If the Waihopai 3 are allowed to go unpunished after disarming the Waihopai spybase in 2008, Crown prosecutor Austin Powell asserted yesterday, it will be "a mask for anarchy". This tired phrase - perhaps an evocative tabloid newspaper headline, but totally irrelevant to current civil proceedings after the activists were aquitted of criminal charges last year - was brilliantly reclaimed by defence lawyer Michael Knowles in his statement at yesterday's summary judgment hearing at the High Court in Wellington.