then, only those orders which are "necessary and appropriate" to prevent such activities. As so far this person's "support for terrorism" seems to consist solely of being married to the wrong person and living in the wrong place, this may be a difficult bar for the government to meet.

(No doubt the SIS will talk up the threat she poses to justify their abuse of our democracy. But we only have to remember the Ahmed Zaoui case to see how appallingly low their standard of "evidence" is, and how unconvincing it was the moment it encountered the reality check of an actual judge, even with a one-sided procedure designed to prevent it from being challenged. They may find themselves in a similar situation this time, resulting in a similar outcome).

Finally, there's also the absurdity of a law which imposes mandatory name suppression on a person whose identity has already been widely reported and will continue to be available online even if an order is made. Hopefully the court will decide to permit publication rather than promote the absurd position that the entire country must pretend to not know what we already know.

Labour lied about control orders

Remember the government's tyrannical Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill? Remember how it was rammed through Parliament, with a four-day submission period and a select committee process that was a democratic fraud? At the time, the government gave the impression that there was an urgent need for this legislation, that a horde of kiwi terrorists were about to return from the Syria, and so they needed the law passed immediately to deal with that threat. But it turns out that it wasn't. In a response to an OIA request, the Police said that the law has never been used, that this was "not unexpected" and that they expect the number of orders "will be low, and possibly zero, for the forseeable future". In other words, we were had. The government lied to us and abused the democratic process. Again. And by doing so, they did more to undermine our democracy and our way of life than any terrorist ever has or could.

Mass surveillance was a waste of money

From 2015 to 2019 the NSA ran a program of mass surveillance of Americans' domestic communications. It was intrusive, totalitarian, and a collosal waste of money:

A National Security Agency system that analyzed logs of Americans’ domestic phone calls and text messages cost $100 million from 2015 to 2019, but yielded only a single significant investigation, according to a newly declassified study.

Moreover, only twice during that four-year period did the program generate unique information that the F.B.I. did not already possess, said the study, which was produced by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board and briefed to Congress on Tuesday.

[...]

The information surfaced as Congress was weighing whether to allow the law that authorizes the agency to operate the system — the USA Freedom Act of 2015 — to expire on March 15, or whether to accede to the Trump administration’s request that lawmakers extend the statute, so the agency could choose to turn the system back on in the future.

The entire system produced only 15 intelligence reports over the four years it ran - 14 of which were redundant. And it did that at the cost of spying on every single American. America's political elite is unlikely to care about the latter - they're fully committed to shitting on fundamental human rights in the name of an endless war against an abstraction. But they do care about money. And on that measure alone, this programme was pure waste. But I guess the real question is who that waste went to, and who they donate to, rather than any assessment of actual merit.

Worse than I thought

The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has reported back on the government's odious and tyrannical control orders bill. As expected, the fraudulent select committee process has made no significant changes (partly because they couldn't agree, but mostly because it was a stitch-up from the start, with no intention of ever listening to submitters). But in the process they've revealed that they expect the law to be applied far more widely than expected. While the committee dismisses fears the law could be applied to protestors, it then goes on to say:

Similar concern was expressed about clause 7, which states that a person engages in terrorism-related activity if they “facilitate or support the carrying out of terrorism”. We consider this wording appropriate. It is deliberately broad, so that those who knowingly spread terrorist propaganda — whether as part of a recognised terrorist group or less formally — could be considered for a control order. Labour Party and Green Party members were particularly concerned about informal terrorism, and spe-cifically white supremacist terrorism.

So the threshold for having your liberty removed, without evidence, trial or prosecution, is "spread[ing] terrorist propaganda". Which seems awfully low. And it this stage, it seems worth pointing out that environmentalists are often considered to be terrorists overseas, that Australia has passed laws against "vegan terrorists" (AKA "people who film farm animals suffering") and is using similar rhetoric against climate protesters as it desperately attempts to defend the coal industry. So, speaking or posting in support of such groups or causes could fall foul of such a standard. And given Simon Bridges' views of Extinction Rebellion, this seems like an accident waiting to happen.

As for white supremacists, the implication here is that visiting Nazis like Southern and Molyneux who spread racist hate would be gagged at the border, without evidence, trial or prosecution. I don't like Nazis, but that seems a bit extreme, and not the sort of thing that a free and democratic society operating under the rule of law should do.

