Tuesday, July 27, 2004

NZ Police : Services : E-crime Unit

NZ Police : Services : E-crime Unit

E-Crime and the New Zealand Police

The NZ Police are travelling around the internet finding forensic evidence of wrong doing. This raises a question, should evidence that amounts to a set of digital switch states, in themselves, constitute a crime or is "fraud" as we know it a redundant concept in the e-world? The attempt by police to somehow "sanitise" networked computers that carry intelligence, the communications of terrorists, means that arguments for laws to convict merely on the presence of evidence start to be won. This of course leaves open a gaping hole when it comes to the ease with which a person may be framed for a crime.

Police work in this regard is demanding but digitial evidence is indestructable. So keeping it is free. Storing it costs next to nothing. Locking it down with encryption is easy, and makes evidence of it (encrypting the date with the right algorithem can produce evidential artifacts that are impossible to fake). Evidence of where you have been has to become reliable. Credit Cards are a convenient form of accountability.

Police find evidence of and use the internet to investigate a crime to help find perpetrators of harm to others. A liberal policy toward pornography has led to the inevitable trails of greedy child pornographers. Emailing, blogging or just surfing on the internet leaves trails behind, and that does not mean it leaves trails behind only on your computer. People running pornographic based business on the internet are doing so with the blessing and consent of the State, now able to detect line-crossers that perpetuate evil toward other people. For the first time ritual abusers have been exposed. The law is there to protect children. Child abuse and slavery are the result of people who abuse others. Catching them requires reliable mechanisms.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Parole

The newish leader of the National Party recently announced a new Law and Order policy. Don Brash, possibly NZ's next PM is taking populist stands on just about everything, appealing to a narrowing of NZ opinion. The law and order policies are to eliminate Parole for violent offenders and increase jail terms with 2 billion being spent on housing an additional 3000 law breakers. Current prison population is about 6000. The cost to the taxpayer of living in a crime free world is already greater than what is spent on it. Will increasing prison populations have the effect of reducing crime or is that a false assumption?

But the elimination of parole will make matters worse for those caught in the new dragnet, those not guilty of major larceny or violence who will come under the forceful eyes of "top dogs" - unofficial ranks of priosoners usually equating to factors such as severity of crime or connections to organised crime.

With increased exposures to malign influences, reintegration of the mild criminal is made less likely.

Monday, April 26, 2004

New Zealand News - NZ - Letter of sorrow gives little comfort to grieving family

Immigrants and Crime

There is a tendency to deny our new citizens the right to justice as we accept their crimes are without responsibility by making racially based judgements. In this article from the NZ Herald , New Zealand First law and order spokesperson, Ron Mark, accuses the Government if being indifferent to immigrant crime and called for immediate deportation of criminal overstayers.

In his version of the world, there are two classes of people. Real New Zealanders who deserve the services of the Department of Justice, and people who can be sent home, perhaps to escape responsibility for their actions. To class immigrants as improper citizens is to give them a conditional status insofar as responsibility is assigned. To deport criminals without proper inspection and decisive action may have been sensible once, but now we have to be more able to detain real criminals as processed by our justice system and release those without responsibility.

If language is a barrier, then deportation may well be an option of the Justice system but it is important for immigrant crime to be examined by a local jurisdiction.

Rules that naturally shove a "terrorist" back to their country of origin, contradict any "war on terror". Murder suspects and terrorists have more in common than immigrant status or nationality bestows insofar as a basis for National rejection.

Ron Mark has a limited view of Justice and is burying his head in the sand. If a criminal wants to go out and kill people by irresponsible use of a vehicle, it is not a crime against New Zealand. It is a crime against humanity and it is our responsibility to deliver proper justice, be that prison or freedom, to offenders.

To force the problem to be exported is to lose the war on terror as criminals are returned to freedom and creates an impossible environment that forgives criminal actions proven as such by our quite expensive legal system.

More expensive than our politicians, the New Zealand First party founded on suspiciously racially motivated fundamentals. That, we, as New Zealanders should put ourselves ahead of immigrants. In a country populated only by immigrants, it is a little silly and self-important.

Ron Mark's use of the perjorative, "these people", is an instance of lumping together all immigrants as potentially instantly deportable. Good one, Ron. The trick is to bring criminals under jurisdiction and make friends with other Governments in the process.

Not give them the expensive problem of expedient Justice. Our legal system is the only tool that separates terrorists and criminals from the rest of us. That form of segregation protects its clients with a legal system to ensure that the innocent are not jailed. If you release the innocents, you will jail a greater percentage of the guilty, but when you start confusing the innocent with the guilty then justice has lost its way.

