Secretive overhaul of New Zealand terror law targets protests

John Braddock

New Zealand’s far-right government is secretly preparing an overhaul of the Terrorism Suppression Act, under which people who publicly express support for “terrorist” groups could be charged with a criminal offence, according to a leaked document reported by Newsroom on July 22.

The Terrorism Suppression Act was legislated in 2002 by the then Labour government following the 9/11 terror attacks in the US. It was updated and broadened on three occasions, again by Labour supported by the Greens, beginning in 2019. The Act allows the government to formally designate people or groups as terrorist entities, freezing their assets, and makes it illegal to financially support, recruit for, or participate in a designated terrorist entity.

The National Party-NZ First-Act coalition government is now seeking to further expand the law. According to Newsroom, consultations are being conducted behind closed doors involving an unnamed, handpicked selection of groups and “experts.” The NZ Council for Civil Liberties (NZCCL), which obtained the document, expressed alarm at both the secretive nature of the discussions and the proposed changes.

NZCCL chairperson Thomas Beagle drew parallels with the British government designating Palestine Action as a terrorist group for its peaceful activities protesting the United Kingdom’s support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. “Laws that enable governments to outlaw organisations and any show of support for them are amongst the most dangerous tools the public in any democracy can give to ministers,” Beagle warned.

Palestine Action was proscribed by the Starmer Labour government on July 5, making membership of or support for the group a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison. Police have already arrested more than 300 protesters, many elderly, some for simply holding signs reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

A section of the "Stop the Genocide" march in Wellington on January 28, 2024

Beagle said the changes proposed by the New Zealand government could be similarly used to shut down organisations it did not like. “People will be criminalised not just for being members of an organisation but for expressing support for the issue it was focused on. These are highly dangerous attacks on freedom of expression and freedom of association,” he said.

Speaking to independent journalist Mick Hall, Beagle added that the NZCCL was “horrified that they [the UK] have sunk so far and so quickly.” The NZ proposals, he noted, accompany a decision by the Independent Police Conduct Authority seeking to give police the power to unilaterally ban protests in the event of a “high chance of public disorder and threats to public safety.”

The proposed changes are being discussed as New Zealand’s allies in the Five Eyes spy network (US, Australia, the UK, and Canada) and the NATO-aligned IP4 grouping, which includes Australia, Japan and South Korea, all ramp up their internal security networks.

The fear in ruling circles is that the US/NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, the US-backed Israeli genocide in the Middle East and advanced US-led preparations for war against China will inevitably generate immense opposition.

In Australia the Albanese Labor government recently introduced legislation, without any prior notice, to make permanent and expand the compulsory questioning powers of the domestic political spy agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). The police-state powers overturn fundamental democratic rights, including the right to silence, the right not to incriminate oneself and the principle of no detention without charge or trial.

In New Zealand, Labour’s 2019 amendment to the Terrorism Suppression Act established draconian “control orders” for people trying to re-enter the country after allegedly supporting “extremist” groups overseas. It gave authorities sweeping powers to designate any individual as a potential “terrorist” and impose severe restrictions on their rights and movements, based on unproven allegations.

The new “consultation” document declares that existing offences under the Act “don’t capture the full range of behaviours or activities of concern that are part of the contemporary threat from terrorism.” It proposes “targeted amendments,” including the creation of new offences to cover activity such as “public expressions of support for a terrorist act or designated entities, for example by showing insignia or distributing propaganda or instructional material.” It also calls for “modernising” definitions for terms like “material support” to cover online forms of support.

The document urges a streamlined designation process, claiming the current system is slow and the designation period too short. It questions whether requiring the prime minister to review decisions twice is cumbersome, and whether it remains appropriate for the attorney-general to be consulted on some decisions. It seeks to improve “the timeliness of the process, by considering changes to who the decision-maker is” and to extend the renewal period for designations to five years from three at present.

There is also a proposal to develop mechanisms to identify online “terrorist” content and sanction websites if they are deemed to be “terrorist-operated.”

