The SST Police spying story
The SST has a collection of fascinating stories on how the Police have been spying on various protest groups for many years, through a paid informant who was active in the groups.
The informant, Rob Gilchrist, was exposed by his (presumably ex) girlfriend Rochelle Rees. Rochelle is an animal rights activist and also got well known for her Google Bomb against John Key.
Gilchrist, in one of the more stupid acts known to mankind, asked Rochelle to help fix his computer. Now if you are spying for the Police, and communicating with them via e-mail, asking your girlfriend (one of those you are reporting on) to fix your computer is monumentally stupid. He also gets stupid marks for not using a Gmail or web based mail account for his spying, so that there is little trace on the computer.
So who were the Police spying on. According to the SST, it was:
- Anti-Bases Campaign
- Auckland Animal Action
- Beneficiaries Action Collective
- GE-Free NZ
- Peace Action Wellington
- Greenpeace
- People’s Moratorium Enforcement Agency (GE Free)
- Save Animals from Exploitation (SAFE)
- Save Happy Valley
- Wellington Animal Rights Network
I do wonder how much overlap of membership there is – some people may belong to all 10 groups 
So should the Police be spying on these groups, if they are protest groups. Well the answer is, it depends.
If they never set out to break the law, and organise legal protests, then the Police should be taking no interest in them. Presumably that is what Forest & Bird are not there or the World Wildlife Fund.
If however the groups have a deliberate strategy of breaking the law, of commiting damage, of theft etc – then the mere fact they are a protest group doesn’t make them immune from the law, and doesn’t mean the Police can’t use informants to find out what illegal activities are planned.
So do the ten groups above all take part in organised law breaking activities? I’m not sure they do. Save Happy Valley certainly does and I have no problem with the Police monitoring them, if done within the law. But I suspect in some of the cases, the Police would be stretching it to justify their surveilance through an informant. The question I would ask is whether the use of Gilchrist as an informant actually prevented any crimes? I not, then they should not be spying n the groups. If however they were planning illegal activities, some surveillance can be argued as justified
There are a number of interesting questions, especially about Gilchrist himself who is profiled here.
- How did he become a Police informant – did they turn him, or did he offer? If he offered out of the blue, then no surprise the Police said yes.
- Was he informing just for the money of $600 a week, or did he disagree with what these groups did?
- He is reported to have been a ringleader is advocating some of the illegal protests. Could this not be entrapment if he promotes some form of illegal direction action to the others, and then gets them arrested?
- Did anyone ever wonder how he managed to live for so many years without working? Did they just assume it was the generous welfare state?
- Did he pay tax on his informant income?
- How many other spies are there in these protest groups?
- Does anyone else find it ironic that it was under a Labour Government, that all the leftie groups were spied on?
December 14th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I met him a few times, quite a few people I know knew him well.
“Did anyone ever wonder how he managed to live for so many years without working? Did they just assume it was the generous welfare state?”
He claimed to have a private electronics business, supplying radios, scanners, and other such things, supplying high end equipment for people who didn’t want attention. It was a fairly solid story, and accorded with the kind of person he was. Various questions were asked of him over the years, but nothing ever turned up, and in the absence of evidence otherwise people just assume the best in people it seems.
Besides, he was always advocating more radical action, trying to get a response, pushing people away from low key and harmless things. It seems obvious now, but it didn’t when I knew him.
“Does anyone else find it ironic that it was under a Labour Government, that all the leftie groups were spied on?”
Apart from the fact that he started under a National Government (the same one that was using the SIS to spy on political activists), no. The causes mentioned above have had a lot of antagonism towards Labour, and Labour has felt under attack from them since the beginning in many cases. Remember, if Labour doesn’t want to listen to you, you’re out of luck – this applies just as much to the left as right.
December 14th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
It would be good to know what rules of engagement, if any, are there for police to infiltrate political groups. Is this a list of all the groups the state are covertly spying on? And who is responsible in the police for ensuring that the police stay inside and not above the law?
Take, for example, the marijuana legalisation lobby. By definition, some supporters break the law because some substances are deemed illegal while others aren’t. If supporters were to organise a mass smoke-in on the steps of parliament, for example, does such an illegal activity mean that it is fine for the police to use informants and spies to undermine such efforts?
If you think this is all a bit of an over reaction, just have a read of the former undercover cop who gave false testimony in court, leading to the wrongful conviction of 150 people. The ends do not always justify the means.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10537054&pnum=0
December 14th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
this is not the police there only taking orders,so where have the orders come from and why are they wasting my tax dollars spying on these peaceful croups,there must be some real crimes going on
this is what a police state is like,welcome to china
December 14th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Ironic, but only in a very superficial way. Like George alluded, it’s not like the Left is one big monolithic entity who spend much time engaged in mutual backslapping just because they aren’t right-wing. At the risk of generalising, quite a few of these guys might be anti-state/anti-capitalism lefties who dislike Labour for being….statist capitalists as much as anti-state libertarians perhaps dislike National for being…statist girl’s blouses.
