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Speaker 1: Gilda. I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is a bonus episode

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Speaker 1: of The front Page, a daily podcast presented by the

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Speaker 1: New Zealand Herald. A terrorism charge has been laid against

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Speaker 1: a New Zealander who allegedly traveled overseas to join Islamic

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Speaker 1: State a decade ago. Mark John Taylor, also known as

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Speaker 1: Muhammad Daniel, was charged under the Terrorism Suppression Act this morning.

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Speaker 1: Charging Documents filed in the Wellington District Court state he's

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Speaker 1: being accused of participating in a group in Syria, namely

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Speaker 1: the Islamic State and the Levant or Isle, between November

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Speaker 1: twenty ninth, twenty fourteen and December twenty fourth, twenty eighteen.

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Speaker 1: It said he's believed to have joined the groups for

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Speaker 1: the purpose of enhancing the ability of them to carry

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Speaker 1: out or participate in one or more tear terrorist acts

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Speaker 1: intended to cause the death or injury to one or

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Speaker 1: more persons in one or more countries. It said it

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Speaker 1: was for the purpose of advancing an ideological, political, or

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Speaker 1: religious cause with the intention of inducing terror in a

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Speaker 1: civilian population, knowing or being reckless. Whether isol is a

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Speaker 1: designated terrorist identity. He faces a maximum penalty of fourteen

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Speaker 1: years in prison. Police Director of National Security, Detective Superintendent

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Speaker 1: Sean Hanson has confirmed police think he still overseas. The

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Speaker 1: charge relates to alleged participation in the Islamic State in

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Speaker 1: Iraq and the levant or isol to enhance their ability

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Speaker 1: to carry out or participate in terrorist acts in one

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Speaker 1: or more countries. He said. The police investigation, which spans

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Speaker 1: more than ten years, is continuing and police recently received

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Speaker 1: Crown law approval to prosecute. He remains a New Zealand

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Speaker 1: citizen and should he return to New Zealand, Hanson said

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Speaker 1: he will be brought to justice for his alleged involvement

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Speaker 1: with a designated terrorist organization. Police are not seeking extradition, however,

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Speaker 1: in the event he wishes to return to New Zealand,

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Speaker 1: this will provide an appropriate mechanism to manage his return.

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Speaker 1: It's understood Taylor was captured by Kurdish forces in northern

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Speaker 1: Syria in late twenty eighteen early twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson told me

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Speaker 1: the circumstances of foreign terrorist fighters detained in Syria are

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Speaker 1: extremely complex, as New Zealand does not have a diplomatic

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Speaker 1: presence in Syria. The ability of the government to assist

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Speaker 1: citizens is severely limited and it's very difficult to get

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Speaker 1: clear information, they said.

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Speaker 2: Within the past couple of hours. A New Zealander has

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Speaker 2: been named as a global terrorist by the United States

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Speaker 2: State Department. His name is Mark John Taylor, and he's

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Speaker 2: been fighting with ISIS and Syria since twenty fourteen. He's

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Speaker 2: also used social media to encourage terror attacks here and

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Speaker 2: in Australia.

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Speaker 1: So who is Mark John Taylor. Taylor was raised in

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Speaker 1: Hamilton and has also been known as Mohammad Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Abu Abdul Rahman. Taylor traveled from New Zealand to Syria

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Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen to join Islamic State. The same year,

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Speaker 1: he posted a photo online of his burnt New Zealand

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Speaker 1: passport and declared he was on a one way trip

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Speaker 1: with no intention of returning home. Earlier, in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and nine, he had tried to gain access to an

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Speaker 1: al Qaeda stronghold close to the Afghanistan border, but was

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Speaker 1: arrested by Pakistan authorities. The New Zealand government subsequently subjected

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Speaker 1: him to travel restrictions. He left New Zealand again in

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Speaker 1: twenty twelve, and worked in Indonesia for two years as

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Speaker 1: an English teacher before entering Syria across the two Turkish

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Speaker 1: border as a soldier for Allah. In twenty fifteen, the

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Speaker 1: US government declared Taylor a global terrorist after he encouraged

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Speaker 1: attacks in Australia and New Zealand and appeared in an

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Speaker 1: Islamic state propaganda video. He earned the moniker of the

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Speaker 1: bumbling Jihadi after mistakenly revealing the location of ISIS fighters

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Speaker 1: on Twitter after failing to turn off a tracking function

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Speaker 1: on his phone. He deleted forty five posts on the

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Speaker 1: social media website after they apparently showed he was with

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Speaker 1: ISIS in Kafar Roma. He apparently spent fifty days in

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Speaker 1: an Islamic state prison over that incident. Earlier, and while

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Speaker 1: in war ravaged Aleppo, Taylor claimed to have been in

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Speaker 1: touch with the New Zealand government in a bid to

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Speaker 1: get a new passport after burning his last one. In

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or ABC, reported that

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Speaker 1: he had been captured and imprisoned by Kurdish forces. He

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Speaker 1: told the ABC he had surrendered to the forces because

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Speaker 1: life had become unbearable and that he was in a pickle.

