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New Zealand Police Act Wiki Lets You Write the Law
PhoenixOr writes "New Zealand is now on the top of my list for cool governments. They've opened a wiki allowing the populace to craft a new version of their Police Act, the legislative basis for policing in New Zealand."
Film at 11.
Cool government indeed.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
This was a science fiction story in which anyone could create a law. The visitor from Earth created a law saying that only qualified people could create new laws, arguing that otherwise someone might create a stupid one. The native said "Someone just did, in fact". The revert happened almost immediately, and the visitor was advised not to start a revert war: the reverter was described as "very good with the ritual sword".
I submit that the Title isn't notable enough with this google search only revealing one relevant link. As such I propose we delete this page.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Hm... so this means that young male techno-savy people are going to write the laws now? What do you think they will be?
1. Piracy is legal for any copyright that is represented by the RIAA or MPAA
2. Cute girls can't wear shirts
3. The new legal drinking age is 13
4. People over 50 aren't allowed to vote
???
d
all language nazi's will burne in heil!
I think having the community develop laws together is a rather superb way of handling society. The more people, (generally) the better (IMO). The more people that have their hand in this, the less likely something will be left out. Also, since everyone in that society will have to live with those laws, I think it's best that the majority has the opportunity to shape those laws (granted, not everyone will likely use this wiki, but I think the concept is good).
Doing it this way, the way I see it, has the potential to mend gaps between people groups in a society by allowing them to discuss their ideas and explain and collaborate their ideas carefully.
I wish more governments could be run this way -- moreso by the people.
And having this online provides an excellent communication medium.
While on the one hand getting feedback in this manner is good, satirizing them is also important. So its one step back one step forward for the New Zealand government.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Why do i get the impression that the new Police Act will consist mainly of LOLcats?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Yeah. I heard that someone also had a wiki to build an encyclopedia, but that's just as insane. It would just invite vandalism, and instead of leading to an informative and complete reference, it would waste money and manpower involved in maintanence and moderation.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
Police officers may not shoot people at random [citation needed]
Nobody said the result would definitely be used. The wiki is just being used to get suggestions and ideas...
The wiki does not allow people to write law. It is just for citizen input.
"People are calling it 'extreme democracy' and perhaps it is." Actually, we've had a word for it for a long time: Communism.
Communism and democracy is apples and oranges. Get your fact straight.
Communism corresponds to centralised economic model, versus free market. Democracy corresponds to the model of law regulation and separation of powers in the country. Versus, say totalitarian regime.
According to the New Zealand Police Act, the elephant population has tripled in New Zealand.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
This smells of WikiWar all the way from the other side of the globe:
"Smoking marihuana is <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>leghal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>legzzal</s> <s>illegal</s> <s>zzzZZZzzz</s> illegal!"
SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
I think the Peelian Principles are still good and sound:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peelian_Principles
If only my country's police force would follow them.
You've obviously never seen myspace
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
As pointed out elsewhere, the people who would participate are too self-selecting. They would just be too small a segment of the U.S. population.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for "participatory" government. The people who take the trouble to speak up are the ones who are heard.
I'm not from New Zealand, but I think with a name like "Police Act" that the law should roughly state: The beatings will continue until morale improves.
It's worth reading this rant on that popular joke slogan.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Isn't that day today? And yesterday, and the day before? "Benevolent Dictatorships" are exactly how fascism thrives. Keeping the trains running on time, building freeways, holding the Superbowl - that kind of thing. Without the bread and circuses, the fascists wouldn't remain in power so easily.
... and then they built the supercollider.
Communism is a great many things, it is a social and an economic model first and foremost, but communism, as opposed to social democracy, is the idea that the sum [or a random selection, similar to a jury] of the population set government policy.
No, please, I asked you to get your facts straight.
There's difference between the way most communistic countries developed in practice, the way it's described by ideologists, and the way it's described to the citizens in the the propaganda communist governments spread out.
It's perfectly possible to have both democracy and communism at the same time. They are not mutually exclusive.
You could ask: then why virtually any known communist government I know uses the totalitarian model, well this is because this is the model that develops when you overthrow the previous government with force. After revolution, it's always totalitarian regime.
Many modern democratic countries have implemented and running ideas from communism in SOME sectors of their economy, but they just don't call it that way (historical burden on the term itself).
As I've said many times before, we'll see ideas we thought mutually exclusive before (like libertarian ideas and communism) play together in an increasingly complex landscape of our national and international economies. It's just the result of increased complexity and the need to handle plenty of "special cases" in the interest of society (and various other interests...).
