Security

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 14

Security

Sir, —Your editorial makes Mr Godfrey and New Zealand’s security intelligence service appear on the side of common sense, if not of virtue; but it overlooks two fundamental objections to secret informers, well known to political and religious dissenters throughout history. First, justice requires that an alleged transgressor be entitled to confront his accuser. Persons reported on bv security intelligence receive no such right. The “evidence” can never be challenged: indeed, its exact nature mav never be disclosed. Second, justice is by definition impartial. Rut secret informers habitually discriminate, according to the whims of the government of the day. against certain sections of dissent: and because it is secret. such discrimination cannot be checked. If there is ’ need to "uard against what “The Press” somewhat vaeuely terms “clandestine political activity” in the interests of freedom, there is also a need to guard the principles of iustice, for the same reason.—Yours, etc., H. C. EVISON. June 20, 1966.

Sir.—l am perturbed at the questions you ask your readers in your editorial of June 18. Who, you ask, has been deterred from expressing opinions? What action is likely to be taken against anyone? If you know the answers to these questions, then you are endowed with more than editorial wisdom The assumptions underlying the whole of your editorial, namely, that the Government was fully justified in finding out what its citizens were thinking, and that it would therefore be justified in building up a more extensive system of thought control, worry me; so does the ease with which the loud outcries of a few immature students put you off your customary editorial balance. Yours, etc, G. S. MILLER. Nelson, June 18, 1966.