Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 64 comments
Categories: activism, police -
Tags: howard broad, rochelle rees, ross muerant
On discovering that her boyfriend had been spying on her and her friends for the police, and the consequent violations of her expectation of privacy, my niece Rochelle had quite enough tolerance of the police. That is sufficient cause to get seriously annoyed, and it is generally unwise to seriously annoy geeks. So she has invaded the privacy of her spy and his police handlers.
Rochelle says
I made a decision that my priority had to be to get everything I could, prove everything I could, and do everything I could to prevent the police doing what they did again.
I flew down to Christchurch and installed spyware on Rob Gilchrist’s phone to monitor his phone calls and text messages, and a script on his computer to continue sending his emails to me. I also downloaded the past 12 months of his phone bills from telecom, and managed to decrypt documents in his emails that had been encrypted.
In effect she had access to a large amount of the ongoing and past dialogue between Rob and his police handlers. This makes some of the statements made by Howard Broad in the last few days somewhat hilarious. He badly needs to get on top of what his officers are doing, if only because otherwise Rochelle can tell him.
Since she became a peaceful activist for animal rights trying to work within our supposed democracy, Rochelle has spent a lot of time in court on mainly spurious charges. She has been remarkably tolerant of the police on the advice from family and friends, who have been advising her that living without them would be worse. However over the years that tolerance wears down.
The police reaction to me as a protester has been completely and utterly over the top. They have intruded into my life more than I could ever have expected was possible. It felt good to feel like I was giving some of it back. This whole thing is like something out of George Orwell’s 1984, not something that happens in the real world.
What she is referring to are charges like “intimidation by loitering”. This was brought for noisily protesting in front of a shop that was selling factory farmed fur. On appeal, after a couple of years and $30k in defense costs, the judge concluded that protesting was not loitering. The question of intimidation was never really looked at on the appeal apart from counting the few seconds that her camera had caught the store keeper in frame. In my opinion the charge was only brought so that the Threats Assessment Unit (TAU) could obtain a search warrant to grab her computers and cameras for intelligence gathering.
There has been a lot of talk around the media and the blogs over the past days about the role of political protest in our democracy. Well some police appear to have a different idea to most of the commentary. To them trying to raise a different point of view means that you are a target for the excesses of some crazies in the police who obviously have over-active imaginations. Who better to quote on the subject than Ross Muerant talking about the Oct 15 raids. Ross was in the Red Squad during the 1981 springbok tour before becoming a politician.
As I look at it now I can see that I had been brainwashed to the extent that I actually believed the nonsense that we were producing out of the police. The information we were getting in and the decisions we were reaching were too subjective. There was no man on the clapham bus sitting outside and looking in and saying ‘Is this a reasonable conclusion to draw based on the information you have collected’.
So when the current commissioner of police Howard Broad said on his appointment
New Police Commissioner Howard Broad cannot recall another time in his 30-year career when there has been so much bad publicity about the police and says he is committed to restoring public confidence.
he wasn’t wrong.
I’d suggest that the commissioner looks at what level of confidence is generated by having out of control police intimidating and spying on peaceful activists. Not only does it affect the people targeted. It also affects their family and friends who then spread the word. It clogs the courts with police bringing charges as a way of harassing of activists (which regularly get dropped or fail to achieve conviction), and misusing their powers to charge to obtain search warrants. It has a chilling effect on the process of peaceful democratic change. Moreover it is a waste of my taxes.
I’d suggest to the commissioner that the main problem is with controlling your more paranoid sworn officers abusing their powers. They bring the reputation of the police into disrepute through campaigns of active intimidation against activists trying to bring about peaceful change. It is something that can and should only be done within the police.
I’m sure that there are activists who will assist in the required changes as Rochelle is. Take the opportunity.
[lprent: Apparently the police don't like us using their logo. So it has been changed to a more evocative image. Thanks to SP for finding the right one.]
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TE: “and possibly a couple of rogue cops playing cloak and daggers.”
It is a bit more than a few but essentially that is what I suspect. Probably closer to 50-100, plus their like minded minions in the ordinary police.
For any activists the environment has got a lot more dangerous since 2002. These days any activist (that does anything apart from quietly speaking in private) can expect at any point to get grabbed on bullshit charges, have a search warrant executed, and expect to spend more than a year waiting for a court hearing to throw out the charges. If they are unlucky in their district court judge, they have to go to the high court to get it thrown out.
