Opinion – Kerry Grass

New Zealand Government may, for the first time, be demonstrating they are getting realistic about their statements of – “We are going to get tough on organised crime”.

As a New Zealand citizen it is reassuring to hear the announcement today that the USA FBI has the go ahead from New Zealand government to set up an “FBI Enforcement Office” to be based in Wellington, New Zealand.

The USA and most likely the United Kingdom, must have recognised the need for New Zealand to have a helping hand to establish, implement and monitoring the threats arising from organised and trans-national crime.

An examination of New Zealand’s infrastructure to adequately fight, monitor or report on such crimes is, almost, non-existent. In other words, New Zealand Government is well-behind in its knowledge-base and technology systems to adequately protect its citizens or guide the Pacific Island nations, on how to manage the risks from organised crime and transnational crime.

The announcement by USA FBI Chief, Kash Patel, confirmed the focus of this NZ based FBI unit was to ensure stability and peace in the Pacific Island region. There was mention of the need to manage monitoring of risks arising from the increasing presence of State China and State Indo-China in the Pacific Islands region. Mr Patel aligned these risks to narcotics trafficking and other type trans-national crime offending.

The objectives of this unit will be positive news to the people of the Pacific Island communities. Hopefully the NZ-USA FBI Unit will also capture New Zealand across its web of countries that it starts monitoring and enforcing against. This would be a significant benefit to New Zealand’s citizens.

But there are many questions that sill need answering. What laws in New Zealand will this NZ-USA FBI Unit draw its powers from? Where will its data servers be based? How will citizen privacy information be managed and sharing of information from NZ to the USA government led unit?

Let’s see what eventuates but I am confident this news today is positive for all law abiding New Zealanders and the community members in the Pacific Island region.

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