Gerry Brownlee; IRD Raids; Freedom of the Press - 100% Pure Surveillance State.

On the back of yesterday’s finding that no government official is to be punished for GCSB’s illegal spying activities, why am I wholly unsurprised that Gerry Brownlee, doing his damnedest to earn himself a nic of Brownshirt, doesn’t understand the nature, nor the need, of a free press:

Cabinet Minister Gerry Brownlee has questioned why political reporters' phone, email and swipe card records should be protected when they frequently publish classified information or the private records of others.

There are reasoned debates, and pretty basic ones, as to why this is, Gerry, but I prefer to let my readers experience the truth in the way novelists would do: show not tell.

In case Gerry suspects my veracity given the supposedly extreme nature of this blog, by which I mean I believe in the blasphemy of an individual’s freedom from himself, the below was published just two days ago by a reputable, conservative firm that runs continuing education courses in taxation for the legal and accounting professions. When reading the below powers of IRD to raid YOU ask yourself are these powers those that would exist in a free society, or that authoritarian one which existed behind the Iron Curtain. The extract is long, but if you want to understand the central theme of this blog, written from behind the Kiwi IRon Drape, and more importantly, the nature of the surveillance state you live in, you will find this fascinating.

The Commissioner has recently published an Operational Statement (OS 13/01) on the Commissioners search and seizure powers under section 16 of the Tax Administration Act 1994. OS 13/01 seeks to provide practical guidance to IRD officers and taxpayers when the Commissioner invokes these powers.

That the Commissioner has immense powers under section 16 is beyond debate. The Commissioner can search any property at any time, and may remove and retain any and all documents and records the Commissioner considers may be relevant to any tax issues. Where however such search is to take place at a dwelling, the Commissioner is required to obtain a District Court warrant beforehand. In practise the Commissioner will obtain such a warrant without notice to the taxpayer concerned, and so without the taxpayer having an opportunity to present their case to the Court considering the issue of the warrant.

The scale of the Commissioner’s search and seizure powers presumably makes the Police Commissioner’s eyes water with envy. In addition, the Commissioner effectively answers to no one, save for the Courts where a taxpayer has sufficient financial resources and is sufficiently brave to challenge the Commissioner.      

Taxpayers have few rights when being raided, and these are effectively restricted to claims of privilege or non-disclosure in respect of documents seized. It is imperative that taxpayers who are being raided obtain the services of a tax solicitor to represent them when the IRD arrive. Usually a solicitor is able to agree a process applicable to the conduct of the raid with the IRD officers whereby the Commissioner’s rights are secured, as is the taxpayers’ privilege or non-disclosure rights.

In practise it is unclear exactly how wide the IRD's powers are, and so the presence of a tax solicitor can be useful to monitor events so as to ensure that the IRD officers carrying out the raid do not overstep their powers.  In our experience IRD officers generally do try to act in a professional manner, but it needs to be borne in mind that their objective is to advance the Commissioner’s interests, not the taxpayers.

Practical issues that we have been confronted with during IRD raids include;

·         IRD officers attempting to ‘detain’ or restrict the movement of staff and other persons present at the premises during the raid.

·         IRD officers seizing immigration documents and passports belonging to relatives of the taxpayer.

·         A locksmith engaged by the IRD who forcibly opened a combination lock leather briefcase with a hacksaw, (the combination of which the taxpayer had forgotten) after declaring that he had the ‘expertise’ to open the combination lock.

Note the telling use of the word brave, as in you would need to be brave in taking on the commissioner. This is the standard of life in all police-surveillance states where you are wise to be scared of those state officials who have the power of God over you: the tax state, as with all terror states, achieves its evil by invoking a prudent fear of itself. That said, and before getting to the beef of the free press, a question for Gerry:

Given ‘in practise it is unclear exactly how wide the IRD’s powers are’, and let’s face it, they are pretty much limitless, what point is there having a tax solicitor present ‘to monitor events to ensure that the IRD officers … do not overstep their powers?’  Just intellectual curiosity, though perhaps you might ask the invisible Minister McClay for a little more clarity to the tyranny.

But here’s the scary thing, speaking to the point. Government in New Zealand has assumed these incredible powers to surveil and raid its own citizens, not to protect us from the outside threats of dreary bearded beaded men, but to take the property and the freedoms of we who are forced to pay for our own enslavement 'inland'. The powers described above are 100% pure police state, because how else can you interpret them? And government has assumed these powers with a free press. Indeed - BREAKING NEWS - many in our MSM are brain-washed enough to have voted for this. Regardless, Gerry only knows where we would be without a free press. I don’t frankly understand how we ever got to this dark place we find ourselves groping around in, forcibly prostrated in front of the Fortress of Legislation in the Capital, our wallets and bank accounts held open to them.

Do you get it yet, Gerry?

Or to approach it via a quotation (hattip Café Hayek) from Deirdre McCloskey’s The Bourgeois Virtues that points out well the hypocrisy of the Left whom tried to own the debate against the GCSB spooks, while supporting the wholesale surveillance and plundering of myself by this department:

No left egalitarian has explained how such [taxes] square with Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative: “So act as to use humanity, both in your own person and in the person of every other, always at the same time as an end, never simply as a means.”  Taxing Peter to pay Paul is using Peter for Paul.  It is corrupting.  Modern governments have been encouraged to think that any abuse of Peter is just fine, that Peter is a slave available for any duty that the ruler has in mind.  A little like non-modern governments.

The free press, Gerry, is required to report on just that abuse described, until at some stage enough of us hopefully wake up, and we take the free West back again from bullies like yourself. To keep iterating this, you have all the power, individuals have been left with none, so journalists are our canaries down the mine shaft, and must be protected as long as possible, for when their freedoms go, the tiny flame of freedom left us, will be blown out entirely.

Needless to say, I’m not holding my breath for the Western Spring. So let's change the topic: how are the compulsory property confiscations going in Christchurch then?

Postscript:

Yes, I'm gutted I didn't work a Gerry-rigged pun into the above.