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Fighting Fire
Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, warns that fighting terrorism could worsen global tensions and is a threat to human rights. We have seen examples in the New Zealand Court. The Ahmed Zaoui case has received much press attention as a human rights issue and test of the New Zealand version of "Homeland Security" laws.
When the State starts to take prisoners, a de facto state of war exists. It is the definition of what is legal that shifts, the Law shifts to accomodate new positions, and in the process tramples on human rights. It changes nothing, except the level of intrusion that the State may use to fight hidden enemies.
Political evolution is a slow process. War evolves too quickly for adequately or carefully crafted legislation. It may need an expiry date.
We must ask if we live in a world more sensitive to potential atrocity?
Next, we must ask, is this sensitivity eliciting responses that are not well evolved with only short term benefit.
The freedom enjoyed by Western countries has been reduced by edict in response to terrorism. Without the terrorism, Western Governemnts could not achieve such authority.
So one must wonder, what is the point of terrorism? To bring the Western countries into a state of seige.
Do we then accept that the state of seige becomes a way of life, rather than a response to a specific danger?
We have to wonder, if we had a real terrorist in New Zealand prison, if our laws encourage future terrorist atrocity or prevent them?
Children are being forced to work in New Zealand in sweatshop conditions. Is it a failure of education or the result of entrenched poverty?
OpED - The Role of Police
Police are more prone to go for an arrest when they have a probable cause to investigate and in the course of their investigation they are confronted by an offence, or evidence of an offence.
One hopes that in the majority of cases, where a criminal act has taken life or damaged lives, and the police have done their job right, guilty verdicts are more common, and those convicted of a crime go to jail. That way we believe works, and since we believe it works, we ought to do it right.
Society pays a huge amount to protect us from killers. We judge and imprison those we charge, but by enforcing violence against those the law seeks to exclude, society faces its own trial. Society must be good, and society must be effective to be any good. Therefore it is necessary for the police to be effective rather than formidable.
The mind of a person who is prepared to take other lives is not the life that is oppressed when the police become overly zealous in their persuit of solutions to crimes that can not be solved. It is every life. The police have an utterly significant role to play in the balance of things we call a moral society. When they do it right, evil may be thwarted from harming others.
LIVE Message Board discussion SmileCity New Zealand
On line Banking Scam
Some NZ & Australian bank customers have been the victims of a scam that takes advantage of weaknesses in their firewall and security settings.
False job advertisements appeared on recruitment sites. The advertisements were from fictitious overseas companies that sought people to receive funds and forward them to an overseas recipient.
A 'trojan' or virus program was copied into the victim's computer, either through emails or web surfing. The virus program captured and sent keystrokes along with bank access numbers and passwords. The scammers then could access the customer?s accounts to transfer funds to one of the people ?employed? through the false job advertisements.
In the third part of the scam the person employed through the false job advertisement was asked to transfer the funds to the overseas account of the scam perpetrator.
If an offer seems too good to be true, it probably is.
If you are offered payment to transfer funds, be wary that there may be fraudulent activity involved and that there are risks associated, including the possibility of criminal charges.
(this information was extracted in part from a Bank website in New Zealand). See also the article on the NZ Police website below.
Police are targeting drink drivers by following them, and visiting them to warn them that they will be caught.
Apparently some drink drive offenders can not give up their addiction to being behind the wheel, even after their driving licence has been suspended.
Targeted Police enforcement may seem intrusive. But if it saves lives, it may be the better option as it is "quite within the law". It takes a lot of fines and enforcement to convince a culture that demands "real blokes" demonstrate their value by continuing to drink and drive after society has told them they are putting lives at risk.
People who do not respect our driving laws threaten the lives of our children, our parents and our selves. But is this the best solution to the problem? Is it pushing the police into a style of policing (concentration on repeat offenders) that may divert resources insofar as detection and response go? How quick can the police respond to a burgulary? Faster in the places a repeat drink driver lives.
Those affected need only give their cars away to a friend, and ask them, in exchange
Have you been approached by Internet scam artists? Most probably, you have. Most probably their letter was carefully worded (and often mispelled) to exact a psychogical drama of doubt and luck that seems ever so unlikely, but what if, what if it were real?
