Big Sister Is Watching You

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From top; Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald; Dr Julien Mercille

The government is now using the pretext of gangland crime to boost its own powers.

Dr Julien Mercille writes:

The wave of gangland crime continues. As expected, the government is now using this situation to further increase its powers over citizens. It’s called building a “Big Brother” State.

Indeed, last week, the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality, Frances Fitzgerald, outlined a series of worrying policies that the government intends to push through.

The measures include:

(1) Steps to facilitate the interception of communications and for covert electronic surveillance

This is exactly what Edward Snowden has been campaigning against to protect our privacy against governments that seek to snoop in our personal conversations and communications.

As of now, we already have a Big Brother State in Ireland because the government and the police can access at will the metadata about all our emails and phone calls, which are conserved for two years.

Karlin Lillington has written truly excellent reports on this in the Irish Times here and here, just like Digital Rights Ireland’s TJ McIntyre .

(2) Boost Garda powers by giving them more money and spreading their institutional reach: “all necessary financial resources will continue to be made available” to the police and international links with Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands will be explored to address international dimensions of crime.

Also, An Garda Síochána will establish a special Task Force focusing on criminals.

The problem with all this is that they’re the most ineffective ways to deal with drug problems, as I explained in previous articles here and here.

The most effective solutions are to provide adequate treatment to addicts, along with prevention campaigns. Reducing the demand for drugs will decrease the number and gravity of criminal acts that are caused by drug trafficking.

(3) It will now be easier for the Criminal Assets Bureau to seize assets and cash held by those suspected of crimes.

This called “civil forfeiture” and is used in some other countries as well. The significant part of this policy is that assets and cash can be seized before someone has been formally indicted in a formal trial. The proposed measures will lower the value of property and cash that may be seized from €13,000 to €5,000 (property) and from €6,500 to €1,000 (cash).

The danger with civil forfeiture is that it opens the door to abuse by law enforcement agents. They can use suspicions as a pretext to seize goods and cash from vulnerable people.

This is exactly what happened in the US, where the practice is used. There, police have literally stopped people on flimsy pretexts and taken their cash, cars and houses, which are then sold in an auction. The proceeds go back to the police departments, who use this practice as a good way to increase their own budgets.

There is an excellent article here on the subject. Of course, it is usually minorities that are arrested and have their property confiscated. Sure they can always launch lawsuits against the police to recover their property, but it is often prohibitively expensive, so that people tend to give up.

Such behavior on the part of Irish enforcement authorities may not be as extreme as in the US, but the Justice Department specified that the proposed measures would allow the Criminal Assets Bureau to target “the proceeds of crime held by middle to lower level actors in localised organised crime activity”, in addition to the assets of higher level actors.

It thus sounds like small dealers who got involved in drugs because of unemployment, and who are not responsible for orchestrating trafficking, will now be targets.

(4) A second Special Criminal Court will be established

The problem here is that Ireland’s Special Criminal Court has been denounced by a range of international and humanitarian organisations, including the United Nations and Amnesty International.

Special Criminal Courts open the door to abuses by the government in the appointment of judges for example, which can be political. The courts also can be less transparent and arbitrary.

In summary, the government is now using the pretext of gangland crime to boost its own powers.

There are well-known, effective ways to address drug violence, including treatment of addicts and decriminalisation of drugs, but the government is not interested in them—in other words, it is not interested in seriously addressing the problems.

It is more concerned with increasing its own (arbitrary) powers.

Of course, all of the above measures could be defended in theory.

For example, we could imagine, in theory, a government truly dedicated to the well-being of Irish people, which would only seize assets of dangerous criminals without formally finding them guilty of anything; which would establish Special Criminal Courts only in very specific circumstances while using them sparingly and impartially.

We can also imagine a police force truly dedicated to tackling white-collar crime as much as petty crime. And we can imagine a government that only snoops on emails and phone calls made by real criminals.

If all that was the case, one could argue that those measures would make some sense.

However, the real world teaches very different lessons.

Why open the door to governmental abuses of power? Why do so especially when there are well-known solutions to the problems we face that do not involve giving any more arbitrary powers to the government?

It is interesting that politicians who regularly claim to be in favour of “small government” and “cutting government waste” have become cheerleaders for more government bureaucracy and more government power over our lives.

Julien Mercille is a lecturer at University College Dublin. Follow him on Twitter: @JulienMercille

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57 thoughts on “Big Sister Is Watching You

  1. dav

    Jaysus, the water tax protesters have them scared. Pity they wouldn’t spend some effort on corporate tax evasion.

