Media release: Police state expansion to be debated
From: Stop the Search and Surveillance Bill Campaign
Date: Tuesday 6 April 2010

‘Two sides of the vigorous debate about the dramatic expansion of police and government agencies’ powers will be heard at a public meeting on the Search and Surveillance Bill on 8 April 2010 at VUW Law School Lecture Theatre 2 at 7pm’ said the Campaign’s spokesperson Batch Hales.

‘We have invited Warren Young from the Law Commission to explain just exactly why the state should have vast new powers of search and surveillance. Michael Bott, spokesperson for the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties will argue that not only are the new powers not warranted, but that they represent drastic and fundamental erosions to longstanding legal conventions such as the right to silence, the right to be free from unreasonable search and the right against self-incrimination.’

‘It seems clear that many parliamentarians simply had no idea what this bill was proposing until public submissions were heard in October of last year. Fortunately, that process has been stalled and it is our belief that most parliamentarians will not be able to support such drastic expansion of state power.’

‘It is a curious evolution of the National Party that in 1974, their party strongly opposed the expansion of police powers to tap people’s phones and now they are considering passing a bill making homes, libraries, public buildings, businesses, churches and schools open to all manner of search and surveillance by some 70 government agencies.’

‘This is a bad bill. The state’s ability to violate people’s rights must be limited, not expanded open slather that makes New Zealand into an Orwellian nightmare.’

The meeting is free and open to the public.

ENDS

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