This reflects demands by former Labour Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who responded to the 2019 fascist terror attack on two mosques in Christchurch that killed 51 people, by calling for greater internet censorship. To coordinate censorship globally, Ardern and French President Emmanuel Macron established the Christchurch Call to Action, an initiative supported by 55 governments—including the US, Germany, Britain and others which routinely denounce socialist and anti-war activism as “extremism”—and 19 tech and social media companies, including Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft and X (Twitter).

Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith told Newsroom the new changes follow the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Christchurch attack, which called for a review of the legislation to ensure it was current and allowed agencies to operate effectively. In fact, the Commission’s report whitewashed the role of the spy agencies which had failed to detect the far right terrorist Brenton Tarrant’s activities. It recommended “enhanced capacity and capability and a less restrictive legislative framework” for the intelligence services, strengthening their ability to spy on the population.

New Zealand Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith [Photo: New Zealand National Party]

More money and power have since been given to these agencies to broaden their surveillance of ordinary people. The Security Intelligence Service (SIS) in its first unclassified Security Threat Assessment in 2023 expressed nervousness about the emergence of popular opposition to the established order, noting “attempts to drive social changes are becoming… commonplace.”

The SIS highlighted growing distrust for institutions, fueled by “perceptions that people are being deliberately lied to and misled; that those with power don’t have New Zealand’s best interests at heart; and that politicians are incapable of solving the problems facing the country.” Social and economic inequalities, the report declared, are among the many factors that “we expect to contribute to the radicalisation of violent extremists in New Zealand.”

The sinister practices of the SIS were exposed with a report in April that the agency had secretly investigated Mick Hall, who was sacked by Radio NZ (RNZ) over his edits of foreign news stories that saw him publicly smeared as a “Russian agent.” Hall had made necessary factual corrections to articles about the war in Ukraine and other topics, for which he was targeted by the media, RNZ and the SIS itself for what were entirely legitimate journalistic activities.

With the support of Labour, the government also last November passed the Countering Foreign Interference Amendment Bill, through its first reading in parliament. The bill, essentially aimed at China, widens the definition of “foreign interference” to cover someone who “owes allegiance” to New Zealand (e.g. a citizen) who commits an offence if it involves “improper conduct for or on behalf of a foreign power” in order to “compromise a protected New Zealand interest.” The maximum punishment is 14 years in prison.

In a little publicised visit to Wellington on July 30, US FBI Director Kash Patel, opened a new permanent agency office in the capital, targeting China. Meeting with Intelligence Agencies Minister Judith Collins and others, Patel said the office will, partnering with NZ, have responsibility across the southwest Pacific to “investigate and disrupt” activities such as terrorism, cybercrime and “foreign intelligence threats.”

The population is deliberately being kept in the dark about the chilling attacks on basic democratic rights. The ongoing expansion of its draconian laws is a blunt warning of the escalating political suppression and censorship as the government further commits itself, in defiance of widespread anti-war sentiment, to what would be a catastrophic global war involving nuclear-armed powers.

Official backing for crypto creating conditions for financial crisis

Nick Beams

In the past month Wall Street has been gripped by a new speculative binge. High value tech stocks have hit new records, with Nvidia becoming the first $4 trillion company by market capitalisation, while the so-called meme stock frenzy of 2021 has made a comeback.

Retail investors have been pouring money into the low-priced stock of low-profit and even loss-making companies such as the doughnut chain Krispy Kreme, the digital camera maker GoPro and the real estate platform Opendoor Technologies.

A 25 Bitcoin token. [AP Photo/Rick Bowmer]

The companies targeted are those which have been heavily shorted. Shorting is a process in which investors borrow shares which they sell and then buy back at the lower price to honour the loans, pocketing the difference.

But if enough retail investors buy the stock, pushing the price up, the short sellers can be forced to buy the shares in order to meet their commitments and exit a losing trade.

