Customs wanting passwords: Why Search Warrants Are An Important Democratic Protection.

The whole notion of our individual inalienable rights, including to be left alone by the state if we are harming no one, was such a quaint one, but still, I liked it. So now we find New Zealand Customs want the right to demand the passwords of our laptops, tablets, et al, as we are slowed further into bottlenecks from getting in or out of our airports while officials look at our family snaps, testicles and boobs on the teenagers devices, and for we grownups, our private documents. They don’t plan to have a warrant, and their wish is for three month detention, jail, for those of us who rightly will tell them to bugger* off. Worse:

Customs says it wants to move with the times and align our law with "comparable countries, such as Australia, the US, Canada and the UK." It sees inspecting an electronic device potentially becoming part of a routine bag search.

Apparently, we have to join the Big Brother Police State club in all its abuses.

And once the principle will be created, as it inevitably will be, there is nothing left. Why aren’t we, for example, compelled to leave our house keys with a state official each day as we go to work so they can inspect our premises to make sure our conduct and chattels are to the state’s approval; hell, there might even be a few of ‘those’ plants out back that though legal in an increasing part of the enlightened world, aren’t still in this kindy of a country.

And what’s so special about Customs? If they think it in the nation's common-good that Big Brother State inspect what’s on our hard disks, then along with the WOF for the car, why not a mandatory annual check by a government department of all our information storage devices? Indeed, Orwell has it right: just plug each house into the State mainframe. There’s plenty of departments that can line up with expertise and experience: Customs, Internal Affairs, GCSB, IRD … There is no difference between this and mandatorily inspecting my hard disk at the airport; other than resources required, the principle is identical.

Whether the officials like it or not, the requirement of them having to get a court issued search warrant is a crucial process protecting the freedoms of a democracy: however, IRD no longer require them for work-place raids, yes, raids, and haven't for a long time; Customs now want out of requiring them so they can turn computer harddisk searches into routine ... see what's happening here? We are losing basic freedoms, because we are losing basic protections from the state, due only to convenience for the bureaucrats; that evil word governments use to increase their power over us, pragmatism.

And the hilarious thing: most Kiwis won’t even realise how appalling this is.

I hate these bureaucratic bastards: all of them. And ZB’s Larry Williams can go to hell also on this one.

(* Please note bottom of this post for why I swear in my blog so much nowadays.)

Left’s Hypocrisy Over This Morning’s Pacific Spying Revelations | #GCSB #Privacy

Afraid I don’t have time for a full post this morning, other than to say yes, re Nicky Hager’s latest expose of New Zealand’s spying on our Pacific neighbours: it’s disgusting. But, equally important is the fact the Left only use this for political expediency, given privacy has no meaning to them: I’m tired of the hypocrisy on my Twitter feed currently.

It's weird how 'classical liberals' have tantrums about regulation of tobacco companies but are fine with indiscriminate mass surveillance
— Danyl Mclauchlan (@danylmc) March 4, 2015

@danylmc Not this classical liberal. The 'weird' thing is the Left hypocrisy over privacy, as it if mattered to them: http://t.co/4HiPcS1MhC
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) March 4, 2015

@danylmc And where's the Left voice against the current weekly IRD warrant-less raids on restaurant owners? https://t.co/ouOxBeiEAT
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) March 4, 2015

My first link above was to an older article where I pointed out the contradiction in the Left’s stance on GCSB; quoting:

So given this comment, can I assume [Left leaders] will have 'deep concern' at our tax surveillance state which operates totally outside of our privacy legislation and essentially gives IRD officers open slather on our lives? Because government bureaucrats who can read our financial transactions and other essential communications, who data mine NBR daily [as well as social media, searching out thought-crimes], and whom are almost unrestricted from doing so, including raiding business premises without need of a warrant, can read our lives in far more detail than a Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) officer can. That is, our politicians are concerned with our privacy to the point of weakening the protection of Kiwis from terrorism, but the total stripping of our privacy and right to be left alone, (so long as we do no harm), in order our own government can plunder the private property of its own citizens is fine? How and where did the concept of the importance of privacy in a free society change? Perhaps [Left leaders] could answer to that. What is the difference between an IRD officer being able to read my life in order to take my income, and a GCSB officer being able to read my life to protect me from Al Qaeda?