The applications for search warrants are full of inaccurate crap cribbed from overseas websites, with a few supporting generalizations for NZ and offered up as honest opinion by some sworn officer lying through their teeth. From what I understand they usually offer up some verbals about “reliable information” from the likes of Rob, who does have quite a tendency towards bullshit.
Who knows if the police concerned actually believe it?
But what is lacking is the supervision of the hierarchy. You get the impression that there is no substantive auditing of the processes and the final results. Results are lousy to say the least, but in the time honored fashion that is probably blamed on lawyers (pity that a lot of the defendants do it themselves).
Rochelles intent here is to damage the police until they start looking closely, internally at the units causing this type of damage to their reputation. I’m happy to help. Frankly I’m tired of seeing it happen to young activists like Rochelle and her friends. So are a lot of other people.
A inquiry or whatever is probably a lot less effective than what the police as a group can do internally. It just stifles the required pain that organizations need for internal reformation. So we keep pushing every crappy arrest and charge since 2002 and looking at the information from this particular informer.
I don’t think that even the activists worry much about arrests for protest that is actual civil disobedience – that is expected when people choose to do it. What gets in everyones craw are the harassment arrests designed to cause extra-judicial punishment by the delays prior to successfully defending the court case.
KINO: The intimidation by loitering came from the Threats Assessment Unit.
Threats – The Threat Assessment Unit investigates threats against police staff, judges and court staff and other investigative agency staff. They respond to counter-terrorist threats or situations. The unit also collects and analyses potential threats to New Zealand and visiting government politicians and officials.
In this case, the unit was probably only really interested in the search warrants so that they could find out what the AAA was doing.
So they cobbled together a case based on a particular incident that Rochelle and Jesse were not at. Because they also wanted to search Rochelles home and especially her computers and footage, they also tossed this charge in as well against both of them.
The basis of the charge against Rochelle and Jesse was an uncorroborated statement by the complainant (basically everyone else who was there said she was lying through her teeth). The security video footage that would have shown what actually happened was unaccountably not secured and was wiped. Yeah right – and I really believe that.
The TAU attempted to hold on to as much of Rochelles gear for as long as they could. It took 14 months before her camera was released, and about 4 months for the computers.
I won’t bother running through the stuff on the other incident. There was more of a case to answer there, but hardly justifying the charges or the search warrants
The level of bullshit and manipulation of the legal process by the police in question was a real eye opener to me. It was to put it mildly one of the most disgraceful examples of “the ends justifying the means” that I’ve ever seen. Frankly they managed to alienate from trusting the police just about everyone who knows Rochelle including my family and me. So when this stuff with Rob came up, so did the support.
It wasn’t an isolated incident. The same kind of shit has happened to many people and groups from this group. You see them show up in the known evidence from the Oct 15 arrest as well. Frankly as soon as I knew they were involved, then I assumed that it was largely another jackup.
From their definition, the TAU should be looking at themselves. They are one of the major threats to NZ
Now while I think Rochelle Rees is smart and politically aware and quite frankly don’t blame her one little bit for having a go at her ex-boy friend
I am surprised at the general tone from the left that although it is disgusting (although perfectly legal) that the state keeps an eye on what radical groups are doing it is quite alright for rochelle to snop through her boy friends computer (after the first look it was snopping) anf then apparently do some ilegal spying
Morally where is the difference………….one is for all our safety the other was revenge
Ray: So far I’ve heard no-one explain what her alternative recourse would have been in realistic terms.
Perhaps you could explain exactly what she could have done after she found during a authorized investigation of a computer that the police were actively spying on her, her friends, activist groups and political parties using an informer. It appears to be way out of the SIG’s mandate.
There is no body that can even make that investigation unless you know which police officers were involved. That would be the IPCA.
However the IPCA cannot investigate breaches or the appropriateness of police policy.
A civil case against the police would have run into the police restricting her case by refusing to release information for operational reasons.
Face it – this is exactly the action that any citizen would and should have done as part of their social obligations. If the police choose to pursue charges against her, then the case will probably fail because it hinges around their own methods. I hardly think that the police would want to open that can of worms in public. They prefer to deal with those in house. We’re just helping them aquire the motivation
So she broke the law, because she couldn’t go to the law ? I still think she should seek legal opinion before she does anything else that can implicate or impact upon her in the future.
