Sometime this week Newsroom co-editor Mark Jennings is due to be interviewed under caution by the New Zealand police because he kicked the hornet’s nest.

The particular hornet’s nest he disturbed was Oranga Tamariki, a state agency, and the reason it was given a boot was a now-discredited policy called reverse uplifts.

Jennings took editorial responsibility for a series of ground-breaking investigations led by Melanie Reid that including a video documentary containing shocking images of the “uplifting” of a child.

In a story on the Newsroom website last week, co-editor Tim Murphy revealed the police investigation that named Jennings and the demand that he attend the under-caution interview. “Under caution” means that anything he says could be used in a criminal prosecution against him.

The story noted that the case highlighted in the video led directly to Children’s Minister Kelvin Davis seeking a “please explain” from the agency and then directing Oranga Tamariki to stop the new policy of “reverse uplifts’” under which Māori children around the country who had been put in permanent care were being summarily removed and taken, in the case investigated, to unknown and distant whānau.

A Māori advisory panel was appointed from outside the ministry and the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki (OT), Grainne Moss, later resigned.

However, OT did not take the Newsroom investigation on the chin. In fact, it came out fighting and enlisted Crown Law. That intervention led to a High Court order to remove a video from the Newsroom website and the media organisation being hit with a $13,000 costs order it can ill-afford.

Finding may be challenged
The judge in the case did not accept that the matter was of such public interest that it over-rode the (strongly contested) matter of potential identification. While I accept that the identity of vulnerable persons must be protected under both the Family Court Act and the Oranga Tamariki Act, it remains to be seen whether that finding against Newsroom will be challenged. My own – strictly layman’s – view is that it could be.

Now one of Newsroom’s most senior executives is being threatened with criminal prosecution under the Family Court Act. Jennings could face up to three months in prison or a maximum fine of $2000 under that legislation. Arguably, he might even face a charge of contempt of court which can carry up to six months imprisonment or a $25,000 fine.

My question is a simple one: Why?

Why was Crown Law asked to intercede on Oranga Tamariki’s behalf? Why was an injunction sought in spite of Newsroom’s willingness to take steps to avoid identification of children? Why, after the initial aim of removing the video had succeeded, was an order for costs pursued against a fledgling news organisation struggling to maintain financial viability? Why have the police now been involved to pursue a criminal investigation against one of its co-founders? And why has this whole matter been pursued with such vigour?

My own view is that Newsroom’s investigation was very much in the public interest and that the video was a critical element in bringing about a policy change. I thought the possibility of identifying the children was remote.

Collectively, my questions have a simple answer: To send a message that, if you kick a state agency’s hornet’s nest, expect to get stung.

In legal and media circles it has a name: The Chilling Effect. It’s a concept that has been around for a long time.

Sedition laws as punishment
One of America’s founding fathers, James Madison, had real concern during the framing of the Constitution of the United States over the use of sedition laws to punish those who criticised government. Madison rightly concluded that it would lead to an author thinking twice before publishing and create a form of self-censorship.

And so it does.

In 2015 I swore an affidavit in support of Nicky Hager’s action against the Police when they executed a search warrant on his home following publication of Dirty Politics. It was one of three affidavits on the nature of the chilling effect that searches for the identity of confidential sources would have on investigative journalism.

Justice Clifford acknowledged the possibility of a chilling effect and noted that the three statements on its nature and consequence went unchallenged by the Attorney-General’s counsel. Of course, Hager won that challenge, and one might have thought Police would have become more than a little reticent about actions against journalists and their lawful pursuits.

It is doubtful that Crown Law acted against Newsroom of its own volition. It is far more likely that Oranga Tamariki arrived on its doorstep complaining that poor children were being identified and “something has to be done”. OT had genuine concerns for these tamariki and children in general, but there is no doubt its reputation had been damaged by the Newsroom investigations.

The lengths that it has been prepared to go in pursuing Newsroom – in the complete absence of any complaint to the news organisation by any member of the public over possible identification of the children or their whanau –is  nonetheless puzzling.

Put simply, there is no evidence that children or whanua have been publicly identified and, in any event, Newsroom has had the publication of that particular part of its investigation banned. It has also incurred a very substantial financial penalty with the awarding of full costs.

A clear warning
Assuming the police action stems from a complaint emanating from OT, I am left with a nasty feeling that the result is a clear warning about delving too deeply into the agency’s activities. In other words: Don’t kick the hornet’s nest!

It has a chilling effect that extends beyond OT. What is to stop other state agencies from threatening criminal charges if they can find a convenient piece of law?