The return of the meme stock phenomenon is an expression of the market frenzy which has sent indexes to record highs. This followed the fall in April on the back of Trump’s unveiling of his reciprocal tariff agenda.

In a note issued last week, analysts at Deutsche Bank considered whether the rise in borrowing to fund stock purchases was a sign of the “hottest euphoria” since 1999 and 2007. Both those events came before a significant collapse—the so-called tech-wreck of 2000-2001 and the global financial crisis of 2008.

On top of the present round of speculation, the passage of the Genius Act has prompted warnings that a major crisis is in the making. The Act purportedly sets up the regulation of stablecoins, providing a path for big money to enter the market for crypto coins.

Stablecoins are a crypto asset. But unlike the myriad of crypto coins that have been created, of which Bitcoin is the most prominent with its price recently passing $120,000, they are supposedly backed by an asset, either dollars or US government bonds.

Their chief function is to provide the link between the financial system and the crypto world by providing easier and anonymous access outside the regular banking system. 

There is an unusual feature of the passage of the Genius Act which reveals its essential function.

Normally, the so-called libertarians who promote crypto rail against any regulation. But on this occasion, they pressed for its passage, spending hundreds of millions on lobbying campaigns directed at both sides of the Congressional aisle to secure legislative support for crypto.

They wanted government approval for crypto stablecoins, in the guise of regulation, to reassure major companies, banks, financial institutions and small investors that it is safe, thus ensuring the inflow of more money. 

For crypto this is an existential question. Having no intrinsic value, the price of coins can only increase, and profits made, provided new investors and their money are pulled into the market—the same mechanism as any other Ponzi scheme.

At the same time, the related Clarity Act is being sent through Congress to ensure that regulation passes out of the hands of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission which is regarded as more “crypto friendly.”

The new legislation opens the way for banks and major corporations to issue their own stablecoins. Herein lie the seeds of a major financial crisis.

In an article published in the New York Times in June, long-time analyst and historian of the monetary system, Barry Eichengreen, pointed out that the Genius Act gave hundreds, possibly thousands, of US companies the ability to issue their own currencies, such as a Walmartcoin or an Amazoncoin, bypassing the banking and credit system. 

Along with many others, he likened the development of stablecoins to the Free Banking system which existed in the US from the 1830s until the Civil War. All banks were allowed to issue their own dollar so long as they were backed one for one with collateral.

This system, however, destroyed the “singleness” of money, meaning that a dollar is a dollar however it is obtained. In the Free Banking era, this did not apply. Some dollars would be accepted, others not, while some were traded at a discount or premium with each other.

He recalled that when the system collapsed in the state of Michigan in 1840, residents incurred a loss of $4 million, almost half the state’s income. But at that time the failure of one or several banks could be contained to some extent.

Today the entire financial system could be threatened. To ensure that every stablecoin was fully backed dollar-for-dollar, regulators would need to ensure that the issuer’s balance sheet was 100 percent accurate.

Recalling the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank two years ago, Eichengreen noted that regulators had discerned that its assets were losing value as interest rates rose. However, the regulators failed to act sufficiently until panicked customers withdrew their funds so quickly that the bank failed. It would have “provoked a contagious loss of confidence and a run on other banks, destabilising the entire financial system,” had the government not intervened.

“If regulators have this much trouble keeping an eye on insured banks, how can they be expected to exercise perfect oversight of hundreds, if not thousands of stablecoins issued not just by banks but by tech firms and crypto start-ups?”

Back in May, Eichengreen wrote, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Congress he envisaged a situation “where stablecoin issuers held $2 trillion or more of Treasury securities. If panicked customers force them to sell these securities, Treasury prices could collapse, sharply increasing interest rates and destabilising other financial markets and our entire economy.”

Rana Foroohar, one of the leading columnists of the Financial Times, was even more direct. In a comment published last week, she issued a warning against the increased use of crypto. After noting the decision by JPMorgan Chase to look into lending against the crypto holdings of clients and the support it was now receiving from the political establishment, she wrote:

“I have yet to read anything that made me think it is more than a tool for speculators and criminals. But that hardly matters when the largest political donors are behind it.” 

