"The Dominion Post's decision to take the 'publish and be damned' approach I yesterday urged on TV3 toward the evidence on which the police anti-terror raids were based is vindicated by the evidence thus revealed," says SOLO Principal Lindsay Perigo. "So are the raids themselves. And TV3 are exposed yet again as the abject fellow-travellers of those whom I have so rightly been calling the 'wannabe terrorists.'

"As the Dom-Post's editorial trenchantly observes:

'Solicitor-General David Collins, Qc, has spoken of "very disturbing activities." The material in the affidavit the police submitted to obtain search warrants more than confirms that description. Some will continue to dismiss much of what was intercepted as the empty talk of people with delusions of guerrilla grandeur. They will say the police should not have taken seriously those who allegedly discussed assassinating National Party leader John Key should he become prime minister at the next election. They will still argue that the police were over-reacting when suspects allegedly discussed creating urban and rural warfare, killing police, removing Pakeha farmers, and committing actions so brutal people would think al Qaeda had arrived. However, they will find it harder to dismiss what the affidavit says the police surveillance uncovered - trainees at camps in the Ureweras ambushing vehicles and carrying out military-style drills with live rounds, taking part in "terrifying" counter-interrogation training including holding guns to participants' backs and accusing a suspect of being a police informant, throwing Molotov cocktails, posting sentries and carrying out military drills. That is more than empty talk. Police needed to treat that seriously and needed to investigate. To do anything less would have been to fail in their duty to protect New Zealanders. We believe that the police were right to act.'

"To the Dom-Post, so often in the fellow-travellers' camp itself, I say bravo! To the police, so often violating rights rather than protecting them (for instance, the right to defend oneself with a firearm), the heartiest possible bravo and thanks for doing the job they're supposed to be doing for once, and doing it so well and proactively," Perigo concludes.

SOLO SOLOPassion.com

Lindsay Perigo 021 255 8715