If "spreading terrorist propaganda" reaches a criminal threshold, it should be prosecuted. If it doesn't, then there seems to be no justification for restricting someone's liberty on the basis of what they say. And if the government believes the law in this area is inadequate, then it should say so, and make a case for proper legislation - not pull a half-arsed, tyrannical workaround which is open to abuse and undermines the values it purports to protect. But I guess that, like gathering evidence, that would be actual work.

Sadly, it seems like the Greens are still supporting this odious piece of tyranny. And if they continue to do so, then you should not support them.

Boycott this democratic fraud

The Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee has called for submissions on Andrew Little's tyrannical Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill. Normally I encourage participation in the democratic process. I am not doing so in this case. Instead, I encourage all of you to boycott this submissions process, and to post publicly or email your MP to say that you are doing so and why. Why? Because the submission period is less than a week: until November 10. And people may remember that we've been here before.

Last time the government tried to ram through legislation on this topic - John Key's Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill, I encouraged people in good faith to submit on it. Several did. I found out afterwards that the committee didn't even bother reading the submissions, and that the entire process was simply a stitch-up. I and the people I had encouraged to submit had wasted our time and might as well have not bothered.

In short: a submission period this short is simply a fraud, designed to lend a veneer of democracy to tyranny. I refuse to participate in it, or lend my reputation to perpetrate it. They fooled me once, but I won't be fooled again.

Is there anything useful you can do as an alternative? Not at the moment. Like I said, its a stitch up, and it will be rammed through no matter what we think. The most we can do is express our anger, our disgust, and our distrust of a system which acts like this. But remember this at election time. We need to take our democracy back. And that means de-selecting or de-electing every MP who supports this bill. They will no longer protect our rights, so they all need to go.

New Fisk

Trump may have claimed to kill al-Baghdadi, but he has brought Isis back to life
Hezbollah threatens the peaceful and non-sectarian protests in Lebanon

The Greens should not support tyranny

Last week, the government introduced an odious bill to allow it to apply "control orders" - effectively a bail regime - on suspected terrorists entering New Zealand, without the need for prosecution or evidence. But National refused to support it (because, naturally, it wasn't tyrannical enough), meaning the bill looked doomed. But now the Greens have ridden to the government's rescue, and agreed to support it in exchange for "concessions":

The Green Party has negotiated important civil liberties changes in the proposed Terrorism Suppression Bill which will now establish human rights and process safeguards.

“We’ve ensured that foreign convictions and deportations won’t be accepted without proper scrutiny and we’ve ended the use of secret evidence without an advocate,” said Golriz Ghahraman, Green Party spokesperson for Justice.

“We’ve been clear from the start about our key concerns. Our position in Government has allowed us to negotiate and get agreement from the Minister. We’re now comfortable voting for the Bill at first reading while we continue work to improve it as it progresses.

Essentially, Labour threatened to back down to National, and the Greens obediently rolled over and wagged their tail in order to stop the bill form being worse. But firstly, this isn't a matter of better or worse, but of right and wrong, and a law which allows punishment without prosecution, punishment on a civil standard of proof, or the use of secret "evidence", even with a "special advocate", is fundamentally wrong and unjust, and something the Greens should never support. It violates fundamental international human rights standards, and again, that is something the Greens should never support. Because the great lesson of the "war on terror" is that if you allow human rights to be eroded in the name of "security", you suddenly find them being eroded across the board. It is the Greens' job to stand against that erosion and make a principled argument for human rights. If arsehole parties pass bad legislation, then that's on them. But if the Greens compromise to enable that to happen, it makes it so much harder to repeal it later.

(At this stage I should point out that the Greens' "concession" of a special advocate is a) exactly the same system which was rejected by the UK supreme court in 2009 as fundamentally unjust, effectively overturning their control order regime as security agencies were unwilling to have their "evidence" scrutinised in public where people could laugh at it; and b) liable to be shortly overturned by the government's planned legislation to allow secret evidence in all trials, so not a "concession" at all. And again, if the Law Commission believe they are acceptable, then so much the worse for the Law Commission).

