Small start to inflated bullshit.

14 comments on “Small start to inflated bullshit. ”

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1. Dukeofurl 1

   29 October 2019 at 11:50 am

   Trotter was even wrong about the US 1st Amendment and prisoners mail. It may have grandiose words but as common with all the US Constitution , including firearms clause, is still subject to 'buts'

   https://www.aclu.org/issues/prisoners-rights/civil-liberties-prison/free-speech-prison

   " The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment entitles prisoners to receive and send mail, subject only to the institution’s need to protect security."

   In practice security is what ever they want it to mean.

   From the NZ reports , prisoners must be the last group in NZ still 'sending mail' as its said there are 15,000 outgoing mail items a week.
   • DS 1.1

     29 October 2019 at 2:18 pm

     For what it is worth, prisoners do not have access to email. Snail-mail is their only option.
     • lprent 1.1.1

       30 October 2019 at 1:22 am

       It does seem archaic. I send maybe 3 bits of snail mail in local body election years. Less in off years. And I get probably about 10 bits of non junk mail a year.Even the junk mail is restricted to those who pay NZ post to deliver it.

       It is like land lines, cheque books, cassette tapes and buggy whips….
2. greywarshark 2

   29 October 2019 at 4:08 pm

   Thanks for having a look at this comment from Bowalley Rd. I think that this paragraph from Trotter's blog sums up his concerns. Don't you think he has a point? He is very strong about being careful about freedoms of expression having been a political columnist lifelong. And once limits are embedded, getting them out again is very hard, perhaps impossible.

   … place upon the statute books, for the first time, vastly expanded legal powers to restrict New Zealand citizens’ and residents’ freedom of expression. With the passage of the Corrections Amendment Bill, content which, in the judgement of the prison authorities

   discriminates against any person on the basis of race, religious belief, sexual orientation, sex, marital status, disability, age, political opinion and employment status will constitute grounds for censoring and/or withholding a prisoner’s mail….

   There is, however, a very big difference between a prisoner like the Christchurch Shooter and your common-or-garden variety criminal with right-wing ideas. It’s a difference the new legislation declines to recognise. In addition to being punished for the crimes they have committed, right-wing inmates are to be further punished by having their internationally recognised right to communicate with the outside world made subject to the political judgements of their jailers. Offensive material published by persons living outside prison will continue to escape censorship. Prisoners’ opinions, on the other hand, may be legally suppressed.

   https://bowalleyroad.blogspot.com/2019/10/putting-check-in-right-wing-prisoners.html

   Preventing the viral communications of sick-minded supremacist ego-building thinking of would-be stars of terrorism and revenge is obviously important and must be stopped. I have also read of prisoners conducting communication campaigns against victims, which they have found distressing and seen as a continuance of the bullying and offensive behaviour carried out prior to being jailed. Trotter feels apparently that there should be another way of controlling that rather than a blanket ban affecting everybody.
   • Dukeofurl 2.1

     29 October 2019 at 5:28 pm

     There also seems to be ongoing 'letter harassment' to various well known people. Its not at the level of threat , but Corrections seem to not be prepared to stop it when the recipients complain.
   • lprent 2.2

     29 October 2019 at 8:56 pm

     The existing legislation currently is pretty specific around intimidation at a personal level and for preventing various kinds of smuggling and gang control.

     When it was last looked at, was before Facebook Twitter, blogs, and virtually all forms of online stalking and harassment. It was also behind the times because all of those things were on the immediate horizon. To get broadcast presence of the kind that was designed to intimidate etc, you had to get past the gatekeepers of the media.

     Now there are no gatekeepers. The cost of mass or targeted communication has plummeted. Now this site costs about $150 per month operational costs. You can launch a trashing on facebook for a few hundred with adverts. We have people around who will di a Cameron style attack on an individual for peanuts.

     And we have a prison population who have a vested interest in intimidating witnesses, victims and entire genders or races. They have associates who can do it for peanuts and without personal risk.

     If you look at just about every instance of online harassment there is outside of marital and teens, the vast majority have to do with legal issues. Effectively trying to do things without going through the expense of court.

     Yeah I think that this is a worthwhile precaution. Think of it as disrupting the control loop and doing it in a preemptive way. I can see this kind of remote harassment escalating fast with a business model like Whaleoil. And I can't think of a group more likely than people with interest in disrupting trials and appeals.

     It becomes a reserve power like martial law, those that constrain banks, all of the powers that police could use but don't, etc…

     If as a power it gets abused then I am happy to expose it. In exactly the same way that I'd be happy to look at HDCA abuses.

     That is ultimately the real balance. People dealing with a problem or an abuse of power granted.
     • greywarshark 2.2.1

       29 October 2019 at 10:45 pm

       I think he is looking to the future and seeing this as the thin edge of the wedge, with all the rw governments that have come in around the world.
       • lprent 2.2.1.1

         30 October 2019 at 1:18 am

         The other future is that you find fan sites listening to their incarcerated gurus and stalking witnesses. Personally I prefer that the court system gets a chance to operate without online lynch mobs like the Whaleoil site synchronised lying specialized in. Because someone will try to.make a business out of it.

         This is just a belated modernization of the intimidation laws to cope with my online worlds.

         As to other areas. Well my freedom of expression includes being pretty objectionable about idiots who try to stop.me from expressing myself. That includes RW nutjobs and governments. I can do that well within the laws.

         It includes telling Chris that I think he is being a fool making a post from a press release without reading the sources. Also Kelvin dog whistling in the press release to NZ first voters and bringing it in after select committee scrutiny was finished.
3. marty mars 3

   29 October 2019 at 8:56 pm

   trotter has lowered his standards and ability to comprehend imo – hanging out with the righties too much
   • Sacha 3.1

     30 October 2019 at 7:50 am

     Or he has declined enough to be acceptable company for them.
     • marty mars 3.1.1

       30 October 2019 at 7:57 am

       yep the freeze peachers are his natural comrades I think
4. michelle 4

   30 October 2019 at 9:20 am

   People like trotter get away with writing bullshit
   • greywarshark 4.1

     31 October 2019 at 12:52 pm

     We all have a tendency to do that at times, but we think we have a valid point to make.
5. greywarshark 5

   30 October 2019 at 2:36 pm

   We might end up like the USA and their imprisonment regime for Muslims and 'second-tier terrorists'. I put this here because I think we should know about them, including that one is an environmentalist who has criticised the government! These prison units were opened in Bush's time. This Tedtalk is from
   2015.

   But then there needs to be control of prisoners communications – keeping the fans stirred up, criminal bosses running their scams, the cruel husban.d

   Hence Trotter's concerns.

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuAAPsiD768

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