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BLiP View: Crusher missing in action

Written By: - Date published: 8:18 am, February 23rd, 2010 - 29 comments

BLiP puts his distinctive view on why the police have been losing “the respect of the community” with one of his locally famous lists. He attributes it to ‘Crusher’ Collins and wonders why John Key is cluessly fronting PR wanting stronger sentences for disrespecting police.

Police recruitment campaign steps up a gear

Written By: - Date published: 10:15 am, February 1st, 2010 - 18 comments

It was probably well intentioned – and to be fair we don’t know the full facts yet – but on the face of it putting kids in police cars at a school fair then doing donuts and figure eights around the field looks like pretty poor judgement. On the other hand, I’m just a little […]

Warning: Beware what you say on the net. Humourless bastards are after you.

Written By: - Date published: 1:42 pm, January 21st, 2010 - 23 comments

No Right Turn has a post about the weirdness of the police forces in Britain at present. Elements of our own police force have been acting just as weirdly about ‘terrorism’ over the past years bringing a new era of police stupidity and police doing actions that are subsequently found to be illegal1. Joking about […]

Summary of Facts – as requested

Written By: - Date published: 10:16 pm, January 12th, 2010 - 96 comments

UPDATE 14/01 – my Summary of Facts My only charge is still obstructs police – seemingly because I refused to comply with an unlawful request. Note the fact that they haven’t charged me with disorderly behaviour must mean they realise my use of a megaphone was not unlawful. I have no doubt at all that […]

3rd time today – when will they learn?

Written By: - Date published: 10:20 pm, January 8th, 2010 - 98 comments

As lprent has already posted: I was arrested today for chanting on a megaphone. This is the third time I have been arrested for the same thing. As I mentioned yesterday, there was the broiler conference protests in 2005 which led to a precedent being set in the High Court that it is valid to […]

Five more unlawful arrests of protesters today

Written By: - Date published: 10:52 pm, January 7th, 2010 - 122 comments

John Darroch called today to inform me that the police were starting to round up and arrest protesters, and that they had three paddywagons ready. I turned up at the protest 10 minutes later and it was pretty much all over. John D, John Minto, and three others had been arrested, and everyone else seemed […]

The police ignore Brooker

Written By: - Date published: 7:52 am, January 7th, 2010 - 79 comments

Idiot Savant at No Right Turn points out that the police (once again1) are violating the law surrounding protest and dissent. The post is reproduced with permission. Two years ago, we saw a significant victory for the right to protest in New Zealand, with the Supreme Court ruling in Brooker v. Police. The court reinterpreted […]

Copenhagen violence

Written By: - Date published: 7:39 am, December 18th, 2009 - 67 comments

Photograph: Christian Charisius/Reuters Earlier in the year there was a lot of media attention on the police tactics at the G20 Summit in London. How depressing to see the same heavy handed approach being deployed in Copenhagen. A reported 100,000 protesters marched in a mostly peaceful event last Saturday, and further marches and events followed […]

A really crappy day

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 am, August 18th, 2009 - 37 comments

I hadn’t been to a protest in months. After everything I’ve been through, activist stuff tends to make me more than a little angry, which is part of the reason I’ve kept away from the front line for a while. Of course, being as assertive as I am, whenever there is trouble, it seems to […]

Still lying, Still spying

Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, August 17th, 2009 - 25 comments

A media release yesterday from the Justice NOW collective! shows how both police and corporate spies are still taking a major interest in the activities of small peaceful protest groups. From the media release: The anti-terror police are still spying on legitimate political protest, and they are still lying to the public about what they […]

‘Crusher’ running scared

Written By: - Date published: 1:00 pm, June 17th, 2009 - 13 comments

I’ve never been the biggest fan of Clayton Cosgrove, but he’s sure got ‘Crusher’ Collins running scared on her cuts to police vehicles. Yesterday in Parliament she refused to answer a question as the Minister of Corrections, telling Cosgrove he should take it up with the Minister of Police instead. The Minister of Police, of […]

Simon Power needs to do some research

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, May 19th, 2009 - 15 comments

Simon Power talking on Q+A on Sunday showed a abysmal ignorance about how matters operate in his own portfolio. He blamed lawyers and juries for slowing the court system down. My experience in courts says that he is wrong – it is usually the police slowing things down. The lawyers agree here. He is correct […]

Melting point

Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, March 10th, 2009 - 5 comments

The Ecologist Film Unit’s second release documents how espionage, news manipulation, legal threats and even violence have become the knee-jerk response of Government and big business to the increasingly vocal concerns of environmental protesters in the UK. Ahead of next month’s Climate Camp at Kingsnorth power station, this exclusive and powerful film exposes the extraordinary […]

Car crushing fist of the State

Written By: - Date published: 12:45 pm, February 3rd, 2009 - 32 comments

Despite being remarkably quiet throughout a spate of serious police controversies, Police Minister Judith Collins has finally risen to the challenge of leadership over the so-called Boy Racer issue. Collins has suggested crushing the impounded cars of those deemed to be acting like ‘Boy Racers’ in reaction to a Christchurch incident last week when a […]