Convenient laws can be found in unlikely places. Twenty years ago, the British government tried to use the Treason Felony Act of 1848 to hammer The Guardian. The Act contained a clause making it unlawful to call for an end to the monarchy.

Editor Alan Rusbridger was on a republican campaign when he got hit from behind. The House of Lords ruled the particular clause in the Treason Felony Act had (unsurprisingly) been superseded but the action remains an object lesson on the lengths governments might go to send a message.

And some of those messages can be quite chilling.

Dr Gavin Ellis is a media consultant and researcher. A former editor-in-chief of The New Zealand Herald, he has a background in journalism and communications – covering both editorial and management roles – that spans more than half a century. This article is republished with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It took seven months for the New Zealand police to set up their first team for scanning the internet after the mosque attacks – but it was almost immediately in danger of being shut down.

An internal report released under the Official Information Act (OIA) said this was despite the team already proving its worth “many times over” in countering violent extremists.

The unit still does not have dedicated funding, despite a warning last July it risked being “turned off”.

This is revealed in 170 pages of OIA documents charting police intelligence shortcomings over the last decade, from pre-2011 extending through to mid-2020, and their attempts to overhaul the national system since 2018.

These show police had no dedicated team before 2019 to scan the internet for threats – what is called an OSINT team, for “Open Source Intelligence”.

“The OSINT team was stood up quickly last year with seconded staff to ensure… [an] appropriate emphasis on this new capability,” an internal report from July 2020 said.

In fact, police began the planning at the end of 2018, then “accelerated” it after the attacks, but it took till late October for the team to start, and training began in November 2019, a police statement to RNZ last week said.

This was all well after a January 2018 official assessment of the domestic terrorism threatscap said: “Open source reporting indicates the popularity of far right ideology has risen in the West since the early 2000s”.

When the police OSINT unit was finally set up, there was no guarantee it would last.

“This team is not permanent,” the July 2020 report said.

“This has meant uncertainty for staff and our intelligence customers.”

‘Seriously compromises’
The team had no dedicated budget, and lacked trained staff.

It also was still looking for tools to “quickly capture and categorise online intelligence elements”.

“The lack of a strong OSINT capability seriously compromises our intelligence collection posture, especially in major events,” said the report last July.

This is the sort of scanning that can pick up threats on 4chan or other extremist sites.

Despite the shortcomings, the internet team’s worth had already been proven “many times over in recent months, particularly in the counterterrorism and Countering Violent Extremism space”, the report said.

Three people have faced extremist charges in the last year or so.

‘Turned off’
An April 2019 report said police would begin recruiting for OSINT analytics and other specialists in April-May 2019.

Police had lacked a tool to search the dark web – where the truly egregious chat and trades take place on the internet – so bought one.

But last July’s report said “currently we run the risk” of OSINT “being turned off unless there is a dedicated budget”.

In a statement on Friday, police told RNZ: “The OSINT team has been funded as part of the overall allocation for intelligence since it was established.

“Maintaining this capability is a NZ Police priority, and dedicated funding is being sought as part of next year’s internal funding allocation process (note, this is funding from within Police’s existing baseline).

“Additional supplementary funding was also received in the last financial year to support the work of OSINT.”

They had known they needed the team, they said.

“Prior to March 15, New Zealand Police used some OSINT tools to support open source research of publicly available information and had identified the requirement to develop a dedicated capability.

“The development of this capability was accelerated by the events of March 15.”

‘9/11 moment’
The OIA documents show the OSINT intelligence weakness was not an isolated example.

These warned police needed to avoid “a ‘9/11’ moment” – a situation where police obtain information about a threat but do not understand it due to a failure to analyse how the dots join up, as happened to CIA and FBI before the terror attacks on New York in 2001.

The solution was to have “a complete intelligence picture”.

But the July 2020 report then laid out very clearly how police did not have this:

“Recent operational examples conclude there is no current ability to access all information in a timely and accurate manner,” it said.

“Currently there is no tool that can search across police holdings [databases] when undertaking analysis of investigations.

“We are still depending on manual searches.”

‘Locked down or invisible’
“Sources are either locked down or invisible to analysts. Our intelligence picture is consequently incomplete.”

The 31-page, July 2020 report detailed the police’s ‘Transforming Intelligence’ programme, dubbed TI21, that was begun in December 2018 and meant to be complete by this December.

It indicated the right technology would not be in place – or in some cases even identified – for 6-18 months.

As things stood, “there are many single points of failure in our intelligence system”, the report said.

Threat information was broken up into silos, without a centralised document management system or powerful enough analytic and geospatial software to connect the threats.