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Speaker 1: There was no food, no money, basic services were pretty

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Speaker 1: much collapsed, he said. Taylor claimed he lived with the

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Speaker 1: extremist group for five years as a guard, not a fighter,

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Speaker 1: and joining the group wasn't what he had anticipated. He

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Speaker 1: told the ABC that during his time with the Islamic State,

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Speaker 1: he witnessed a number of beheadings and executions. They had

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Speaker 1: a lady. They took her out of a truck and

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Speaker 1: shot her in the back of the head. There was

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Speaker 1: a big crowd gathering around. I asked, what's going on,

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Speaker 1: but no one answered, he said. The other time, I

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Speaker 1: was living in SUSA and they had someone crucified with

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Speaker 1: a sign around his neck, but I didn't know what

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Speaker 1: it read. I couldn't understand the Arabic. He also complained

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Speaker 1: to the ABC about not being able to afford a

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Speaker 1: female slave, saying it cost about four thousand dollars US

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Speaker 1: to buy an older woman, and to buy a decent one,

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Speaker 1: he said, you'd need at least ten or twenty thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars US. So when Taylor re emerged in twenty nineteen

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Speaker 1: after speaking to the ABC from behind bars, then Prime

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Speaker 1: Minister Desindra A Durn said he was our problem and

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Speaker 1: we have to accept that. Given Taylor only has New

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Speaker 1: Zealand citizenship, revoking it would make him stateless. While a

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Speaker 1: Durn said the government would make no effort to get

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Speaker 1: him back to New Zealand, she said if he were

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Speaker 1: to find his way to Turkey and to seek a

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Speaker 1: temporary travel document, New Zealand cannot make him someone else's problem.

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Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, the Terrorism Suppression Control Order's Bill was

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Speaker 1: passed into law with the intention of keeping the New

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Speaker 1: Zealand public safe if a person involved in terrorism related

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Speaker 1: activities overseas returns to the country. Then Justice Minister Andrew

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Speaker 1: Little said of that legislation that it was designed to

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Speaker 1: prevent terrorism and support deradicalization in a way that is

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Speaker 1: concealed distant with New Zealand's human rights laws. For some

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Speaker 1: more insight into this case, we're joined now on the

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Speaker 1: front page by Massi University Distinguished Professor Paul spoon Leaf. Paul,

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Speaker 1: how unprecedented are these charges?

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Speaker 3: Very I'm not aware that anybody has been charged while

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Speaker 3: they're overseas. I mean, we clearly have a series of

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Speaker 3: acts beginning in two thousand and two and updated in

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Speaker 3: twenty nineteen and then in twenty twenty two, which identify

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Speaker 3: who would be regarded as a terrorist threat in some

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Speaker 3: of the steps that ought to be taken. But this

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Speaker 3: is somebody who's still overseas and appears might still be

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Speaker 3: in Assyrian prison, although that's going to be an interesting question.

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Speaker 3: And I think it probably anticipates that person traveling on

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Speaker 3: a New Zealand passport or coming back to New Zealand.

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Speaker 3: So I think it's a peremptory move, but it's is

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Speaker 3: a very unusual.

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Speaker 1: Move dead police. I have to lay these charges just

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Speaker 1: in case he did make it back to New Zealand,

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Speaker 1: say on travel documents or something, because he did burn

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Speaker 1: his passport back in twenty fourteen apparently and posted photos

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Speaker 1: online of his burnt New Zealand passport. So if he

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Speaker 1: has made his way to say the Turkish embassy and

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Speaker 1: gotten travel documents to return to New Zealand, is this

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Speaker 1: just another mechanism that police can use to kind of

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Speaker 1: catch him at the border.

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Speaker 3: Yes. There was a discussion at the time when the

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Speaker 3: Prime Minister Descender Durnwade in and said, even if he

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Speaker 3: has burned his passport, he is still a New Zealand citizen,

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Speaker 3: so we need to give him the rights of that citizenship. However,

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Speaker 3: we've also in parallel got obligations under the Terrorism Suppression Act.