WTF? Laws should be constant? So slavery never should have been abolished, I guess. They should not be open for discussion? Sounds like fascism to me.
It should be the exact opposite - laws should change to reflect the times, and they should be constantly discussed and questioned.
... and then they built the supercollider.
GP hopefully meant:
Consistent: 2. Reliable; steady: demonstrated a consistent ability to impress the critics. Meaning that laws should be the same for everybody (applied consistently).
It does work in cases where people don't care. Sounds silly, I know, but that's how it is. It will only work for laws people don't feel strongly about. Or laws that only one side (pro or con) feels strongly about and the rest doesn't care.
Take the US and imagine a system like that. Now, take a law about subsidies for agriculture for example. Will it pass? Certainly. The farmers are the only ones who care about it. Do I care? No.
Now take a law about capital punishment, gay marriage or abortion. Then grab popcorn and watch the editwars.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Well I second that. I see no reason why the new technologies cannot help democracy to return to its roots i.e. everybody could and should take part in decision process. Just in case people forgot: partof decision making is discussion on available options, methods and leadership among other things.
Of course size matters here so the state organisations (big) cannot have their daily life led by democracy but the goals, the way to achieve them and the leadership that leads us there should be decided in a process at least approaching democratic way. What we have now in majority of western 'democracies' is a sad joke (yes I know there are people less fortunate than we are and not even majority of them live in N.Korea) based on the fact that it was not possible to vote for anything else than your representatives (who then could do what they wanted for few years). Now we have the technology to democratize our societies again - maybe we should use the chance.
If not we who would do it for us???
I think that where every 10/20 years the whole law book gets reviewed. Anything not entirely relevant gets removed so as to streamline the whole legal process. Most legal systems are full of laws that go back several hundred years and never get called on these days. If you don't see people herding sheep over london bridge its got nothing to do with the fact it's against the law, its just that there is no need to any more. Rather than the typical knee jerk reactions to some current event, a constantly evolving set of laws would be more in touch with the people and the state of the nation. To this end, a wiki is certainly an interesting way of doing things. A discussion forum on the various subjects may have been better as that would encourage proper discussion and discourage edit wars.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
I agree, I live in wellington. There is yet, nothing cool about using a wiki for our overdue update to the police act.
This is just an extra piece of fluff to go with the announcement of the new cyber-crime lab.
I wonder, did they also use green matrices and smoke effects to herald this new initiative?
However, if this is the start to allow citizens to write their opinions on forthcoming and existing laws, I'm in favor.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
> OK, it's unrealistic to believe that New Zealand would let anyone write the law. That would lead to anarchy.
You've been reading too much government propaganda.
"Anarchy" is a bogeyman that governments trot out whenever there's a danger that citizens want to control their politicians and make them servants of the people, which of course would never do.
It ranks alongside "Who will think of the children?", manufactured wars, and dozens of other diversionary tactics that they use.
Be wise to manufactured bogeymen.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Umm, no. We don't have a president. That would require a mature attitude to politics :-)
We are a realm of the commonwealth, basically the Governor-General looks after us on behalf of the Queen.
We only get to elect Parliament, local government and health boards.
However, I would agree that the masses (Auckland) and the Rest Of New Zealand (RONZ) know better than politicians.
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
New Zealand follows the German MMP system. We have one house of representatives. We will have 121 Seats unless there is another overhang next year. About half are directly elected, of which 7 are Maori seats. The rest are list seats allocated by putting in party nominees according to their share after counting what they won.
:-( :-P :-)
So, to get represented in parliament, you either need to win : a general electorate, a maori electorate or 5% of the party votes.
What this means is simple, Labour or National win a load of ordinary seats and fill with up a few list MPs.
NZFirst gets the elderly and the patriot vote. Sure to be there.
Greens get the young and the hippy vote. Like the smell of their voters, sure to be there.
Act gets the ambitious and business vote. Too well funded to lose, but I like them more than others.
Maori party, gets enough of the Maori seats and Pacific Islander votes to be there. A new party.
That irrelevant few that split up and now have bugger all chance. (One has gone to be the christian party with the MP who is in the first corruption trial.)
What would be easier would be if you are just going to make laws into online referenda (with postal voting allowed).
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Isn't NZ part of Australia? What does your real government have to say?
gd&r
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Well of course, that's obvious. It's reasonable to asume the wiki will be used to build a draft of the law, which will be later passed by the Congress, and "locked for edition".
I don't have a sig.