A section of the 2020 report detailing problems within the police’s High-Risk Targeting Teams has been mostly blanked out.

The OIA documents describe what is and is not working, especially when it comes to national security and counterterrorism, but also around intelligence on gang and drug crime, family violence, combating child sex offending, and the like, at a point many months after both the mosque attacks and the beginning of the system overhaul.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the mosque attacks in late 2020 called police national security intelligence capabilities “degraded” – not just once but six times.

It showed weaknesses elsewhere when it came to OSINT: The Security Intelligence Service had just one fulltime officer doing Open Source Internet searching, and the Government Communications Security Bureau had few resources for this, too. It was not till June 2019 that the Government’s Counter-Terrorism Coordination Committee suggested “leveraging open-source intelligence capability”.

Police, unlike SIS, did not do an internal review of how they had performed in the lead-up to March 15.

They did get a review done of how they did 48 hours after the attacks, which praised their efforts.

Tools missing

Among the key systems police have been lacking are:

• A national security portal “to search across police holdings”
• A national security person-of-interest tool
• A child sex offender management tool
• Cybercrime reporting systems – a “strategic demand” that “police intelligence is unable to effectively report on it”

Police in a statement said they had now “achieved a number of milestones”.

Key among them was introducing a National Security Portal to manage persons of interest.

Also, they now had standardised ways of improving quality and a National Intelligence Operating Model to ensure a consistent approach.

“The OSINT team, a new case management tool and “refined intelligence support to major events… has increased the capability, capacity and resilience of Police Intelligence to reduce and respond to counter-terrorism risks”.

The “Transforming Intelligence” documents refer repeatedly to having three new Target Development Centres set up in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.

However, this was jettisoned last year, while the overhaul did stick with introducing Precision Targeting Teams in August 2018, police said.

These teams aim to target “our most prolific offenders” early on “to reduce crimes such as burglary, robbery and other violent and high-volume offending”.

Pressure on
Police are plugging the holes in national intelligence while under pressure.

The volume of leads coming in had increased “considerably” since March 2019, the July 2020 report said.

“This has put increased strain on our people to manage cases of concern.”

The intelligence weaknesses have persisted under four police commissioners since the national intelligence system was set up in 2008.

Intelligence staff have been quitting at three times the average rate in the public sector, and the documents laid out urgent plans to improve career pathways and value the likes of field officers and collections staff more.

The July 2020 report said demand on workers at the Integrated Targeting and Operations Centre was “unsustainable”.

Deep-seated cultural problems across the police were recently uncovered by RNZ’s Ben Strang, whose reporting triggered an official investigation that found 40 percent of officers had been bullied or harassed.

The Transforming Intelligence 2021 programme covers 10 areas: Intelligence Operating Model, National Security, Open Source, Child Protection Offender Register, Critical Command Information, Collections, Intelligence Systems, Performance, Training and Intelligence Support to major events.

There is a stark contrast between how the police leadership described their intelligence systems, and what other documents state.

Timeline

2003

– The Government Audit Office underscores the importance of national security planning

– Police attempt to develop a national security plan deferred due to other priorities

2006

– Police appoint first national manager of intelligence – before this it was led at district level

2008

– New national intelligence model introduced, that lasts till 2019

2011

– March: Police national security intelligence review finds many gaps and recommends a slew of fixes

2014

– Police assess rightwing extremist threat nationally, the last time this happens before the end of 2018

2015

– Sept: Police review finds 2011’s shortcomings remain, recommends changes

– Police liaison officers begin work with SIS and GCSB

2018

– August: Precision Targeting Teams begin

– Nov/Dec: Police launch Transforming Intelligence overhaul, while praising the old model

2019

– March: Mosque terrorism attacks

– April: A report ramping up the intelligence overhaul celebrates the old model’s effectiveness

– Sept: Police approve high-level operating model for intelligence

– Oct: Police set up dedicated internet scanning team for first time

– Internet scanning team identifies counterterrorism threats

– Dec: Aim to set up professional development structure to reduce Intelligence staff attrition by 15 percent

2020

– National Intelligence Centre leadership team appointed

– Feb: Intelligence training plan in place; national workshops

– July: Stocktake of Intelligence overhaul finds many gaps

– Dec 2020-Dec 2021: Aim to identify new intelligence gathering and analysing tech, including a police-wide system

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Retired and serving police officers in Papua New Guinea are being investigated for alleged offences such as gun-smuggling, fraud and theft, according to Police Minister Bryan Kramer.

It includes “massive corruption at the police headquarters in Port Moresby by retired and serving senior police officers”.