I've never understood the (im)moral underpinning of the tax state in this regard.

At the bottom of that piece I refer to New Zealand’s signing up to that American imperialism known as FATCA under which via an Intergovernmental Agreement between NZ and the US we have agreed to use IRD’s abusive, police state ability to operate outside of our privacy legislation in order to monitor American citizens for the US government, a spying exercise with no link to our own tax take. That is corruption under any definition.

Currently IRD are conducting routine raids on the restaurant sector. In another earlier piece on the almost unlimited powers of IRD in such raids – and I challenge any member of the Left in a lather this morning to read that - I described how these raids are conducted without warrant, they are timed at maximum inconvenience during the periods of peak service (lunch-times), and the heavy handed nature of them typically are scaring the bejesus out of restaurant owners and their staff. IRD powers to raid, and what they can do on raid, are largely uncontained by legislation: they have open slather.

And then in the sometimes ruins of their business – I am assuming in some cases, albeit that is beside the point – IRD then have, again, full police state powers of snooping, search and seizure, over weeks and months following to invade all aspects of those owners everyday lives, right down to the minutia.

But you won’t see the redistribution cultists out marching on that one, because, to end where I began, this morning’s Nicky Hager revelations – and more power to Nicky – are for the Left, only about political expediency.

I’ll end with Deirdre McCloskey on the Left’s hypocrisy over privacy:

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 Conservative Right are willing to trade privacy in order to protect Conservative values - which they call the War on Terror (at the moment). The Left are prepared to trade privacy for redistribution, and toward that end, all immoral, dreadful means are justified. Meaning we Classical Liberals are screwed, if Danyl cared to think about issues deeply, rather than always settling for these childish, shallow snipes at classical liberalism and libertarianism. The West as that concept of freedom, of classical liberalism, died many years ago. We are all living in the ruins of civilisation as we are marched to the next iteration of the Gulags that will be built, and wars fought, by the Big Brother states that are now ascendant.

Back to work for me so I can pay my taxes. To government employees I know read this site, click your fingers and snap those hands ‘I don’t want you raiding lil’ol me,’ so read my disclaimer at bottom please.

Related Posts:

What the ANZACs Were Fighting For: The Westminster Principle.

FATCA: A Crime That Deserves a Revolution.

GATCA and Formation of Oceania to Govern Western World.

Lecretia Seales Fight for the Right To Die – RNZ Interview.

Radio New Zealand’s Nine To Noon played an important interview this morning on the right to die with dignity.

Lecretia Seales is a 41 year old lawyer dying from a brain tumour. To quote the online synopsis of the interview:

She believes it is a fundamental human right that she should be able to say goodbye to her husband and family at a time of her choosing and while she remains fully conscious.

If I had this right, I wouldn’t be going out tomorrow and exercising it, but it would be comforting to know I had that right.

For our politicians whom don’t seem capable of empathy for individuals in Lecretia’s position, let’s put a face to the fight; Lecretia Seales, individual, human being, (per photo on RNZ site):

I urge you to listen to this sobering, intelligent interview below, and I defy any compassionate person to deny her this basic right:

As Lecretia’s states, despite Parliament will put legislation through regarding their salaries over just the next two, possibly three, days, and all parties are ludicrously rushing around giving interviews like this is somehow important, any legislation on assisted dying is years away, if we will get it at all given the social conservativism that seems to rule all sitting MPs currently, as well as the New Zealand Medical Association (NZMA) which has never polled its members over this issue, and with its unethical, and I would say on its own terms negligent, stance against euthanasia (noting that it is currently out of step with its UK counterpart, which did poll its membership).

It’s too late for Lecretia. It’s too late for Faye Clark. It’s too late for Rosie Mott. … I’m sick of saying it’s too late when this concerns the life and death of human beings. There is no issue in New Zealand more important than this. Not one.

I have nothing but disrespect for the Arrogance residing in OUR Fortress of Legislation.

Referring to the interview, particularly note the discussion between interviewer and interviewee at the end: the fickle path of a private members bill is not good enough for a matter so intrinsic to our lives as this is. Assisted dying legislation needs to come from responsible government: John Key has promised this, and it is not good enough he is not following through. And it’s not good enough also that his promise was only for a watered down version of Maryan Street’s very good bill.