Secondly, we've been here before. Back in 2005, the Greens supported the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act for identical reasons, in exchange for "concessions". I supported that compromise at the time, and I was a fool to do so, because those concessions were all swiftly overturned the moment the government could get the numbers. The Greens should not allow themselves to be fooled again.

Sophistry and bullshit

I spent some time reading the Regulatory Impact Statement and Bill of Rights Act advice for the government's odious control order scheme today. I am not impressed with either of them. Starting with the RIS, it is built on some pretty questionable assumptions. For example:

Unless individuals have been convicted of an offence in New Zealand or overseas, there is very little agencies can do to monitor the activities and movements of an individual who poses a terrorism risk to the community.

If there is no change to current settings, and high-risk returnees reside in the community, the Government can surveil a limited number of returnees (for the Police to do this a court issued warrant would be required). However, surveillance provides no capacity to impose any conditions or restrictions on individuals, or to support individuals in seeking counselling or other reintegration support services.

So, apparently we need to gut our human rights standards because the police and SIS can not surveil an estimated "1-2 people per year", and because they believe they cannot provide reintegration services unless someone has been convicted of a crime. Which is ridiculous, and if true, makes you wonder what we are paying these agencies hundreds of millions a year for. Instead, it reads like the police are going "waaah! Don't wanna do work! Don't wanna!" when faced with task of surveilling suspected terrorists. Instead, they'd rather compromise our protection of basic human rights because they are lazy.

It gets worse. While its not in that section, this is essentially the government's "problem definition":

Currently, the courts can impose restrictions that would limit potential terrorist activity once a person has been charged or convicted, either as part of bail conditions, by sentencing or via parole conditions. These options are not available where the individual has not committed a crime under New Zealand law or when a prosecution for an offence is not a viable or proportionate option (eg prosecution test under the Solicitor-General’s guidelines is not met).

To put that in plain English, the problem the government is seeking to solve is that some people haven't committed a crime (or if they have, they would not be prosecuted for it). But it wants to punish them anyway. This is the very definition of arbitrary punishment, and precisely what the BORA is supposed to protect against. And sadly, the BORA advice is essentially sophistry to disguise that fact. "It's a civil order, so its not a punishment". "A 12 hour a day curfew (with a penalty of a year in jail if you break it) isn't detention". "The courts have to observe the BORA, so none of the restrictions on freedom of assembly, association, expression or movement we explicitly say they should make are really restrictions". Sophistry and bullshit all the way down, which debases the BORA oversight regime. But it gets worse, because in the section on the impact on the right to natural justice (raised by the bill's explicit use of a term disclosable supporting information, which "alludes to" the potential use of secret evidence by police), they say that this is impossible:

the Bill does not establish the architecture for any "closed material procedure" whereby the Court would be entitled to consider evidence that has not been disclosed. We doubt the Court would be able to conduct such a procedure in its inherent jurisdiction, therefore there is unlikely to be any material that a Court would rule is "not disposable [sic] supporting information".

Meanwhile, the RIS is saying that the bill is proceeding in tandem with "proposals to protect the use of national security information in court proceedings" (something which has been on the SIS's wishlist for years) and that this "will improve the processes for applying fora control order". So, there will be secret evidence, with all that implies for the right to natural justice, its just that Crown law will pretend there will not be for the purposes of the BORA assessment. Again, this simply makes them look like liars, trying to tell two different stories. I know a lawyer is someone who tells you what you pay them to say (sorry, Graeme), but this really is disgraceful.

Meanwhile, they're also misleading the politicians who will be voting on this law, omitting the sorry history of the UK's control order regime (which was basicly overturned repeatedly by the courts on human rights grounds). You'd think that would be helpful in assessing this sort of legislation, but I guess the Ministry of Justice thinks MPs just don't need to know. Which is just he sort of shoddy and unprofessional job we've seen in the past on terrorism legislation.

If this is the case for the law, its a terrible one. And if Parliament accepts it and votes for it, they're a terrible Parliament, and just a rubber-stamp for tyranny.

Why do we need control orders again?

