Military Police nicking books?

Ian said :

PBO said :

As for the person who dobbed him in, he could have just gone to the defence library and copied them there instead of stuffing this guy around. What a tool.

If the reasons reported as motivating the confiscation are true, the person who initiated this gross abuse of process surely has to be dismissed from Defence … surely?

Hell no, you clearly don’t understand how Defence works. They’ll treat him the same way they treat rapists, bullys and homophobes, they’ll promote him! 😉

All jokes (however accurate they are) aside, yes, I agree, this idiot should be kicked out of Defence if he just wanted to photocopy these books and pamphlets. So should those MPs.

PBO said :

As for the person who dobbed him in, he could have just gone to the defence library and copied them there instead of stuffing this guy around. What a tool.

If the reasons reported as motivating the confiscation are true, the person who initiated this gross abuse of process surely has to be dismissed from Defence … surely?

Captain RAAF said :

As PBO said, no jurisdiction there unless the warrant was issued by a civilian copper, the MP’s just tag along in their vacuum and do what they need to do.

Sounds like a totally illegal seizure of these items and typical of these MP arse clowns who respond to anything interesting with a knee jerk and a big crow bar and wonder why the sh/t is all over the fan when it goes pear shaped.

Sadly for some of these folk going MP is the only way they get promoted, no wonder everyone hates them. I had one as a mate in Puckapunyal and I hated him on principle. This guy has been stuffed around and the MP’s should have known that they needed a Police officer with them when they went to confiscate goods held in civilian custody.

This has indeed been ‘a bit of a joke’. FYI the owners were not present when the military police arrived to seize the pamphlets. Nobody thought at the time that it was important enough to warrant any attention – just one of those bizarre things that happen, sort of like a comet out of nowhere …
One of the onlookers happened to be a reporter. It is rather strange though, in the age of Wikileaks, that this sort of thing can still happen.
I wonder if it is still legal to herd sheep across the Sydney Harbour Bridge between midnight and dawn?

As PBO said, no jurisdiction there unless the warrant was issued by a civilian copper, the MP’s just tag along in their vacuum and do what they need to do.

Sounds like a totally illegal seizure of these items and typical of these MP arse clowns who respond to anything interesting with a knee jerk and a big crow bar and wonder why the sh/t is all over the fan when it goes pear shaped.

I’d ask for a comprehensive list of books they feel are the property of Defence and/or classified in order to avoid this situation in the future. I wonder how many of the books in question are in the public collection in half the libraries in Australia?

This has provided Mr Maddox with rather a lot of free publicity for Beyond Q second hand book store.

PBO said :

They have no juristiction at all, the shop owner could have told them to piss off if he wanted to.

See, that’s my concern – did he know that? If a bunch of burly people identifying themselves as police, military or otherwise, turn up at your shop demanding you hand over “classified military material”, (however politely that demand is made) then unless you have a decent background in law, you’re unlikely to tell them where to go.

Spectra said :

I was wondering about this myself. I’m not at all familiar with what kind of jurisdiction MPs have outside of defence, but I’d be surprised to learn that it extended to raiding civilian premises and taking stuff. I would have thought that the recovery of classified material (or unclassified, as it would appear in this instance) etc was well within the purview of the AFP. But I genuinely don’t know – anyone with more knowledge care to comment?

They have no juristiction at all, the shop owner could have told them to piss off if he wanted to.

As for the person who dobbed him in, he could have just gone to the defence library and copied them there instead of stuffing this guy around. What a tool.

I hope they paid for them…

Sounds like a good bookshop. I wonder if they have any copies of the PSM? ASIO want way too much for new ones.