“Cases now under investigation are the smuggling of firearms, land/housing fraud, payroll fraud, drugs, fuel theft, insurance scam, stealing from the retired officers’ pension fund and misusing police allowances,” Kramer said.

“Investigations are halfway complete in most of the cases.

“Arrests will be done at the completion of the investigations.”

Kramer said the “massive corruption” at police headquarters in Konedobu was done during the term of the previous government led by former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill.

Kramer said the police force, once described as a national pride, had been “reduced to a private security business serving corrupt politicians and dodgy foreign businessmen”.

Weapons on-sold to province
Meanwhile, a source at police headquarters said detectives were struggling with the investigations into the smuggling of guns allegations because the suspects were retired senior police officers.

“These retired senior officers purchased firearms for the police force and brought them into the country,” the source said.

“However, the firearms were then smuggled out of Port Moresby to another province by a private security company.”

Clifford Faiparik is a reporter for The National newspaper in Papua New Guinea. The Pacific Media Centre republishes National articles with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pacific Media Watch Newsdesk

Papuan New Guinea’s massive drug haul of more than 600kg of cocaine, seized after a mysterious plane crash by the alleged smugglers more than a week ago, has shaken authorities in both Australia and PNG.

The haul has been estimated at worth up to K200 million (A$80 million) at street value.

The collaborative operation has resulted in the arrests of at least six Australians – one in PNG – and four Papua New Guineans with investigations ongoing. Here are two reports fron the PNG daily newspapers:

READ MORE: Background to the massive PNG drug heist

By Marjorie Finkeo in Port Moresby
Four men allegedly involved in the attempted export of 28 bags of cocaine to Australia have been arrested at two locations in Port Moresby.

Two were arrested at Manu Autoport with A$40,000 (K100,000) cash and electrical items in their possession while the other two were apprehended at Sunset Lodge outside the city.

Police Commissioner David Manning said at a press conference yesterday the suspects were all PNG nationals.

A search conducted at Sanctuary Hotel at Waigani came up empty, Manning said.

He said a joint investigation was continuing and more charges were likely to be laid against the Australian pilot David Paul Cutmore who was charged under Immigration Act 1978 for illegally entering PNG and fined K3000 last Friday.

He said the investigation team was also looking at additional charges against Cutmore under the National Pandemic Act 2020. – PNG Post-Courier

Pacific Media Centre’s Southern Cross radio comment on the investigation yesterday.

By Miriam Zarriga in Port Moresby

The country’s biggest drug bust, involving more than 600kg of cocaine estimated to cost around K160 million, has been hailed as “great detective work” and the result of a two-year investigation by Australian and PNG police.

A team of police and Customs officers led by Deputy Police Commissioner Operations Donald Yamasombi found 28 black duffle bags containing “high-grade” cocaine wrapped in plastic, some Australian dollars and a flat-screen television near Papa-Lealea village, 30km outside Port Moresby last Friday.

It was near the makeshift airstrip where a Cessna 402C aircraft, which entered the country from Australia without clearance last Sunday, crashed when it tried to take off with its illegal cargo.

Police Commissioner David Manning said police knew “at the time it was a substantial amount of cocaine”.

“(There was an) organised gang involved in this and from what we knew, they were planning to have it removed from PNG via a black flight, a flight that was registered to fly into PNG airspace,” Manning said.

“We now know that the flight landed successfully (but) could not take off due to some mechanical fault.

‘Flight failed to take off’
“What ensued is the result of that flight (failing) to take off.

“The bags were left in an undisclosed location within the village.”

Australian Federal Police senior liaison officer Detective Superintendent Julian Bianco said what was achieved by both police forces was an “excellent result for law enforcement in the Pacific”.

“The seizure brings to a conclusion the long-time operation that has been overseen by the Royal PNG Constabulary and the AFP and Australian law enforcement,” Bianco said.

“Without the assistance of the PNG police and the great detective work, we certainly would not be standing here with this (illegal drugs).

“The aircraft travelled to PNG to collect drugs to take back to Australia.

“We are thankful to the PNG constabulary for stopping it from entering our shores.”

According to pictures obtained by The National, inside each of the black duffle bag was 1kg of cocaine wrapped and labelled 777.

Manning said the drug bust was the largest in the country’s history and the culmination of a two-year operation, and the result of “good detective work” by the Papua New Guinea and Australian police. – The National

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Papua New Guinea’s police and courts must work closely with media for transparency to inform the public on the daily investigation and court processes taken over the death of young mother Jenelyn Kennedy late last month, a men’s gender justice advocate says.