Police nurture a unwise form of direct democracy

Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, January 7th, 2009 - 27 comments

 The Economist has an fascinating article “Rioters of the world unite“. It is partially about the demonstrations, protests, and outright riots in Athens and other parts of Greece at the end of last year. It is also partially concerned with a rising trend in new ways to not organize, and still be politically effective.  The […]

Evolution and Crime

Written By: - Date published: 12:19 am, December 28th, 2008 - 76 comments

The Economist is one of the few main stream media that seem to be flourishing in the days of decline for most media outlets. This is probably because it offers truly interesting comment and opinion. For instance in the current science section, they have “Darwinism:Why we are, as we are, a view on the current […]

Animal right activists, farming and the police

Written By: - Date published: 4:06 pm, December 21st, 2008 - 44 comments

On ABC last night there was a excellent video “Animal rights campaigner spreads message“. It is worth watching for people who (unlike me) haven’t been seen some of the material before. It concerns a animal rights activist in aussie, wealthy backers, and a certain amount of bloody silly self-righteousness from groups that don’t enforce their […]

Have the police been inciting?

Written By: - Date published: 12:04 pm, December 21st, 2008 - 52 comments

There is a slowly emerging twist in police spy scandal. The question of incitement and provocation from an agent of the police. Bearing in mind that it is an obvious escalation of paying people embedded deep in any activist organisation, it is something that an agent’s handlers should have been aware of and taken steps […]

Howard Broad: Incompetent, dishonest or about to fire some people?

Written By: - Date published: 2:59 pm, December 20th, 2008 - 48 comments

Let us assume, for a while, that Broad didn’t know the detail of SIG’s activities with Gilchrist If his staff were doing their job he knew about the story before Saturday, but let’s pretend they didn’t and the Police weren’t asked for comment until um… midday Saturday. Unlikely I know, but let’s give him the […]

Police spied on Unite Union too

Written By: - Date published: 3:09 pm, December 18th, 2008 - 42 comments

Matt McCarten, head of the Unite Union, has just released emails showing police informant Rob Gilchrist gave the police spy unit details about activities being organised by the union as part of their push to abolish youth pay rates and increase the minimum wage. ‘These emails give lie to the police claim that only potential […]

Bill Ralston on police spying

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, December 18th, 2008 - 8 comments

Bill Ralston usually gets stirred by posters at The Standard for what he says. I’ve generally liked him after seeing him give some politicians a degree of ribbing at the annual foreign policy conference in Dunedin in the mid-80’s. I really liked his most recent blog “Wimpy response to out-of-line cops”. The latest Hager/Hubbard story […]

Who else are they spying on?

Written By: - Date published: 2:24 pm, December 17th, 2008 - 16 comments

Gordon Campbell raises a good question in his latest Scoop column – are the Police also using paid informants to spy on mosques? According to the original Sunday Star-Times article, the Police informant Rob Gilchrist was getting $600 a week for his information. This is a substantial amount, and more than enough to entice anyone […]

The limits to tolerance of the police

Written By: - Date published: 3:00 pm, December 16th, 2008 - 66 comments

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 […]

Howard – some advice on what questions to ask

Written By: - Date published: 11:49 am, December 16th, 2008 - 23 comments

Yesterday, Howard Broad made statements about the targets of the SIG (Special Investigation Group) to National Radio. Interview with Howard Broad on his actions. I’ve seen some of the e-mails when Rochelle Rees discovered them. From them and his statements, I get the impression that the police commissioner is and has been kept out of […]

Police Special Investigations – A fundamental lack of humanity

Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, December 15th, 2008 - 46 comments

Aside from all the democratic, political and moral issues raised by the Police’s behaviour, there is a fundamental lack of humanity in their actions. Yeah, perhaps the Police do have a role in preventing the graffiti of billboards (apparently they used their informant to try to track down a group that graffitied a red meat […]

No Right Turn: Police State

Written By: - Date published: 1:17 pm, December 14th, 2008 - 35 comments

No Right Turn has written in his cogent style on the police spy issue. With the kind permission of No Right Turn, I’ve quoted it in full below. Because the police operate independently of the government at the operational level (as they should), the “mission” creep is always going to be a issue. Unfortunately the […]

Judith Collins – thoughtless idiot

Written By: - Date published: 11:34 am, December 14th, 2008 - 28 comments

Nothing is quite as important to a democracy as activist groups that engage in peaceful protest for change. In the past these are the groups that have worked for extending the franchise (including to woman), establishing the rights of workers in employer/employee relationships, the abolition of slavery, campaigned for sewerage systems and clean water reticulation, […]

Not a game

Written By: - Date published: 3:56 pm, October 17th, 2008 - 46 comments

National has a press release out blaming Labour for a supposed increase in assaults on police. Now, there are more people and more police than ever before, so all things being equal there will be more assaults, but it would be a concern if the rate of assaults had increased. In fact, the rate on […]