December 14th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
I think it’s a very fine line, and although this isn’t the point David was making, it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s lefties or righties that get spied on.
On the one hand, where you have a group that is clearly involved in some kind of illegal activities, or is plotting to do so, then I would say that the Police have a duty to the public to obtain every piece of information they can. I doubt many people would argue that the Mongrel Mob is just such an organization.
On the other hand, without proper checks and balances it would be very easy for Police to cross the line into spying on fundamentally innocent and harmless groups, and for that spying to be harnessed by those with political (or even criminal!) agendas. Such spying is the first step to a totalitarian police state, and that is something which must be avoided at all costs.
The answer would appear to be that such spying should be restricted in its application, and appropriate checks and balances should be in place to ensure that it doesn’t cross the aforementioned line.
December 14th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Could it be that someone in the National Ranks encouraged the outing. all done in a suritious way of course. Imagine how Rochelle Rees must feel. Oh my god I’ve been poked by a stool pigeon. Must do wonders for the self esteem and status among friends.
The good old story of life eh. You get back what you give out.
Poetic justice I’d say.
December 14th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Poor Rochelle, wonder whose name will come up if we google “clueless” now.
December 14th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
600 bucks a week is not bad dough to piss around pretending to be a professional hippie and getting down the hemp undies of a few feral animal rights chicks. Good work if you can get it.
December 14th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Are the police spying on the Business Roundtable, Anti-EFA groups, or other Free Market groupings? Or does this say something about an infiltration by hardcore activists of what were well-meaning environmental groups by hardcore activists wanting to start escalating low level protest into full blown revolution?
December 14th, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Poor Rochelle, wonder whose name will come up if we google “clueless” now.
Gilchrist’s, of course. He’s plainly dumber than her.
Goff’s protestations that none of this info crossed his desk ring pretty hollow.
December 14th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Posted this at the Standard in regards the Demonstration in front of John Key’s house. Have not been moderated, truly amazing.
What a sorry arse bunch of Union losers, I wonder if the Police officers from the Special Investigation Group (SIG) have carried out surveillance of this motley bunch. At least you can blame Phil Goff if you run into trouble with the Law.
December 14th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
DPF ponders:
“I do wonder how much overlap of membership there is – some people may belong to all 10 groups”
Mr Gilchrest does (did?) evidently.
December 14th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
The SIG keystones have a large file on d4j. Go Batman smack em hard!!
December 14th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Michael E asks:
The “hardcore activist wanting to start a revolution” in this case was Gilchrist himself… the article quotes several people as saying he went out of his way to incite people into violent and illegal acts.
In other words, entrapment… a standard NZ Police modus operandi along with pressuring witnesses, perjury, intimidation and a host of other similar tactics.
And no, no surprise at all this was under Labour. The simplistic baying for “tougher penalties” led by the likes of Garth McVicar plays right into the increasingly totalitarian leanings of politicians. Go back even as far as Kirk, who was frequently rumoured to have a “dirt file” in his office (helpfully collated, no doubt, by the Police as well as other sources) and you’ll find an ugly synergy between politicians and police, both motivated by an insatiable desire to have power over the rest of us.
December 14th, 2008 at 7:15 pm
Its truly amazing the lengths some unfortunate looking women will go to get attention
December 14th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Its truly amazing the lengths some unfortunate looking women will go to get attention
‘Sfunny, I’d have thought that Gilchrist was the prime attention-queen in this silly farce. And a singularly unprepossessing bugger too. Does he get a free pass on account of being a bloke, or classed as “differently abled” just because he happens to be a clinical psychiatrist’s dream?
December 14th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
All Governments spy. Always have, always will. I expect them to spy. Why not?. It is the outcome of the spying that is sometimes interesting. But to claim ignorance of and outrage towards the activity is hugely naive. Duh ..have I missed something?. Don’t think so.
December 14th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
“Did he pay tax on his informant income?”
you’re kidding right? Almost no one gets pinged for under the table work. And if your paymaster in the NZ Police, why would they want a useful operative shut down? Not sure what you have to do to for it to happen, but on the face of it, the more public the incident the less likely you are to be investigated. Maybe you have to be obscure, making an extra $20 bucks here and there mowing lawns. No glamour, no media profile – and definitely not a politician.
Interesting to see Rochelle Weasel’s photo. She has an untrustworthy face.
December 14th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Well what a giggle.
Fancy that – she was working for labour trying to put the hex on John Key and shes being spied upon by the people she works for – as it was Goff who set up the SIG.
What a dimwit.