Man Up group representative Ganjiki Wayne said Jenelyn’s death had shown a call for justice and the entire country would be behind her families and relatives as the justice process served the country, reports the PNG Post-Courier.

“Papua New Guinea is offended by this crime committed and police, courts and media must work together to tell the people that the investigation is complete,” Wayne said.

READ MORE: Background and reports on gender-based violence in PNG

He said police must make daily briefings to media just like during the covid-19 coronavirus pandemic so the nation was aware of the process being taken.

“We need to know the evidence and witness process, we need to know the prosecution process,” he said.

“If there is a bail application file and processes on suspects, people need to know about it.”

He said the “PNG village” was much closer now and the community must be informed of every detail of her case being investigated.

“We don’t want Jenelyn’s death [investigation] to be incomplete or something happening to stop [the justice process],” he said.

Other cases of gender-based violence needed to be investigated also.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The Fiji police “thuggish-like” tactics against the University of the South Pacific staff members and students is disrupting education of students and the work of its staff, says National Federation Party president Pio Tikoduadua.

Tikoduadua said the questioning of the USP chief librarian, Dr Elizabeth Reade-Fong by police on Tuesday was another example of Fiji fast turning into a police state with scant regard for the rights of people and their fundamental freedoms of speech and assembly.

“Academic freedom is the cornerstone of every university, USP is therefore no exception,” he said.

READ MORE: Special reports on the USP leadership saga

“While Fiji may brag about being the host country and the largest financial contributor to USP, one cannot hide the indisputable fact that Fiji is the biggest beneficiary of the regional tertiary institution.

“Elizabeth Fong is renowned for her principles and ethics.

“Her desire for good governance, transparency, accountability and above all to uphold and cherish academic freedom is renowned and well respected.”

He claimed that the questioning by police was a prelude to many others being questioned under the pretext of covid-19 regulations and the Public Order Act after their massive show of support for the now-suspended vice-chancellor.

“We therefore deplore police for using covid-19 social distancing restrictions to harass and intimidate USP staff and students.

“This is ridiculous and nonsense when no social distancing is being practised in supermarkets, municipal markets, buses and other public transport, restaurants, malls and on the streets.

“Even functions where the prime minister and Cabinet ministers are chief guests do not have social distancing.

“I call on the Fiji Police Force to exercise caution and professionalism in the conduct of their duties. They should conduct themselves in a way that makes the people trust, not fear them.”

Nasik Swami is a Fiji Times reporter.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Critics have condemned Fiji police harassment and intimidation for summoning two staff members at the University of the South Pacific’s Laucala campus to the Fiji police Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Suva yesterday for questioning.

According to FBC News, police have launched an investigation into the public gathering of USP staff and students.

Police Commissioner Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho said they were looking at possible breaches of covid-19 restrictions.

READ MORE: Special reports on the USP leadership crisis

Fiji police officers were also monitoring “solidarity” movements at USP’s Laucala campus over the past week where concerned staff and students had shown their support for suspended vice-chancellor Professor Pal Ahluwalia, holding placards calling for good governance, accountability and transparency.

USP’s acting vice-chancellor, Professor Derrick Armstrong, said the university was made aware of an incident where a staff person was approached by Fiji police for questioning.

He said the university sought an urgent appointment with the Commissioner of Police for further clarification.

USP librarian Elizabeth Reade Fong and USP Staff Union general secretary Ilima Finiasi were questioned by CID.

Standing in solidarity
Fong clarified in media reports that staff and students were not protesting but were standing in solidarity and support for the suspended vice-chancellor.

The questioning of USP staff members had garnered reactions from the public, including the opposition National Federation Party.

NFP president Pio Tikoduadua claimed the questioning of USP staff by police was a prelude to many others being questioned under the pretext of covid-19 regulations and Public Order Act after their massive show of support for Professor Ahluwalia.

“We deplore police for using covid-19 social distancing restrictions to harass and intimidate USP staff and students.

This is ridiculous and nonsense when no social distancing is being practised in supermarkets, municipal markets, buses and other public transport, restaurants, malls and on the streets,” he said in a statement.

The Fiji Trades Union Congress also issued a statement, urging the USP Council to expeditiously address the concerns of the USP Students Association and ensure that the students were protected.

FTUC national secretary Felix Anthony said the USPSA had every right to raise concerns and protest peacefully.

He said the Public Order Act or the covid-19 restrictions must not be used to deny fundamental rights.

As USP is a regional education institution, police traditionally do not normally have a right to go onto the Laucala campus without university authorisation.

Wansolwara is the USP journalism programme’s newspaper and website and is a partner of the Pacific Media Centre.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz