SPCS

SOCIETY FOR PROMOTION OF COMMUNITY STANDARDS INC.

Search and Surveillance Bill – Is our privacy under threat?

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The Green Party have produced a brochure they are distributing to the public that presents what they believe is wrong with the Search and Surveillance Bill. Details can be found on their website www.greens.org.nz/searchandsurveillance

The Greens are concerned that the bill gives, for the first time so they claim, the power to use force, including the power to detain people, to a number of enforcement agencies that have never had such power(s) in the past.  Such agencies they claim, include the Department of Internal Affairs – whose Censorship Compliance Unit is responsible for tracking down, gathering evidence, and assisting in the prosecution of paedophiles who trade objectionable publications over the internet.

In addition the Unit carries out the same functions with respect to hardcore pornographers, who hoard and distribute unclassified imported DVDs filled with objectionable content that degrades, demeans and dehumanises women. One such prominent New Zealand pornographer has been prosecuted by the DIA for 33 offences involving the distribution of such unclassified sexually explicit material.

It should be obvious that DIA enforcement agents must be granted the increased powers contained in this bill to be able to inspect, carry out surveillance on, apprehend and bring to justice, paedophiles and hardcore pornographers who break the law and do untold injury to the public good.  [Read more…]

Why politicians need legal scrutiny – Opinion

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OPINION – Talking Politics by Gordon Campbell – Quoted from The Wellingtonian 18 November 2010, p. 11 (see below)

[Corruption involving fraud, bribery etc  can only be rooted out among politicians when those with their fingers in the till are appropriately prosecuted and sentenced to ensure that full reparation is made. To be effective, this presupposes that enforcement agencies apply regular quality legal scrutiny involving the highest level of accounting standards to the use of tax-payers’ money. Thereby community standards can be upheld and the public good protected against injury].

“Politicians cannot be exempt from the laws they make, a point driven home more than once last week.

“Women’s Affairs Minister Pansy Wong, for example, had to resign from Cabinet after she confessed to violating the parliamentary rules intended to ensure that MPs don’t blur the lines between their public duties and their private interests.

“Yet on a regular basis, it transpired Wong had used her parliamentary travel perk to help pay for her husband’s travel costs on overseas trips, during which he conducted private business deals.

“This contradicted the crystal clear Speaker’s ruling that “no rebate is payable in respect of any travel undertaken by the member for private business purposes”.

“Wong will be allowed to repay the money involved, which could run to thousands of dollars.

“As some commentators pointed out, a beneficiary who misused the terms of their benefit eligibility for personal gain would almost certainly be prosecuted, as well as having to pay back the money – but as yet, there is no sign of the Wong affair being referred to the police.”

For full article see: http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/local-papers/the-wellingtonian/4354878/Why-politicians-need-legal-scrutiny

Censors protecting the “public good” from morally toxic computer games

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The just released 2009/10 Annual Report of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has highlighted a computer game that the Office has recently banned. In its summary of reasons for the decision it states:

 “The game presents still images and text that legitimises sexual violation and rape in a manner that is intended to sexually arouse the player who takes on the role of a rapist who preys primarily on school girls… Sexual violation and rape are essential to complete the game in its entirety”.

The Society considers it important that the public be made aware of the nature of the objectionable corrupting publications that are being produced for the commercial market by hard core pornographers and others bent on profiteering by the exploitation of people with addictions to moral vices etc.

 The public needs to learn about the vital role played by our Classification Office  to  ensure that such morally corrupting material that injures the “public good” is banned. For this reason it has sought over the last ten years to recommend quality, well-qualified people for nomination to the Film and Literature Board of Review that deals with appeals against classification decisions issued by the OFLC.

Censors protecting the “public good” from the morally toxic impact of the pornographers

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The Annual Report 2009/10 of the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) has just been released to the public. It highlights how censors have sought to protect the New Zealand public from the toxic, putrid and pernicious impact of, and exposure to – hard core pornography – such as the numerous DVDs imported from the United States by companies such as Auckland-based Eden Digital Ltd, directed by American-based businessman John Malcolm Carr.

The Herald of Sunday (“Ministry targets porn mogul” Steve Crow)  reported that $640,000 of sexually explicit porn DVDs  were transferred to John M Carr’s Eden Digital Ltd,  just prior to two of Steve Crow’s companies being put into liquidation. Titles cited by the reporter were both imported from the US where Carr resides. See:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10674407 19 Sept. 2010.

So many DVDs that Eden Digital has imported and submitted for classification have been deemed “objectionable” (i.e. banned) – for degrading sexually explicit content – that the Society wonders why the police, in consultation with NZ Customs, have not laid charges against its director John M Carr for the importation of “objectionable” publications from the US. The OFLC considers the banning of such material “a reasonable limitation on the freedom expression” to “prevent injury to the public good”. [Read more…]

Faith-Based Healing in NZ Prison for Inmates

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[John Bunyan wrote his great classic The Pilgrim’s Progress while he was in prison. It is an allegory of the Christian life that is inspiring many today in New Zealand prisons to seek after God through prayer and reading the Bible. Many are discovering how faith in Jesus Christ – His life, death and Resurrection – can bring them new spiritual life, peace, forgiveness from sin and eternal life].

Rimutaka Prison houses the only faith-based prison unit in the country. It opened in 2003 and is run by Prison Fellowship (PFNZ) an international Christian organisation that provides prison activities, restorative justice courses and post-release support. [Copies of Pilgrim’s Progress have been made available to many prisoners funded by the Society and its supporters].

The Dominion Post reports “The inmates are a motley crew of rapists, murderers, paedophiles and drug dealers; lifers and short-termers; Mobsters and Black Power.”

For more see: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/4341311/Inside-Rimutakas-faith-based-unit [Read more…]