Mind you – hes also a dopey – fancy getting a computor programmer to fix your computor on which you have all the emails. Actually I wonder if he didnt want her to find them – just to make her look as stupid as she is.
Get a real job you dopey woman.!!!
December 14th, 2008 at 8:54 pm
A story by a far-left, anti-state, anti-police, anti-spy activist complaining about spying by the police on far-left, anti-state, anti-police, anti-spy activists.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
And before y’all jump on me saying these were ‘peace’ groups you might like to take your head out of the sand.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
cough cough, ahem.
Bwahahahahahaha!
Now, I wonder who the paymaster was.
Who read the reports.
Did this information go to the Minister in charge of the SIS?
December 14th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Rob also runs NZ Scanners, since 2002. I wonder how much that site is operated for the benefit of spying on its users?
December 14th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
I must say Rochelle looks more fetching with her hair up and affecting a slight profile. Her previous SST photo looked like a hippies mugshot.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea for the Police to require prospective informants pass a basic IQ test first….
Or in Gilchrist’s case; ask him to spell his own name correctly. I’m sure that he would have immediately been snagged.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
Or was this (the SIG) the reason Hulun had a stooge in at Police HQ.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I would be seriously concerned if the NZ Police were not watching “protest” organisations however having noted the attributed authors of this report I gave it no further thought.
December 14th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
I think the big issue is surely that it was Gilchrist himself who was dragging everyone to behave more radically. ie. entrapment.
Doesn’t all this “boyfriend who turned out to be a secret police spy” stuff sound very East Germany?
December 14th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
LOL
commies & hippies.
December 15th, 2008 at 6:53 am
Plenty of wingeing now. No doubt Nicky Harder will pontificate and tell us it wasn’t the same as stealing Brash’s emails.
Chief of police called in over spies
4:00AM Monday Dec 15, 2008
By Lincoln Tan
* ‘Dirty politics’ behind clueless Key slur
The Police Minister will meet the Police Commissioner today before deciding if an investigation is needed into police spying on protest groups.
The Special Investigation Group, set up in 2004 to focus on terrorism threats to national security, has been reportedly paying informants to spy on groups such as Greenpeace, animal rights and climate change campaigners and Iraq war protesters.
Police Minister Judith Collins said she would decide whether to launch an inquiry after her meeting with the Police Commissioner, Howard Broad, today.
“I want to find out more information before I say anything more,” Ms Collins said.
“I have not been briefed on this issue at all yet and I am also keen to find out what, or how much, former Police Minister Annette King knew about this.”
Rob Gilchrist, from Christchurch, a key member of various protest and community groups such as Greenpeace in the past decade, was paid to pass on information to the SIG on planned protests, and group members’ personal information and sexual relationships, the Sunday Star-Times reported.
He had sent information to an anonymous email address traced to two Christchurch SIG officers, Detective Peter Gilroy and Detective Senior Sergeant John Sjoberg.
A police spokesman would neither confirm nor deny the existence of any informant within any group.
Mr Gilchrist’s work with the police was discovered by his girlfriend, animal rights and Labour Party activist Rochelle Rees, who was helping him fix his computer.
Miss Rees said they met at an animal rights meeting. She thought their relationship had been based on common values and goals, and was devastated to learn that he had been spying on her.
“I am disgusted at the police, both for their extreme level of intrusion into my life, and for the way they have used Rob and had him live a lie for 10 years.”
This year, Mr Gilchrist said Thompson Clark Investigations, an investigations company employed by Solid Energy, offered him money for information about the anti-mining group Save Happy Valley Coalition.
Coalition spokesman Alan Liefting said although it was frustrating that private investigation firms paid members to infiltrate protest groups, it was “totally disgusting” for the police to be doing the same.
“This is not Russia, and New Zealand shouldn’t be turned into a Big Brother police state,” Mr Liefting said.
He believed Mr Gilchrist, who has been involved with the coalition, was paid about $600 a week by the police.
“My beef is really with the police for dangling money, public money, in front of protest group members, such as Gilchrist, in an attempt to [turn] them into spies,” Mr Liefting said.
“Is this not a waste of police resources?”
Green Party police spokesman Keith Locke attacked the police surveillance as Stasi tactics and covert political operations that undermined democracy.
December 15th, 2008 at 7:31 am
Why are the commies moaning now? They knew about this before the election didnt they?
I just luuurve Ms Rees comment that her presumed ex beau was used by the police for over a decade – this sounds like a smoke screen.
Are ‘they’* worried their extra curricular activities have been spilt by their ‘mate’ to the coppers?
* Commies and the substandard crew.
December 15th, 2008 at 7:36 am
* or are certain individuals linked back into the Labour administrations dirt stealing & slinging factory.