“Morally where is the difference”
Rochelle Rees knows the legal risks she is running and is presumably prepared to face those consequences should the police risk attempting a prosecution. The police face no consequences except exposure, which can only come about through the risks taken by Rochelle Rees.
I’m surprised that so many on the right can’t see the difference between the state and an individual citizen.
Who watches the watchers? Citizens, that’s who.
Isn’t this simply analogous with civil disobedience undertaken by social movements all over the world?
To protest against the Police’s actions she consciously and openly broke the law. The act of civil disobedience (and the public declaration of it) is just as much a part of the protest against Police spying as speaking to the media about what the Police are doing.
When people climb a fence to get into a pig farm so they can film the conditions of the pigs in sow crates, their protest is both the release of the film and the climbing of the fence (and public declaration that they did so).
Civil disobedience has a moral framework, and has an accepted place in our society.
PB, it is very interesting to see the number of right-wingers who are backing the state over the individual.
IB,
One can extend that to saying they’re backing property rights over people rights.
IB,
That was my point too. But then, maybe you lefties should be backing the state over the individual. After all, what do one person’s rights matter if society as a whole is better off by knowing what Rochelle may be up to?
Billy,
I’m comfortable with the idea there are times when an individual’s rights should be overridden to protect the rights of others the question is one of balance, when should that occur? how is the weighing up done? how transparent should that be?
For example, I am ok with removing an unrehabilitated serial sexual offender from society, with a series of provisos which include maintaining all their other human rights and striving for rehabilitation and release.
I am not ok with the level of personal intrusion by the Police in this case.
Separate from the level of personal intrusion (and individual rights), the Police actions in this case are deeply anti-democratic and contrary to the open inclusive society most of us would like to say we have.
LP, if you are right, and there are as many as 50-100 police officers harassing protesters, then that is no longer just a few rogue cops. That is systematic abuse of police power, for which the Commissioner will have to be responsible. How much did he know, and when? What was reported to the previous Minister of Police, and when? If it started in 2002, as you say, then why wasn’t the previous Minister aware it was taking place? What questions did she ask, or fail to ask, about this culture of police harassment of protesters?
I don’t think you can have it both ways, LP. Either there is a very small, isolated, minor problem that can be dealt with quickly and for which previous ministers aren’t accountable, or there are very much deeper, systematic issues involving widespread abuse of power which either the previous minister did know, or should have made it her business to know about.
As I understand it there was a flying-squad developed in the 1990′s to deal with protests around the country. This was based on the idea that it would mean local police were not involved with conflict in their own communities.
The greatest shame of the previous Labour government was its right-wing approach to law and order.
“The greatest shame of the previous Labour government was its right-wing approach to law and order.”
How so ?- and what is a left wing approach to law and order ?
Edit
Tim
80 rogue cops would amount to around 0.1% of NZ officers, while I think they should like the scumbags in the police who used their position to abuse their authority and commit crimes both against the law of the land and IMO against individuals, this is a very small percentage of all police and should not be used as a stick to beat the whole force with – the vast majority of whom are excellent, in much the same way as a rogue teacher or physician shouldn’t be used as a means to smear an entire profession.
higherstandard: Agreed and nor should the group of kids who are failing in school be used to beat-up the whole system!
Ian
Agreed – I don’t know about you but my kids have been graded against NZ norms every six months since they began at school many years ago – I was always under the impression that was the case at all schools so can’t fathom why we need additional testing.
HS, authoritarian and reactionary.
TE: As HS said, this is a very small number of police in a small units scattered over the country. This is a big organisation. It would not surprise me if these types of units operate semi-autonomously within the police with only general oversight.
I’d also agree that most police are actually great. There are the usual faction of fools, but far less than you’d expect given that the organisation has to be a magnet for some of the more obnoxious personality types.
However HS, the problem is that various activists and activist groups have been complaining to the police for years in various ways with no result. There are no channels and you can almost hear the graunching of shoulders as they close ranks.
So when something like this comes up, it is directed at all police, because they choose to be responsible for their fellow officers. The changes will have to come from within, because that is the way that they are organised. The pressure has to go on the reputation and trust of all police.
vidiot: You avoided my question – what alternate legal avenue should have Rochelle pursued?
Tim:
Do you think our police are abusing protestors?
I have seen a lot of political protests overseas, where the police use tear gas and rubber bullets and fire hoses, that doesn’t happen here, What happens here in NewZealand is a few protesters would sit in the middle of the road, the police will remove them for blocking traffic by lifting them up, no tear gas, no rubber bullets, no fire hoses, heck protesters in this country have it easy, when compared to other countries.
