Two
days ago I
said this:
IRD operates above our Privacy Act: it can raid
my business premises without warrant; it will never be denied a warrant to raid my home; it can demand my bank statements from the bank and my bank will acquiesce without my knowledge; I have no
right to remain silent when an interview is 'requested' by IRD; and as a
taxpayer the burden of proof is turned against me - unlike for an accused
murderer, burglar, et al, I am not innocent until proven guilty before the tax
courts, IRD can simply assess me and I have to prove my innocence, so breaching
a fundamental tenet of a free society.
Some
years ago I wrote how the Revenues around the world routinely snoop
on social media for thought crimes - if you look at the footnoted update, you'll see IRD read that post.
Yesterday
I
wrote on how your bank is now required to snoop on you under Judith Collins’
Anti-Money Laundering and Financing of
Terrorism Act:
RIP the economy (and any privacy you ever had). This National government
is generating more red tape than the previous Labour one did. To
capture a minor subset of transactions, every single commercial and private
transaction, be it financial (where your bank has to report you to police if
irregularities are found), or property, are being delayed, and weighed done
by cost on cost on cost on penalty of the snitch society. God I
want out.
Over
the weekend Rodney Hide wrote a chilling piece on the investigation on him
by the Official Assignee, covertly targeting his friends and family:
The interesting thing for me is how upsetting it has proved to be. I have nothing to hide. I am well used to being in the public spotlight. It was once part of my life to have others talk about me in less than flattering terms.
I would have
thought it no big deal to have a state agency do similar.
But I have found
it extremely disturbing to have friends and colleagues compelled to appear
under threat of arrest and answer questions about me and my family put to them
by a private investigator under contract to the Government.
Oh, and to have
those friends and colleagues warned not to tell me what they were asked.
It's extremely invasive and sinister. It's what we expect of totalitarian regimes, not free and democratic societies such as ours.
So
of course today we find the police have taken their pointless war on drugs to your
Facebook page:
The monitoring has
been exposed by members of a blackmarket Facebook group, who complained of
receiving letters out of the blue from police, warning them they were being
watched.
One unidentified
user received a letter from the Canterbury Organised Crime Squad, dated July
15, warned that their membership of a group suspected to be aiding illegal drug
deals had been noticed.
There
are no parts of our lives not being surveiled and intruded upon. From a letter
to the editor of today’s Press, penned by no other than Sir David Hay:
ECan employees who screen for smoke from wood
burners invade our domestic lives and put people who try to heat their homes
affordably at risk of a $750 fine. The invitation for neighbours to inform on
neighbours reeks of a totalitarian state.
But
hey, the sacrifice of our private lives is justified: we’re catching the tax
evaders, we’re catching the money launderers, we're catching the polluters to ensure they don't heat themselves, and we’re catching the druggies.
No.
For
freedom lovers, the price has been too high. Those who’ve read George Orwell’s 1984 will remember the proles thought
everything largely fine in the prison cells of their minds, it was only those who had foot-tripped over the State who figured out the nature of the entrapment, and the total loss of
liberty that defined them. Which explains why the below photo is not from that novel,
it’s from a street in England, courtesy HMRC – though I think I know what they’re
using as their manual:
Next
time you’re updating your Facebook, you be careful out there. Don’t go thinking
you’re living in a free country. That, and we all live in the snitch society now. Forget the threat of external terrorism, we have an internal surveillance state which is far beyond the bounds of what a free, western society should have settled for without (at least) civil rebellion.