She likened the present push for crypto to the situation in 2000 when “advocates for over-the-counter derivatives descended on Washington begging to be properly ‘regulated’ so that they could gift the world with financial ‘innovation.’ What we got was a seven-fold increase in poorly regulated credit default swaps that culminated in the great financial crisis of 2008.”

It was not possible, she continued, to imagine a “worse moment to encourage financial ‘innovation’ than when market, economics and monetary policy are so uncertain.”

If over the next few months, the Fed had to raise rates more sharply because of inflation, markets would tank, crypto would fall further and faster, financial institutions holding crypto on their books could run into trouble, causing credit markets to freeze. “Suddenly, we’re facing echoes of 2008.”

What concerned her even more were the political implications of such a crisis.

“Trump [with the support of the large sections of the Democratic party it should be noted] has now set the stage for our next financial crisis by backing (and of course, trading) crypto. What happens when we get financial chaos and more voter cynicism about mainstream politics where there is less interest or ability for the government to buffer a downturn?”

This is certainly cause for concern in ruling circles and their media outlets. In the wake of the 2008 crisis, potential political upheavals were mitigated by the promotion of Obama as the candidate for “hope and change,” after the McCain campaign essentially collapsed with the failure of Lehman Brothers on September 15.

Since then, the mass of working people, in the US and the world over, have gone through vast and bitter political experiences. What Foroohar calls “cynicism” is a deep hostility to all the parties of the political establishment and a deepening anti-capitalist sentiment combined with a turn towards socialism, especially among youth.

New analysis of jail videotape raises questions about supposed Epstein suicide

Patrick Martin

Jeffrey Epstein, March 28, 2017 [AP Photo/New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP]

According to a report by CBS News broadcast Tuesday, the 11 hours of videotape released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation earlier this month, showing the time leading up to the discovery of the body of convicted sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein in August 2019, contradicts statements made by Justice Department officials at the time, as well as more recently.

The grainy silent video depicts the final hours before Epstein was, according to official accounts, found hanged in his cell on August 9, 2019. The camera shows the doorway into two adjacent cells, as well as a work area where prison guards were stationed throughout that time. During that night, the guards did not carry out the wellness checks they were supposed to perform every half hour on Epstein, who had been on suicide watch after a previous supposed attempt.

Despite claims by then-Attorney General William Barr, echoed recently by FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, the recording “doesn’t provide a clear view of the entrance to Epstein’s cell block—one of several contradictions between officials’ descriptions of the video and the video itself.” The report continues:

CBS News also digitally reconstructed the Special Housing Unit, or SHU, where Epstein was held, using diagrams and descriptions from the 2023 report on Epstein released by the Justice Department inspector general. The CBS News review found the video does little to provide evidence to support claims that were later made by federal officials. Additionally, CBS News has identified multiple inconsistencies between that report and the video that raise serious questions about the accuracy of witness statements and the thoroughness of the government’s investigation.

The CBS review does not directly disprove the claim that Epstein’s death was a suicide, but it “raises questions about the strength and credibility of the government’s investigation, which appears to have drawn conclusions from the video that are not readily observable,” the report said.

Donald Trump and child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein laugh and joke at a party in 1992. [Photo: NBC News]

By comparing the video with the diagram of the SHU, CBS found that someone could enter the tier on which Epstein’s cell was located without being observed. Even Epstein’s own entrance to his cell, placed at just before 8:00 p.m., cannot be documented from the video. This means that the claim that no one approached Epstein’s cell depends on the testimony of two prison staff, at least one of whom was seen to have fallen asleep during the night shift.

CBS quoted Jim Stafford, a video forensics expert: “To say that there’s no way that someone could get to that—the stair up to his room—without being seen is false.” CBS reported that four other “leading video forensics experts” it interviewed agreed with Stafford’s analysis.

