I recently heard the customs department want the right to passwords for computers being imported by travellers to New Zealand.

The excuse is the terrible bogeyman ‘terrorist'. Next they will want to read our diaries.
Edward Snowden showed our electronic correspondence is subject to scrutiny. Who do you believe, Snowden or John Key?

Perhaps the Post Office could hire the unemployed on zero hour contracts to open and read all mail before delivery?

Terrorism is again diminishing our civil rights, what ones we have left.

A look at recent New Zealand history shows the average Kiwi is more likely to die of old age in prison after being wrongfully arrested for murder than be a victim of terrorism.
The last such incident I recall was a Dutch sailor on the Rainbow Warrior in 1985 when it was bombed by our good friends, the French.

I can think of four Kiwis wrongfully convicted of murder. I can only recall one terrorist murder. The result is ‘beware' of the police, and all the terrorism talk is greatly exaggerated scaremongering to curtail our rights. However, this might change now our noble Prime Minister has committed forces to Iraq without seeking parliamentary approval.

P. Dolden, Papamoa.