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Speaker 3: So I think it's a move to try and make

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Speaker 3: sure that if he comes back to New Zealand, under

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Speaker 3: this Act you can actually restrict movements and rights, and

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Speaker 3: you can do it for two year period, and I

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Speaker 3: think it's designed to do that. Now, what's interesting about

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Speaker 3: this is that under the Act you apply to the

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Speaker 3: Police Commissioner, he makes a ruling and then of course

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Speaker 3: the courts can do can lay the charges. Normally, name

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Speaker 3: is automatically suppressed and it can only be lifted by

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Speaker 3: the courts, and this is clearly what's happened. So we've

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Speaker 3: got a list of the organizations that are deemed to

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Speaker 3: be terrorists. Islamic State is one of those, and earlier

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Speaker 3: this year it was that designation of it being a

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Speaker 3: terrorist organization was renewed. On the list of designated terrorist organizations.

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Speaker 3: We have one individual, which is the christ shooter. So

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Speaker 3: it's not only unusual in terms of the person being

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Speaker 3: overseas and anticipating perhaps a return or perhaps accessing in

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Speaker 3: his own passport. But it's also that we now have

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Speaker 3: an identified person who has now had charges laid against

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Speaker 3: them as an.

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Speaker 1: Individual in terms of so he went over apparently to

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Speaker 1: Syria in twenty fourteen. It seems to me like the

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Speaker 1: two thousands and twenty tens especially, there were a lot

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Speaker 1: of not only New Zealand citizens, but citizens from all

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Speaker 1: over the world traveling to the likes of Syria because

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Speaker 1: they had been radicalized online. I mean, how does that happen.

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Speaker 3: It's an interesting dynamic because you know, we've got to

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Speaker 3: struggle with this as a society because it's not simply

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Speaker 3: those who have been recruited to Islamic and terrorist organizations,

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Speaker 3: but it's also of caused people such as the Christian shooter,

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Speaker 3: who were also recruited and radicalized online. And it's very

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Speaker 3: much a function of our contemporary online world and ability

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Speaker 3: to access without controls, really access material which enables you

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Speaker 3: to be convinced that something is wrong and that you

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Speaker 3: need to do something. Now, most people might be convinced,

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Speaker 3: but then don't do it. So this person Taylor who

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Speaker 3: is being charged, and of course the Christian shooter, what's

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Speaker 3: quite unusual there is that they not simply are convinced

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Speaker 3: of a particular set of views, are to draw their

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Speaker 3: sympathy to a particular terrorist organization, but also then to

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Speaker 3: act those out. And that's the threat to societies like

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Speaker 3: our own, that it's not simply that you are a

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Speaker 3: keyboard warrior in a particular echo change of going down

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Speaker 3: a particular rabbit hole and being convinced of a particular

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Speaker 3: point of view. It's that you will do something about it.

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Speaker 3: So to actually go as this person did to the

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Speaker 3: Middle East and to participate is a very significant move

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Speaker 3: or act, and we definitely need to understand why individuals

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Speaker 3: would do that.

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Speaker 1: And in terms of people becoming radicalized online, what kind

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Speaker 1: of mechanisms do we have in place to kind of

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Speaker 1: stop that from happening. I suppose they end up on

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Speaker 1: some kind of list.

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Speaker 3: Yes, we've we've got a list of organizations that are

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Speaker 3: deemed to be terrorists. So that's a start. As security

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Speaker 3: and intelligence services monitor individuals monitor activity, but of course

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Speaker 3: the sheer volume of activity is just extraordinary. And actually

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Speaker 3: you can have keywords that would trigger interest in the

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Speaker 3: particular exchange or a particular set of comments online, but

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Speaker 3: it is becoming increasingly difficult simply to track, monitor, understand

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Speaker 3: what's happening online. So we're increasingly reliant upon our partners,

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Speaker 3: and particularly our five Ice partners to give us information.

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Speaker 3: And of course, one of the interesting things about this

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Speaker 3: particular individual is that he's been deemed a global terrorist

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Speaker 3: by American agencies. So they actually moved in a way

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Speaker 3: earlier the way we did to be very clear about

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Speaker 3: the issues that this individual represents to us and to

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Speaker 3: other countries.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, Paul.

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Speaker 3: You're very welcome, Chelsea.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You

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Speaker 1: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage

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Speaker 1: at enzidherld dot co dot MZ. The Front Page is

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Speaker 1: produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin, who is also

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Speaker 1: a sound engineer. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to The Front

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Speaker 1: Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts, and

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Speaker 1: tune in tomorrow for another look behind the headlines.