Peace
Researcher 28 – December 2003
If you send an e-mail or letter to the American
Embassy in Wellington, you could be arrested by the New Zealand Police acting on
a complaint from the Americans. Your missive would have to be “provocative” of
course – perhaps critical of some aspect of US policy or actions. But it
needn’t be threatening (Peace Researcher
recommends against frightening Americans in any way, especially in airports.
They are very edgy and completely lacking in a sense of humour).
The case of Bruce Hubbard, of Auckland, is appalling and alarming. Poor Bruce had the temerity to send an e-mail to the US Embassy in which he stated some rather negative but well-documented facts about American military actions and their consequences. After some difficulty in locating Bruce, the NZ Police arrested him on a charge of sending an offensive e-mail to the American Embassy. The alleged offence took place in March 2003 but no move was made against Hubbard until October 2003 when he was charged under the Telecommunications Act: “…he used a telephone for the purpose of disturbing, with the intention of offending the recipient”. (domestic e-mails travel via the phone lines).
Bruce believes the delay in action against him
had to do with the passage of the Counter-Terrorism Act on 22 October 2003. The
timing is indeed suspicious, but the fact is, he was charged under the
Telecommunications Act, not the Counter-Terrorism Act. The reader may find all
this law stuff rather confusing and that’s understandable. There has been a
spate of legislation in Aotearoa/NZ relating to terrorism and arising from the
events of 11/9/01. But some of that legislation has its roots in the early
‘90s. We refer you to Peace Researchers
23 through 27 for detailed analyses and submissions on all the relevant bills.
What needs to be emphasised in the present case is the driving force behind all
these so-called anti-terrorism laws. You
can read all our submissions online at http://www.converge.org.nz/abc/submissions.html Back
issues of Peace Researcher can also
be read at www.converge.org.nz/abc
Ed.
These laws have seriously eroded the civil
liberties of all New Zealanders, and Bruce Hubbard is one of the first to be
caught up in this legal morass – legislation driven from overseas, according to
Nicky Hager, a fact certainly borne out by PR’s
own research. Nicky’s well-documented conclusion was reported in an article in
the New Zealand Herald (4/4/03). Both Nicky and PR
used Official Information Act requests to try to ferret out the involvement of
our police and Security Intelligence Service (SIS) officers in meetings of the
International Law Enforcement Telecommunications Seminar (ILETS), initiated by
the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the mid-1990s. Nicky
succeeded where we failed (we met with blanket denials). He stated in the Herald article: “Increasingly, in a
re-run of Cold War thinking, the rationale for new security-surveillance moves
is not to protect New Zealanders but because of the tenuous concern that New
Zealand not be able to be used as a base for criminal or terrorist actions
against the United States and other allies. In other words, New Zealanders’
civil rights are being reduced because of security fears in other countries”.
Not surprisingly, Associate Justice Minister
Rick Barker said the claims were baseless because “…he did not know anything
about ILETS”. It is indeed doubtful the
Police and the SIS rushed to keep members of Parliament well informed of their
secret meetings overseas, at taxpayer expense. We wonder if Barker changed his
opinion when apprised of the Hager documents revealing “…years of liaison
between New Zealand authorities and ILETS and other overseas groups, including
the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO)”.
Bruce has so far been charged under rather old
(non-terrorism-inspired) provisions of the Telecommunications Act (thou shalt
not threaten people over the phone), but other charges could follow. In his
first court appearance he was remanded on bail, and was given an initial
trespass order to stay beyond a radius of 250 km of the US Embassy (a typing
error). But even the intended 250 metre ban would seem to signal that Bruce is
deemed to be a physical threat to Fort Thorndon (aka, the US Embassy, in Wellington).
The shiny new Counter-Terrorism Act creates a
whole gaggle of new offences as listed in a media release (1/4/03) by Justice
Minister Phil Goff:
· improper use or possession of
nuclear material;
· threatening to use such material;
· importing, acquiring or possessing
radioactive material with the intention of causing injury;
· knowingly possessing, using, making,
exporting or importing unmarked plastic explosives;
· contaminating food, crops, water or
other products intended for human consumption (this one might be a good defence
against genetically engineered food crops);
· infecting animals with disease with
the intention of causing serious risk to an animal population or major damage
to the national economy (GE crops again spring to mind);
· harbouring or concealing a person
that [sic] intends to carry out a terrorist act or has already done so;
· threatening harm to persons or
property;
· falsely communicating about danger
to persons or property with the intent of disrupting commercial or government
interests.
Just how Bruce Hubbard’s e-mail might lead to a
charge of an offence from the above list is hard to fathom. But if that were to happen and he were
convicted, the penalties are stiff, both jail and fines. This is serious stuff,
not only for Bruce, but for any New Zealander who writes, or protests, or
strikes in any way that might invoke the sweeping provisions of the
Counter-Terrorism Act and its companion law, the Terrorism Suppression Act,
passed under urgency in October 2002.
When Green MP Keith Locke raised his lonely
voice in Parliament to protest against the Counter-Terrorism Bill at the time
of its second reading he was ridiculed as alarmist and soft on terrorism. The Bill was confusing in that it contained
several provisions unrelated to terrorism that should have been contained in a
separate bill. The Greens failed in attempts to get the Bill split into two
bills.
In his speech Keith said: “Perhaps the most
dangerous change is proposed new section 307A in clause 7 to be inserted in the
Crimes Act that could lead to heavy penalties for people who threaten to engage
informs of protest action that cause ‘major economic loss to one or more
persons’...This section 307A(2) provision is clearly a threat to the right of
protest and free speech”.
It is no coincidence or irony that Bruce
Hubbard has been nailed by the NZ Police at the behest of the American
government. If he is charged under one of the new anti-terrorism acts, there
could be no clearer message that those acts are designed to stifle dissent, in
New Zealand and in every other country where similar laws have been passed
under pressure from the United States. If there is irony in any of this it is
in the fact that the flag-waving American people have swallowed the Big Lie
about Terrorism and the need for so-called Homeland Security and are themselves
oppressed by the worst of the anti-terrorism laws, the USA Patriot Act.
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