More on Terror Raids…

I think, reading over it, my final paragraph yesterday was a bit too much of a rush job. Let me clarify, briefly.
I think the police response was far out of proportion to the evidence gathered (again, judging by what evidence has been released and extrapolating from there; if your extrapolation is different, your conclusion probably will be too).
There was no need for a national swoop, for arrestees to be refused bail, for Ruatoki to be treated like it was. There was simply no need for this level of action.
There was no rationale for pursuing action under the terrorism legislation. If surveillance had been continued, then perhaps in time words and deeds recorded would make such action appropriate; as it was, this wasn’t the case.
The police were clearly concerned over what they had found. The rights or wrongs of the surveillance notwithstanding, they had uncovered something and had a mandate to respond to it. I think they went about responding in a completely inappropriate manner that has more to do with what they believed they’d found than what evidence they’d actually accumulated.
So, I’m not saying the police should have just forgotten about the whole affair. Yesterday’s post did imply this, I know. Consider that rushed-off paragraph superseded by this rushed-off blog post.
Also, to those who are commenting that we’ve only seen a fraction of the police evidence dossier: consider the source of those excerpts. They were selected by a newspaper and run under the headline “the terrorism files”. It is inconceivable that the newspaper would done anything but select the most sensational and terroristic rhetoric from the surveillance. Even this cherry-picking had to include a lot of things that weren’t particularly dramatic. I can only conclude that there just wasn’t that much to go on.
I need to talk about something other than the raids, especially because I’m too busy to do this complex subject justice. For a change, I highly recommend reading around bloglandia for more; there is much there that is of insight, even if I disagree with much of it. These raids may yet be the making of the NZ blogosphere…
So as a complete change of pace, here’s the five minute Doctor Who special that aired on UK TV a few days ago, in which Peter Davison gets back in the old cricket gear to reprise the role in a brief meeting with new Doctor David Tennant. Lots of fun. (Minor spoilers for the end of series three, which aired on NZ TV the other night…)