BD: Actually, those protests you see overseas are on a scale and of a confrontational nature not seen here since 1981, and are more correctly termed `riots’. Those you might be thinking of (foreshore and seabed being the most significant in recent memory) would barely even qualify as protests by the standards of places like South Korea, where a couple of times a year 10,000 or more people march on the Cheong Wa Dae with motorcycle helmets, baseball bats and molotov cocktails to protest something like the reduction of tariffs on rice imports.
L
I’m curious where the emails are now. Surely there’s copy someone’s got hidden away somewhere – analysing them for another good Sunday Star Times article next Sunday.
hello, please post all collected corresponce from Rob Gilchrist in a torrent and upload it somewhere .
[lprent: That cannot be done. A high proportion of it consists of questions and answers about individuals. A large number of the facts about those people could only be classed as pure speculation at best.
Plus of course there is the personal correspondence, texts, and call records.
That is unlikely to ever be released. It isn't germane to the questions raised. There are privacy issues for the third-party people mentioned.]
HS, I agree that if the allegations are true, and if there are 50-100 cops harassing protesters, then it is only a small number of police. However I think the number is sufficiently large for it to be a problem for the police commissioner. He either knows about the problem, or should have made it his business to know about the problem. This is not a case of a couple of rogue cops acting in a heavy-handed way towards petty criminals. Peaceful protest goes to the heart of our democracy. Potentially, a large number of people who protest have been targetted and/or harassed by the police. I find it quite staggering that this could take place without the police commissioner’s knowledge, even if it were spread throughout the country.
BD, I don’t have any knowledge of whether the allegations are true, but the allegations are very serious and should be investigated. The public have a right to know that peaceful and legitimate protest activity by peaceful organisations is not being undermined by the police force. In my view the public has a right to know what was done to monitor these organisations, whether organisations or individuals were targetted, whether any actual criminal activities were uncovered, whether such police work really should be a priority for the police, who sanctioned it within the police, whether the Commissioner knew about it and his reasons for allowing it to continue, whether the Commissioner reported to the previous Minister and what questions were asked. There are far too many questions in my mind that potentially undermine police management for this not to be considered further.
BD: People who sit in the middle of the road (which is illegal) expect to get arrested and often charged. That is part of the normal trade off for doing protests that break the laws. The legal system does not say that you must not do things, it says that you must take the consequences if you do.
However increasingly, some police have been making charges about legal protests using things that are really not acts but attitudes (like intimidation or terrorism). They wrap some junk around it, get a compliant court registrar to issue search warrants, and then drop people in court for a year or so. That is pure harassment
To be deliberately and as a matter of a policy to be arrested for something that you haven’t done is new for NZ for the current generations. It has happened before, notably with the union movements. But it appears to be making a comeback with thoughtless police not factoring in what it does to the public trust that police rely on.
There are no significant consequences for these police. Their hierarchy appears to be unwilling to listen or to do something about it. This appears to be the only way to initiate some change in the police. If that does not happen, then at least activists have better warning and the public will be less likely to trust the police in the future.
J: All over the place and usually not looking like what it is. What else do you expect?
vidiot: You avoided my question – what alternate legal avenue should have Rochelle pursued?
Dumped the git, made it known to her associates (and the groups she wasn’t associated with) that there was something extremely dodgy with him, but that’s all. Running to the press (again), stating that she was for lack of better words hacking his system and look at what she has found, has I think opened her up to future actions. You can only piss on a dogs back a couple of times, before it bites back – unless of course, she was aiming to get her 15 mins of fame ?
captcha – hospital arrivals [quite numerous, considering one of my workmates is at the birth of his 1st right now]
vidiot,
You sound like you think that only Rob did something wrong, in which case Rochelle should only do something about his actions,
Many many people believe that the Police have done something wrong too. Do you? Given that Rochelle thinks they did, what do you think she should do?
Anita: You beat me to it.
Because of the way that they were paying him, you’d have to view him as acting as an agent of the police. That means that his handlers and the policy backing it are as equally culpable.
lprent,
Has anyone tracked down the guidelines for undercover Police? Would his actions have been acceptable if he was a sworn salaried officer?
I have no idea. It’d be interesting if they were available.
However at a rough guess I’d say that they weren’t from what I know about some of his activities.