On Wednesday, the government was loudly telling us that it needed to legislate to allow it to impose "control orders" - effectively a parole regime, but imposed without charge, prosecution, conviction or real evidence - on suspected terrorists because they couldn't be prosecuted for their supposed crimes. Today, it turns out that that's not the case:

A warrant to arrest the man called the "bumbling Jihadi" - New Zealand-born man Mark Taylor - has been issued in Wellington District Court.

A charge sheet under the name Muhammad Abdul Rahman Hamza Omar John Daniel was filed in Wellington with a date showing he was due to appear before a registrar on Friday.

[...]

The charging document shows a Hamilton address and the charge is that between 11 June 2014 and 24 April 2015 at Raqqa, Syria he threatened to do grievous bodily harm to New Zealand police officers and soldiers

The charge is from the Crimes Act and carries a seven year maximum jail term.

(While the threats were made in Syria, the threatened assaults would have had to have happened in New Zealand, which seems to establish jurisdiction)

So why do we need control orders again?

An odious bill

The government has decided that someone has done Something Bad. But despite their belief, there seems to be no evidence that they have actually broken the law. So the government's solution is to pass a retrospective law allowing them to be punished anyway, on a lower standard of proof.

If it was Russia or China doing this, we would have no qualms at all about condemning it as a tyrannical abuse of power and a violation of basic human rights. But its not Russia or China: it's New Zealand:

On Wednesday, Justice Minister Andrew Little introduced a new bill to to strengthen counter-terrorism laws and support the de-radicalisation of New Zealanders returning from overseas.

The need for law change was highlighted when it came to light that a case against Taylor, known as the "bumbling jihadi", would not necessarily be a slam dunk with much of the case dependent on proof.

[...]

The Terrorism Suppression (Control Orders) Bill will now give the New Zealand Police the ability to apply to the High Court to impose control orders on New Zealanders who have engaged in terrorism related activities overseas.

The orders are effectively a bail regime, allowing someone's freedom of movement, assembly, association and expression to be restricted for up to six years. While imposed by a court, there's an implicit assumption that evidence will be secret (or rather "non-disclosable" to the accused), and it will be done on a civil rather than criminal standard of proof. Like asset forfeiture, its essentially a way to punish without prosecution or evidence (and to punish those acquitted by the courts), freeing the police from having to do their actual jobs properly. Except here, there'll be default permanent name suppression, so we won't be able to see who it is being applied to.

Terrorists who commit or plan murder and mayhem should (and can) be prosecuted for their crimes. But this odious bill is an attack on the rule of law and the fundamental principles of a free society. And it is proving once again that (in the words of the UK Supreme Court) the real threat to the life of the nation comes not from terrorism but from laws such as this.

New(ish) Fisk

US grovels to Israel the same way ‘supporters’ fawned on Saddam
Don’t believe the hype, Isis has not yet been defeated – here’s why
Ardern’s response to Christchurch has put other leaders to shame – but not for its compassion alone
Like power-hungry leaders before him, Abdelaziz Bouteflika can’t quite let go – and now Algeria is a necrocracy

Germany must investigate US drone murders

For the past 15 years the US has been murdering people all over Africa, Asia and the Middle East with drone strikes. At their best, these drone-strikes are simply outright assassinations. At their worst, they are indiscriminate murders or political killings of non-combatants - basicly, an airborne death squad. It is doubtful whether this policy of murder complies with international law. And now, a German court has ruled that that country's government can't just look the other way on it:

Three Yemeni men have scored a partial success after suing Germany for its apparent role in drone attacks that killed relatives. The plaintiffs want Berlin to stop the US using German territory to relay information.

A court in Münster on Tuesday ruled partly in favor of three plaintiffs from Yemen who believe that their relatives were killed in a 2012 US drone strike that was relayed via an airbase in Germany.

The Münster Higher Administrative Court ruled that the German government must take "appropriate measures" to ascertain whether US operations conducted via the Ramstein Air Base are in line with international law.

The court ruled that Berlin should also, if necessary, press Washington to adhere to international law on drone strikes.

There's more details here, but the short version is that the German government can no longer accept US assurances that everything is legal. Its unclear what would happen if the US refuses to cooperate with the required investigations, or they find that it is violating international law, but its not unthinkable that it could be ordered to cease any support for drone operations from German territory.

