Posts Tagged ‘police powers’
The scariest sentence in the English language (and ‘stolen data’)
“I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” Yeah, that’s an oldie but a goodie. Let me use that as an introduction (well, I just did, thanks) to news revealed by the New Zealand Government. It’s in a very nicely laid out booklet called ‘National Plan to Address Cybercrime’ (right); with a tagline: ‘Improving […]
Chris Trotter on the Urewera Four. Wow!
I’ve held off making any comment about the Crown decision, announced this week, not to retrry the ‘Urewera Four’ on charges of ‘belonging to an organised criminal group’ after their original trial jury failed to reach a verdict on those charges. This, despite my own (default?) views of police powers, disclosed here before. But wow! […]
Questions about the teapot investigation
So, it’s been announced the cameraman who recorded the pre-election ‘cup of tea’ between John Key and John Banks in November last year won’t be prosecuted. Stuff.co.nz reported: Police will not lay charges over the “teapot tape” saga and say freelance cameraman Bradley Ambrose has received a warning. Assistant Police Commissioner Malcolm Burgess held a […]
Put yourself in her shoes
This is worth reading … Naomi Wolf: how I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street. It demonstrates something I’ve seen — police becoming fixated with ‘keeping order’, and applying strong-arm tactics to people who are not their normal clientele, and will inevitably apply ‘scrutiny’ to their civil-rights-cramping actions. I’ve been caught by this myself, and […]
Lawyers (and lab rats) have their uses
Despite all the jokes about lawyers (some of them very funny, like Q: Why do some experiments use lawyers instead of lab rats? A: Because there are more of them, there are some things even rats won’t do, and the experimenters prove less likely to become emotionally attached to lawyers than rats) there are times […]
Laura Norder a surprise election issue?
The Supreme Court’s decision last Friday to declare covert police surveillance videos unlawful unless properly authorized by a court had big implications. Under this country’s Bill of Rights Act, citizens have a right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure by the forces of the state. It seems some aspects of the police’s search […]