Tuesday, April 20, 2004

Newsday.com

Stateless Persons

Prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba are being held outside of the protection of justice in a "lawless enclave". Over 600 men from 44 countries are being held without charge or access to American Courts.

Attorney John Gibbons said "it's been plain for 215 years" that people in federal detention may file petitions in U.S. courts.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist noted that the detainees are not on American soil, and asked how a judge in Washington is to deal with a case from Cuba.

Without U.S. judges overseeing due process, there would be no checks and balances on the president's power at Guatanamo, Justice Stephen Breyer commented. This open the way for Solicitor General Theodore Olson to claim it would be "remarkable" for the judiciary to start deciding where the U.S. could assert temporary control over foreign terroritory, such as military bases.

Should the President be empowered to conduct war outside of the agreed conventions of war? Actions that are external to the protection of law are properly deemed criminal. Leaving 600 people in this kind of confinement could not happen on U.S. soil and stopping this kind of executive justice is a justification for toppling dictators like Saddam Hussein.

Spacey 'sorry' over mugging claim - People - www.theage.com.au

Mugging?

Kevin Spacey runs into a London police station all cuts and bruises and said "I have been mugged!" and they take him to a hospital to be fixed up, but not before a London newspaper ran the story. Hollywood star mugged in London park at 4:30am.

In fact, Mr Spacey fell after chasing a kid who stole his mobile phone in a con. The Old Vic director got front page publicity and ended up with a spot on BBC radio to apologise publically "for lying" about being mugged.

Mr Spacey need not apologise. That a kid steals his mobile phone is a criminal act upon his person. That Mr Spacey was walking his dog at 4:30am in Central London may be asking for it, and his reaction may have more to do with his victimisation than the little criminal who has probably already kicked himself for selling the celebrity's phone for twenty quid. Lord knows, a tabloid newspaper would have given him thousands for it.

Thursday, April 08, 2004

bu

Resignation

3rd Major Court Win For Ahmed Zaoui Inspector-General Resigns

Two High Court Judges have ruled that the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security (SIS) displayed apparent bias against Ahmed Zaoui and is disqualified from reviewing the refugees case.

Justices Salmon and Harrison said factors in the apparent bias case have led them to conclude that the inspector general, Laurie Greig, should stand aside from the review of Ahmed Zaouis case.

Prime Minister Helen Clark said today that following the High Court judgment issued today, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Laurie Greig, has given written notice of his resignation to the Governor-General.

See the FreeZaoui.org.nz for more information about this landmark New Zealand case.

Friday, April 02, 2004

New Zealand News - NZ - Police to quiz 50 boys over CYF abuse claim

CYF Abuse Claims

Headlines about abuses in a CYF home have attracted police attention and investigation, as they must. CYF homes sometimes represent the taste of what is to come for the wayward young people who seek a career in crime.

The kids involved may be violent or extremely troublesome themselves. Controlling or teaching them real world values is an extraordinarily difficult task in a world that seems to reward wealth before effort, that seems to reward those who have versus those who admire those who have big flashy cars or sport the latest fashion trends in game boy expertise. Today's badge of honour costs a lot of money, and to fit in, children from low income homes are increasingly exposed to the dilemmas of life at an increasingly earlier age.

Does our society have a problem? Yes. Is this problem being addressed? CYFs was created to address these kinds of problems. Is it effective? Have we ever read of a success story of a child or family that CYFS has helped?

No, we read of the queue of 6,000 children waiting for CYFS services or intervention. 6,000 criminal debutantes in waiting or kids in abusive situations?

We read of CYFS failures. We read of the adminstration failures. We read about Coral Burrows. Her murder, but a coldhearted drug addicted step father highlighted a failure by CYFS. But it also highlighted a failure of police to control methamphetamine distribution. It also highlighted a failure inherent in our modern families where justice means violence and rights mean a right to abuse.

CYFS is not an evil organisation. How many case workers are superb or achieve in this unrewarding occupation of dealing with wayward children or "parents" who have no business being any where near children?

Future govenments in New Zealand will have to create a stronger CYFS regime with more talented staff. And address the problems that are creating a class of children who seem to reject social values at increasingly early ages.

A lack of moral consequence is the problem. Beating up children is not a moral consequence but a symptom of an over pressured social service hiring the wrong individuals. That it reflects on the entire department is devastating and very unfortunate.

New Zealand News - NZ - Police to quiz 50 boys over CYF abuse claim