At about 10:40 p.m. “an orange shape is seen moving up the stairs leading to Epstein’s tier,” CBS reported. While the Office of Inspector General identified this as a corrections officer, the video forensic experts consulted by CBS “were skeptical about that interpretation and suggested that the shape could be a person dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit climbing the stairs.”

The expert analysis of the video released by the FBI found that the file was actually first created on May 23, 2025, nearly six years after Epstein’s death, and was likely a screen capture of two pieces of the original video, stitched together. The two pieces had different aspect ratios (the ratio of the width to the height of the image).

The so-called “missing minute” about midnight, where the tape was spliced, is actually three to four minutes, according to separate analyses by Wired magazine and CBS. Then at 12:05 a.m., an unidentified person is seen on the video, who was not mentioned in the official OIG report.

The CBS report concluded: “Mark Epstein, Jeffrey Epstein's younger brother, has long voiced his belief that his brother did not die by suicide, but was murdered. He spoke with CBS News and said without a recording of the camera in the actual tier where Epstein was housed, it is unclear if the door to his brother's prison cell had been properly locked or if other prisoners could have had access.”

The damning questions posed by the CBS report come as the political crisis over the Epstein affair continues to rock the White House and Congress. Trump was repeatedly questioned about the release of the Epstein files and his relationship with the late sex-trafficker during his trip to Britain, and Trump’s responses were angry and dismissive, but also damaging.

At one point, he blurted out that he ended his relationship with Epstein because the financier, who had a home in Palm Beach near Mar-a-Lago, was hiring employees away from Trump’s resort, including a young spa attendant, Virginia Giuffre, who later became a key witness against Epstein. Giuffre’s father worked at Mar-a-Lago and he got her a summer job as a spa attendant. The young woman committed suicide in April of this year.

Trump also declared, using remarkable language that aroused both ridicule and serious questioning, that he had never gone to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean, one of the locations where he conducted his sexual abuse of young girls. “I never had the privilege of going to his island, and I did turn it down,” Trump said.

On Wednesday, Senate Democrats issued a letter citing the so-called “rule of five,” a provision in federal law empowering any five members of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to compel the production of federal government records for investigative purposes. The letter was sent to the Justice Department, signed by all seven Democrats on the committee as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.

This rule was established by law in 1928 and has been used infrequently, but it is a legal provision rather than a Senate rule, and therefore presumably binding on the executive branch. No president has challenged its use.

Schumer made a demagogic attack on Trump at a press briefing Wednesday which presented the letter. He noted that Trump had raised the Epstein question during his 2024 presidential campaign and promised to release all the Epstein files, while suggesting this would damage the Democrats.

“Trump was asked earlier this month if he had ever been informed whether or not he was mentioned in the Epstein files, and now we know he lied,” Schumer said. “He said no, but in fact he was told by the Attorney General in May that he was mentioned. And when the House had an opportunity to take votes on the Epstein files, Speaker Johnson skedaddled out of town, launching the Epstein recess.”

Meanwhile, a court filing Tuesday evening revealed that the grand jury transcripts in the case involving Epstein’s principal accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, contain the testimony of only two witnesses, one a federal agent and the other a New York police detective. Both were giving summaries of victim statements, but none of the victims actually testified.

Trump ordered the Justice Department to seek release of the grand jury transcripts from the judges who heard the charges against Maxwell, but this latest news underscores the performative character of that gesture. Neither of cops could implicate Trump in Epstein’s operations.

On Monday, attorneys for Maxwell filed a motion with the US Supreme Court asking the justices to hear an appeal of her 2021 sex-trafficking conviction. They cited the sweetheart deal which Epstein received in 2008 from the US Attorney for South Florida, Alexander Acosta, which provided both a lenient sentence for Epstein on the charge of solicitation the prostitution of a minor, and also prohibited charges against any potential co-conspirators. This prohibition should have been applied to Maxwell, they argued.