Also noteworthy given RNZ’s Morning Report before this piece had featured voices against assisted dying from the Palliative Care Association – and sorry, that organisation has a conflict of interest here, plus their position undermined by correspondence received by Lecretia from palliative care doctors, meaning they cannot speak for all their members any more than the NZMA can – plus a representative for the disabled who interjected the fear - I call it hysteria - that it devalued her life somehow that others in her pain might choose euthanasia. To that woman I say you cannot judge someone else's unhappiness: that is arrogance. She then made the further point such law might lead to society euthanising its elderly and sick. I'm sick of this childish nonsense. Again I say it: ALL overseas evidence, from the numerous jurisdictions that allow assisted dying – search euthanasia in here and read my past posts – shows such fears have always existed before the legislation, and always been proven unfounded. Where the legislation operates the evidence shows none of the feared outcomes, killing the disabled, killing the oldies, are issues at all. Repeat: all of these fears have proven totally, note that word, totally, unfounded due to the rigiourous systems in place, and human nature actually is not Fallen, but more often that not, enlightened.

And then my point on top of this: assisted dying is voluntary, therefore, voices against, the two mentioned, but mainly the ‘your-life-belongs-to-our-barbaric-God-who-wants-you-to-suffer-unto-him crowd, do not count in this debate. They must not be allowed to force their Stone Age beliefs, or unfounded fears, on those of us rational and compassionate individuals whose right it is to have our peaceful deaths assisted by the willing, if, when our time comes, that is our want.

We’ve got to be grown up about this: we self-manage our health issues throughout our adult lives, our deaths are merely the end of that self-care process. Now will all the nanny-minded busy-bodies bugger off please.


Update 1:

Lindsay Mitchell has put up a great post highlighting the contradiction in reporting she mentions in comments to this thread (below), and more importantly, linking to the petition being circulated to try and make Parliament look at this issue. Please sign the petition, and download forms for like minded people to do also:

Lindsay's post.

Direct link to End-Of-Life-Choice petition.

Why We Should Flag the Flag Debate.

Panel named to fly flag-change debate http://t.co/rqmJGEbx3A
— NZ Stuff Politics (@NZStuffPolitics) February 26, 2015

@NZStuffPolitics F*****g pointless flags. Heaven help us if we had adult debate on euthanasia or legalising cannabis. Flags FFS @johnkeypm
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) February 26, 2015

Even the capital of that nation which launched the war on drugs, Washington DC, legalised cannabis this week, following whole US states that have done so over the last eighteen months, with some states having had available medicinal cannabis for many years, as they have had assisted suicide. For all its faults the US understands freedom better than our legislature; New Zealand is still closer in time to the Maori Wars than being able to hold such grown-up discussions. Instead we get to spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money, will lose countless tedious media hours, to discuss a flag that won't be seen other than rarely on the podiums of minor-world sports events.

Here's what we do with the trifling thing that is the flag debate: nothing. Don't get involved. Don’t partake. Don’t give it the dignity of any type of rational discourse. Ignore every aspect of it and venue it is taken to; show it the contempt it deserves, compared to issues of living our lives, and for many of us, dying sometimes cruel deaths.

This will be the only time ‘flag’ is mentioned in this blog. To the Prime Minster, with no respect, you arse … and just over one year ago you promised at least some type of assisted dying legislation: live by your word.


Postscript:

You'll have noticed over the last twelve months that my use of foul language in posts such as this has become, sadly, more commonplace. The keywords to understanding this are:

Frustration,

Powerlessness.

The majoritarian politics we have succumbed to in our social democracy is too often growing into inhumane bullshit. I am an individual; give me my rights back.

 

ACT’s Duplicitous War on Classical Liberals | ACT the Conservative Party in Parliament.

Let me change the narrative again. Euthanasia is not an 'extreme libertarian' position, we know this because the member who almost brought in euthanasia legislation via the ballot was a Labour Party MP. What is the extreme position in this debate is the inhumane notion that we must die in sometimes excruciating, undignified circumstances because a fairy tale, angry God deems that as our lot and it's the ticket  price of that Never Never Land called Heaven, a notion every bit as insane and extreme as the 40 virgins bullshit. Yet 120 children masquerading as adults in the sandpit at Wellington seem to believe in just that, including the faux great classical liberal hope, David Seymour. 