There's also implications here for New Zealand. Like Germany, we have a statutorily affirmed right to life which is binding on every action of any part of our government. And like Germany, parts of our government are providing tacit cooperation with US drone murders (in our case, far more directly: the GCSB provides them with information as part of the Five Eyes, and in 2014 the Prime Minister admitted that that information may have been used to murder people). The German ruling suggests that the GCSB can't just rely on US assurances of legality, but must actively investigate to ensure we are not assisting in an arbitrary deprivation of life or other violation of international law. The question is, who is going to make them do that?

We don't need more terror laws

Back in 2007, the New Zealand Police invaded Ruatoki, terrorised the town, and held children at gunpoint as part of a series of raids against "terrorists". But when it came time to prosecute the seventeen people they'd arrested, the whole case fell apart because the police's behaviour had been "unlawful, unjustified, and unreasonable". No-one faced terrorism charges because, fundamentally, none of those targeted had broken that law: no-one had committed or planned a "terrorist act" (and no, talking shit about firing the Prime Minister out of a trebuchet doesn't count). In the end, despite four Arms Act convictions, it was a humiliating fiasco for the police, requiring a public apology to the people whose town they had invaded.

So now the police want more anti-terror powers, so they can do all that again and get away with it this time:

The Government is reviewing the anti-terror laws because of the carnage of the poorly enacted Urewera raids meaning authorities don't want to use them.

Minister responsible for GCSB and SIS Andrew Little, has ordered officials to fully scrutinise the Terrorism Suppression Act and the Counter Terrorism Act, both passed in the aftermath of the 9/11 and Bali bombings.

They were judged "unworkable" after the botched Urewera raids in 2007, and Little says authorities are now "reluctant" to use them.

While Little wants to remain open to what will happen, police are pushing for greater powers to intervene earlier when they detect suspicious behaviour.

Unlike the Minister, I don't regard reluctance to use anti-terror laws as a problem. Instead, they're something police should be reluctant to use. The fact that they want to use them (and in the complete absence of anything remotely approaching a terrorist threat, or which can't be dealt with under existing laws criminalising assault, murder and arson) says rather more about their desire to crush political dissent than any real need. And in this context, the reference to UK-style laws criminalising people for what they read on the internet - which are primarily used to persecute academics - is chilling. Faced with a lack of real terrorism to justify their inflated budget, the police want to introduce ThoughtCrime. And that's something any democraticly-minded kiwi should oppose.

But we know how this will go: they'll have a secret, closed-shop review, agree to limit our human rights for their convenience, and the law will be rammed through under urgency, backed by a National-Labour duopoly. Democracy? Not where "terrorism" is concerned, apparently.

Murderous Tories

Civilised countries don't extradite people to be murdered, and the UK, as part of its pretence to be a civilised country, supposedly has a consistent opposition to the death penalty. Except, apparently, when the Americans want to murder UK citizens:

Senior MPs of all parties have condemned the decision to allow two murderous British Isis fighters to face the death penalty in the United States – as the government admitted it had also secretly lifted objections in previous cases.

Ministers faced a furious backlash after confirming they had not demanded a “no execution” assurance in return for handing over the jihadis, the remaining members of the “Beatles” group.

The move was branded “abhorrent and shameful”, with warnings the UK would be guilty of “arrant hypocrisy” the next time it urged any other country to abandon the death penalty.

[...]

At one point, [security minister Ben] Wallace said he had “respect” for countries that allowed the death penalty, although it is UK policy to oppose it worldwide.

Significantly, the minister revealed that Britons had been sent abroad in the past with no block on use of the death penalty, agreeing to supply MPs with details “for your summer reading”.

So, senior UK government Ministers are secret death penalty supporters, who have repeatedly extradited UK citizens to be murdered in foreign countries. That's something UKanians should find intolerable. They should be demanding this Minister - and government's - (metaphorical) head, and demanding that UK law categorically forbid extradition in death penalty cases.

(If you're wondering what the situation is in New Zealand, the Extradition Act allows the government to refuse extradition in death penalty cases, but does not require it. Pretty obviously, we need to fix this, to prevent spineless Ministers from doing a Britain and compromising our values in order to grovel to murderous foreign powers).

New Fisk

By killing Isis fighters instead of bringing them to justice, we become as guilty as our enemies