    1. Dόn 'The Unstoppable Force' Pídgéόní

      Why should that matter for an op piece on BS? Having absolutely no experience in anything relevant at all ever never stops anyone commenting on here.

      1. Harry Molloy

        True, but was genuinely wondering. You identify as an academic and you tend to have a particular focus. His columns don’t, they’re all a bit first year soc & pol imo.

        1. Dόn 'The Unstoppable Force' Pídgéόní

          Totally but if its an op piece I don’t think you necessarily need to stick with your chosen area? Though bae totally needs more references supporting stronger arguments.

          1. rotide

            This isn’t a frilly piece, this is a piece by a guy who specialises in talking about the media, on the media.

            Oh and they used to say what his phd was in, but have stopped doing it.

            Harry, he’s vague with his doctorate because its in Geopolitics or geography or something and nothing to do with the media.

          2. Dόn 'The Unstoppable Force' Pídgéόní

            I wiki’ed him – media is his game apparently. That’s not mutually exclusive to being a geography or geopolitics lecturer.

            Like I said, more facts please and better arguments supported by those. Whose the economic guy? He does that well – good mix of facts and opinion.

        1. Harry Molloy

          sure I’m just an anonymous username, what do my thoughts matter :-)
          not really comparable chief

  2. fluffybiscuits

    Nothing about this in mainstream media. Attack the mans character and ignore the real issues why dont you …

    This is a pretext to making gardai stronger but not in a positive sense. You give a force these powers, a force with low morale, no confidence, corruption and a political sword it wields and we get a force that will abuse it.

  3. VinLieger

    The tired mantra of other people don’t need special criminal courts is way to old, other countries also don’t have the specific IRA and Gangland issues we do where witnesses will not come forward to testify. A viable witness protection scheme to protect everyone who would be in danger without a Special criminal court would cost way too much and likely require overseas countries involvement as Ireland is simply too small to operate an effective witness protection program in

    1. Rob_G

      Mercille represents the media-friendly, oh-so-non-threatening thin-end of the wedge of Sinn Féin’s ongoing attempt to undermine the SCC and the criminal justice system in general in this country.

      1. Kieran NYC

        +1

        Mercille must really hate the privatisation of shooting people now that the IRA don’t have a monopoly any more.

        Today is the anniversary of the shooting dead of Garda Jerry McCabe, by the way. Sinn Fein have never denounced his killers.

        You’ll never get a Broadsheet article about that though.

    2. Harry Molloy

      CAB and the SCC are probably the two most successful initiatives in law enforcement in this country. It would be a much more dangerous country without either.
      The doc hasn’t been here that long so maybe doesn’t understand and can’t really weigh the real life benefits vs the on paper concerns.

        1. Owen C

          They got it dead right with Slab Murphy. Please don’t be so naive as to think witness/jury tampering would not have been a significant risk in that situation.

          1. classter

            It is still worth considering how something like the Special Criminal; Court could be misused & how we ensure it never is.

          2. ollie

            Slab Murphy was convicted of tax evasion, not terrorism. This is an abuse of the SCC which was established for use when the “ordinary courts are inadequate to secure the effective administration of justice”.
            Don’t forget: the 3 judges are government appointed and you can be brought in form of the SCC on the word of a Garda Chief superintendent. The court has it’s uses (John Gilligan and Wayne Dundon spring to mind), but it’s easy to see how a government could uses this court for any person to be tried for any offence.

          3. Owen C

            Absolutely. But at this stage i do think anyone can point to any actual misuse of the SCC. Ditto CAB.

            While Merceille likes to throw out his standard “big government is out to get you” mantra, the reality is that both CAB and the SCC have both been extremely successful in their duties in this country so far. The people complaining about its use , other than people afraid of big government, tend to be those linked with criminality in some direct or indirect manner.

            The issue of decriminalization of drugs is also idiotically brought into this debate – it is a completely separate and unrelated issue. If people are breaking the law, they should be appropriately dealt with by the gardai and the DPP. If you want to change the law, then set up a political party and campaign on this issue.

      1. curmudegon

        CAB is chronically understaffed and wholly underused. It’s like that for a reason. One so depressing and blatant that I had cancel my subsciption to the Phoenix just to get my blood pressure down.

    3. ahjayzis

      Uhhh – the SCC exists to protect jurors – the judge still hears testimony from witnesses. What’s safer for a witness about testifying before a judge in court versus testifying before a jury in court?

      Juries sitting anonymously and remotely would remove the need for an SCC.