We all have wondered about Nigerian scam artists offering a substantial percentage of twenty something million US dollars. We vaguely guess there must be something wrong with it. Nobody is about to give away 2 million dollars. The catch? Most have a little sentence about "expenses". You are required to supply a bank account or credit card. And guess what? There is no twenty six million dollars.
New Zealand Police are warning of an internet scam that sends its target money, from which a commission is taken as the remainder is forwarded to another account.
This is a method of money laundering and if you do it, you could be charged with money laundering, a specific offence under the crimes act.
National e-crime Lab Manager Maarten Kleintjes says, anyone who is being offered a percentage for just passing on funds through Internet banking should be very suspicious and notify Police straight away of who is trying to recruit them. They should also inform their bank. Police also want to hear from anyone who has already been recruited and is waiting for their first transfer (email to: banking.scam@e-crime.govt.nz).
Child Porn Ring Broken
US Agents have taken down an international child pornography ring that operated on the internet. So far those arrested are members or subscribers to the porn ring that operated from Florida and Belarus
Those detained, along with nine others, were charged with possessing or receiving child pornography and ordered to appear in court. Some face up to 20 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000 if convicted.
Officials said none of those arrested were charged with physical abuse or with taking the photographs on the sites.
See Reuters |U.S. Agents Smash Global Internet Child Porn Ring Thu January 15, 2004 05:18 PM ET
Fair Justice for All
Except for those the Government arrests on terrorism charges. Now that makes a lot of sense. Now there are two types of criminals, the one's that arise from your society, and those that you believe rise from an opposing faith. The latter is a mockery of the concept of a prisoner of war. Detention without trial was part of what was wrong with the Communist regimes of the USSR.
How the US Government trusts itself not to make errors by arresting the innocent, and all the more worrying, not bringing to light with the searing torch of justice, the possible crimes of these people. How it thinks it should flout its own laws and conventions as it has redefined the enemy, not as a state that affords protection to its own, but as a conspiracy of non-humans without rights?
See also The War on Terror vs The Rule of Law
Pornography on the Internet and Child Abuse
In UK, the NCH, a children's charity group, claimed that internet use has promoted child abuse because of a massive increase in convictions since 1988.
The fact that criminals are being caught, whereas previously, they could use manipulation and a shield of disbelief to keep their activities secret. They used to get away with crimes on children.
The modern environment appears to be removing more paedophiles from society. The internet is not causing the sickness, it is most likely that they were subjected to abuse as children, but the internet provides a "safer" option to act out their disease.
In the old environment of closed doors and secrets that paedophiles only had to leave town in order to remain anonymous.
Maori Language Awareness
New Zealand culture stems from the language of its people. Much of the wisdom of our land is tied into stories, stories in Te Maori as well as English. The lanaguage is only as valuable as there are large numbers of speakers. Language is basic to thought. Eliminating Maori thinking from our cultural makeup would not be the best thing for cultural growth.
We need common threads and a basis of strong national identify. Look how the Maori language has already been hugely successful every time the All Blacks do the Haka. It makes us internationally noticable, ferocious, in your face, interesting to the rest of the world.
That universal skill with Maori language serves our national pride better if we all understand it in all its spirit and meaning.
If the All Blacks were to try a wee Square Dance I am sure we would feel collectively confused as a nation. Teaching our kids Maori is perhaps the best way to replace racism with national pride.
English/Maori speakers form a multicultural society. Exclusion is the occlusion of National identify. We add value to our language by speaking it. Other languages could become an option in place of Maori after two years effort learning to speak the language of the other remaining people of New Zealand.
An Afgani refugee, Rahmatullah Qambari, 23, in New Zealand met an unfortunate end unable to keep grip in a river that was deeper than he thought. It is a sad end for one, but in hands of nature he could not receive the protection of society in time. A sad note to a noble life who was at least given a life-line. A target for crackdowns, Qambari fled Taleban controlled Afganistan in a boat that capsized and was rescued at sea.