ACT held its conference this weekend, and confirmed their status as National’s toadying conservative partner, and the enemy of the libertarian, and thus classical liberal, vote. 

My comment to Lindsay Mitchell’s broadly supportive post on ACT’s policy position, sums up where I’ve been heading since my earlier post against David Seymour’s double-cross of the libertarian vote via not endorsing a position for euthanasia on either a party or personal level:

Afraid for at least a decade I can't stand pragmatism and the 'game' of politics.

Conservatives, which Seymour most definitely is, are not classical liberals: they believe in the small state economically, but the big moral state in your face and life, often in personal issues that are bigger, for me, than the economic state (though all are linked).

I understand David Farrar spoke 'for' euthanasia at the ACT conference; Seymour, however, remains, as ever, silent, and the issue was side-lined. ACT is a (social) conservative party.

I am now a single issue voter. I see no more important right than ownership of my body, thus euthanasia, because that has to be the foundation of all rights for a classical liberal party: the individual. I will vote for any party, including Green Party, that promises euthanasia legislation for their three year term. I will totally prostitute my vote for that single issue (and related issues such as legalisation of cannabis proper, and especially medicinal cannabis).

That won't be any party with Seymour pulling the strings.

Worse, Seymour’s following statement is where pragmatism and doublespeak becomes the ruling politick, punching the face of liberty forever:

Our tribe is the standard-bearer for classical liberalism in NZ, representing a general orientation towards a defence of private property, freedom of contract and limited government.

This is by no means an extreme or pure libertarian position. Classical liberalism takes a larger and more realistic view of government.

Classical liberals believe in individualism, not ‘tribes’, David. Tribes are cleaved to by Marxist identity politickers and collectivists of all hues… remember?

And your statement against the ‘extremism of libertarianism’ is the Left’s infantile misconception of what libertarianism even is: libertarianism is in fact, via individualism and from that minarchism, synonymous with classical liberalism. Your statement is the final double cross to classical liberalism, and one swift, vulgar kick into the gonads of former ACT leader Jamie Whyte, who was ACT’s only glimmer of hope. What a shame he didn’t stand in Epsom, although, noting your premier positioning out of the conference is for a referendum on superannuation, hopefully looking to at least  means test it again, admirable in itself, but given that is the voting base you appear to be looking for, retired God-fearing oldies, strategy is not one of ACT’s strengths.

For me, any party putting euthanasia legislation down as priority policy, including their non-negotiable policy plank in coalition negotiations, gets my vote for the next general election. In the absence of any party offering this basic right, then they have my wrath, and I’m throwing my vote away on the landfill of this immoral majoritainism forced on us by social democracy. A pox on it and its petty partisan politics; its tribes that vote out of mindless subservience to the body politick, not, as a classical liberal party would, issue by issue, voting for individual volition and the dilution of the state, regardless the consensus or an MP's career prospects.

David, in neither committing your party, or worse, even yourself, to any socially liberal cause, such as euthanasia, you can go to hell, which, as you’ve buckled so readily to the God-Squad majority in ACT, you no doubt believe in. My wish for your abomination of a party is electoral oblivion, so we can clear the slate and get an actual classical liberal party from the ashes.

And finally a footnote. Let me change the narrative again. Euthanasia is not an 'extreme libertarian' position, we know this because the member who almost brought in euthanasia legislation via the ballot was a Labour Party MP. What is the extreme position in this debate is the inhumane notion that we must die in sometimes excruciating, undignified circumstances because a fairy tale God deems that as our lot and it's the price of Heaven, a notion every bit as insane and extreme as the 40 virgins bullshit. Yet 120 children masquerading as adults in the sandpit at Wellington seem to believe in just that, including the faux great classical liberal hope, David Seymour.

Update 1:

This letter to Lindsay’s thread makes a fine point backing up my own:

Anonymous said...

But I can no longer be bothered getting emotionally het up about people who take a different perpsective to mine. Unless, of course, they are socialists.

Ok. So far so good. But then Seymour says:

In short, we all know that government must respond to problems of pollution, the creation of infrastructure, of monopoly power, and raise funds through taxation

In short: ACT is socialist.

Can’t dispute that either.

ACT, National, ACT, National, ACT, National … can you see the difference? I can’t. There might be some minor differences of degree between the two, but there are no differences in principle.

.