        1. ahjayzis

          Probably harder to do back in the day with the technology, but telepresence could be used fairly easily. I’m hardly ever *at* any meeting I go to, juries won’t miss anything watching from a safe distance.

          What really disturbs me is how casually people, columnists etc. are suggesting we bring in internment.

          Let’s not empower the state to imprison anyone they like without trial, shall we?

          1. Harry Molloy

            Internment, really? can you give me a link or point me somewhere? Would be interested to see how that could be justified…

          2. ahjayzis

            Some chronically middle class ‘goy’ on Marian Finucane was waffling on about imprisoning fifty or sixty people for six months while we get our act together. Skanger criminals mind, not his white collar mates.

            Pretty sure it was mentioned a few times in the Sindo this weekend too. It’s always cast around casually when this kind of thing happens. It’s only the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, be grand to put it in abeyance for a bit.

      1. Vote Rep #1

        How would it be anonymous though? The prosecution and defence still need to be able to vet the juries. That would render it impossible to be anonymous.

        Not sure if vet is the right word. Choose? Veto?

  4. classter

    Wow, I agree with Merceille.

    Boosting these sorts of powers without any of the additional safeguards obviously already required (see continuing controversy on access to Pulse etc.) is dangerous.

    9 years after the crash & there still has been no real action on white collar crime.

    Fitzgerald is a completly & utterly useless. To think that lots of the Broadshati ( Broadsheetie? Broadsheetsia?) cheered Shatter’s demise.

  5. Eoin

    Never waste a good crisis. Always a great opportunity to grab a little extra power for the state.

  6. ahjayzis

    I’ve an open mind on increasing police powers.

    Just not with our bent, backward, corrupt and inept excuse for a police force. Fix that and we’ll talk.

  7. B Hewson

    All his “solutions” are fluffy and won’t work for hardened lifetime criminals with hundreds of suspended convictions. Build more prisons. Longer sentences. Chain gangs.

  8. rotide

    Maybe Juliens right, maybve we shouldn’t implement any of these things and just let the gangland violence run unchecked.

    I love how he disregards any thought to improving the situation if it doesn’t involve his own personal pet project, the legalisation aspect – which for the record has only been tried in 3 or 4 countries. Everyone else generally goes with the sensible options like CAB and police in the interim.

    I agree that decriminlastion is the way forward, but I’m not naieve enough to expect it to happen instantly and a lot of these measures are needed.

    mercille is a zealot.

    1. ahjayzis

      It’s gotten this bad because policing has been scaled back across the board in order to make savings.

      They have the powers they need – laws aren’t what’s missing, everything they’re doing is illegal. But without intelligence from people on the ground, resources to process it and head them off at the pass, you can give them as many notional powers as you want and nothing will improve.

      This is a crisis of police resourcing / management, not a loophole being exploited in the powers of the security services.

      1. classter

        ‘This is a crisis of police resourcing / management’

        That’s a big claim to make without any evidence.

        Research has been done in this & areas without cuts have seen the same relative changes in crime as areas without.

        I would say that this is more likely due to a lack of resources for the poorer areas of our cities.

      2. ollie

        Good comment Ahjaysis.
        Every crisis in this country is managed with new legislation without the supports to enforce it.
        We have a shortage of judges but Fitzgerald is setting up a second special criminal court.
        The government doesn’t care about issues that affect the 90%, look at the amount of Gardai mobilised for anti water protests compared to the numbers assigned to police our streets,

        1. Rob_G

          “look at the amount of Gardai mobilised for anti water protests compared to the numbers assigned to police our streets”

          – they were policing the streets, in this instance; like it or not, the meter installers have a right to go about their daily business unmolested, same as you or me.

  9. J

    “It will now be easier for the Criminal Assets Bureau to seize assets and cash held by those suspected of crimes.

    This called “civil forfeiture” and is used in some other countries as well. The significant part of this policy is that assets and cash can be seized before someone has been formally indicted in a formal trial. The proposed measures will lower the value of property and cash that may be seized from €13,000 to €5,000 (property) and from €6,500 to €1,000 (cash).

    The danger with civil forfeiture is that it opens the door to abuse by law enforcement agents. They can use suspicions as a pretext to seize goods and cash from vulnerable people.”

    Bla Blah blah What is the point of all this toddler dribble? How does CAB currenlty operate, Mercille? What powers does it have? ( legislative or investigative? ) How does it apply these powers ?How will proposed amendment effect these powers.How will proposed amendment effect the seizure of assets in rest of world? Any chance you could ask yourself just a few questions prior to composing your Monday morning symphony of nonsense.

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