December 15th, 2008 at 7:40 am
From a security police standpoint there are more Gilchrist’s out there than you can shake a stick at. A few hundred dollars a week tax free is an irresistable deal for many a soft core activist with a taste for an indolent lifestyle.
It’s an easy offer to make if one of these fellas turns up on some random criminal charge and a routine background check reveals an active involvement in some “group of interest”. A quiet avuncular chat and an initial financial sweetner – and you own his 5 cent soul.
I hope the plausible deniablity checklist passes muster.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:03 am
criminal conspirators got spied on!!!! hold the press!!!
oh well, another very very stupid protestor, and an even more stupid informer, mind you, if i was having to shag stupid hippies and hang out with Hagar and his mates, i’d probably set it up so i was sprung too…
of course spying on an opposition leader and publishing stolen emails is entirely different, isnt it?
Hagar is such a hypocrite, maybe if he took the silver spoon from his mouth and had to work for a living like the rest of us he might have a different approach?
December 15th, 2008 at 8:07 am
. . . 5 cent soul
Ha!
I’d suggest, though, that having a “5 cent soul” is something Gilchrist shares with the keystone cop “security police”. Only in their case the government, as so often happens, grossly overpays them.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:13 am
“Peaceful groups” some of whom seem to be having trouble explaining why they felt the need to have explosives in their kitchens have attracted the interest of the police … shock horror.
It’s called intteligence and the same wankers who are up in arms of this “spying” are the first ones in the sackcloth and ashes que to bitch that the police should have known/done something about it before these people did whatever tiny brained dipshit stunt they pull off.
Meanwhile these self same “peaceful groups” have no issues about spying on others, entering other peoples property, damaging other peoples property, etc etc.
The difference being that the police are regulated and answerable.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:13 am
Hmm, besides the humour of the deadbeats getting reamed by one of their own…
WTF is the police force up to spying on a few stupid hippies?
December 15th, 2008 at 8:16 am
If the Police aren’t infiltrating groups like the National Front or the ‘Close the Bases Coalition’ I would be very worried indeed.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:21 am
oh, so there are some very unsavoury characters involved in these groups then?
December 15th, 2008 at 8:22 am
Expat, if you have a look at the police affidavit associated with the Urewera gang, you’ll get your answer, quick smart.
December 15th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Perhaps they aren’t keeping an eye on the participants in Kiwiblog either
December 15th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Oh, so maybe the story is that some of these dumb hippies have been dealt with leniently by the previous administration because of their left leaning politics?
December 15th, 2008 at 8:45 am
“explosives in their kitchens”?
eh?
December 15th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I wonder if there would be such an outcry if it was found out that the police pay informants to spy/infiltrate car scene groups? I’m pretty sure it does happen in NZ, especially in Christchurch, but no one seems to care about that. Why is this any different?
If a group has a criminal element they deserve to be watched, if they do nothing illegal, they have nothing to worry about do they?
December 15th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Well, its different with animal rights activists because they are COMPUTER PROGRAMMERS! Gasp!
AKA Code Monkies. A thousand type writers etc.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:05 am
And I repeat:
>>Hmm, besides the humour of the deadbeats getting reamed by one of their own…
>> WTF is the police force up to spying on a few stupid hippies?
Too many mustaches make policing a very strange place.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am
If a group has a criminal element they deserve to be watched, if they do nothing illegal, they have nothing to worry about do they?
Gilchrist was a provocateur. If these people weren’t breaking the law he put a lot of work into putting them up to stepping over the line. Perhaps he’d get a bonus when he succeeded. It’s been known to happen with undercover drug operatives.
If there’s been no outcry about “car scene groups” being infiltrated, or others who the police think might be worth watching, it’s probably because they haven’t twigged to it yet. No terrorists? Play sillybuggers chasing hoons ‘n hippies.
December 15th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
It is heartening news to me that the NZ Police has been “doing its job” regarding these groups. If you follow Trevor Loudon’s site, where he keeps a watch on what NZ Radical groups members are saying to each other and the kinds of associations they keep internationally, you too would take this seriously. If these people assure us publicly that they have purely peaceable democratic intentions, well, “they would, wouldn’t they”……
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/
December 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
So is this bleating coming from the same leftie losers who were quite happy to spy on the National party conference and release selective details of private conversations? The stench of hypocrisy is ovewhelming tbh.
December 15th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
This sort of thing is meat and drink to security police everywhere on the planet.
Cultivating a cadre of informants embedded in “groups of interest” costs peanuts and is remarkably effective at keeping tabs on specific individuals and maintaining up to date intelligence files.
A useful side benefit is the deterrent placed on such groups’ potential “plans of action” by their almost certain knowledge that they have been infiltrated and compromised. This latter bonus is probably especially acute in the case of what I imagine to be the characteristically amateurish [but empassioned] activist groups commonly encountered in NZ: the IRA they ain’t.