Could be self-stick stamps. I haven’t seen lickable stamps in years.
I don’t know about NZ, but generally speaking prisoners have no rights and are considered wards of the state. How many prison movies have you seen where the chief screw greets the incoming fish with “I own your ass”? (see The Green Mile for reference). I imagine the laws vary greatly from country to country, but I’m pretty sure that The Count of Monte Cristo would be considerably different if prisoners had rights way back when.
Murder 51 unarmed civilians in their place of worship and you’ve crossed some kind of line for me. Sure lots of important stuff has been written from a jail cell and after a quick look-see it can all be mailed as well. But in some cases (this is one), I would prefer we err on the side of caution and find that this guy has self-selected for isolation. He wants to write? Give him a pencil and pad of paper and stack it up for him for when he is released. Shit. Maybe I’m a fascist after all.
Do you know if the NZ hate speech laws extend to private personal communications? I ask because someone knows where the lines are drawn, and it is no coincidence that a person in Russia initiated this correspondence. The intent all along was to publish and if the NZ government can apply any censorship to this prisoner’s letters, I personally think that they should do so if the government believes that doing so will thwart future terrorist acts of violence (which in the US would come from a different toolbox, perhaps the Patriot Act - which I know next to nothing about so no need to correct me!). Curious what the government’s options are.
There is another level to this story besides, “whoops” and I hope that Five Eyes is all over this.