I don’t drive and I don’t really drink, so I have no dog in the new drink driving laws fight that have come into effect, but what I do find hilarious is how easy it is for authority in NZ to distract NZers on the one hand while gaining what they really want with the other.
No one would have that much of an issue with lowering the drink driving rates, but what the Police are actually gaining here is the ability to fingerprint and take DNA samples from anyone they suspect of drink driving. This exercise has little to do with public safety and everything to do with expanding the Police DNA database with a much larger net…
Police go hi-tech with new drink-driving crackdown
Motorists suspected of drink-driving can now have their fingerprints taken and stored on a police database in the upgraded Tasman Police booze bus.The booze bus biometrics system is one of two new crime-fighting tools that will be out on the road this summer – and reinforced by tougher new limits on drink driving.
The technology will allow officers at roadside checkpoints to electronically scan fingerprints and take digital photographs. They can confirm a suspect’s identity, compare their biometric data to existing records, and store new information.
It will be able to catch out anyone who uses a fake driver licence or provides false details, said Tasman road policing team leader Senior Sergeant Grant Andrews.
Police can also check whether a driver has outstanding demerit points or warrants for arrest.
“It gives us a whole lot more powers that we can invoke in the time on the roadside that we may not have done in the past.”
Police will also be using Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology, which can scan up to 3000 vehicles an hour.
The camera, which is mounted on top of a patrol car, scans the number plates of passing vehicles and feeds the information to a computer inside the vehicle.
It can identify whether the vehicle is registered, unsafe, stolen, or linked to a crime in real time.
…so while the media focus almost exclusively on the road safety message of the lowered alcohol limits, they seem to miss this sudden ramping up of the police powers of road side surveillance. Roadside fingerprinting, digital face recognition, DNA samples and automatic number plate recognition are vast jumps of power for the cops, but you wouldn’t know that from watching any of the news on TV.
Another increase of police powers with almost zero debate about the civil rights issues involved. This has little to do with road safety, and more to do with expanding the Police DNA database.
I don’t see where civil liberties are being violated? Can’t police already do these things, this is just some new tech that makes it easier and remotely available in their trucks? Though the storing of DNA is a little police-statey.
Why should they be able to take DNA and fingerprints off people they claim to suspect of a driving offence? How long before a full body scan and internal examination?
“The technology will allow officers at roadside checkpoints…”
“Allow” would have to be one of the most abused words in the English language. Technology doesn’t allow anything in the sense of making it permissible.
Vehicle licencsing is used as a cover for a state sponsored protection racket because ordinary use of a public road is a right and is not subject to licence.
The legal basis of licencing of road users originated with commercial use, there is no legal basis for the licencing ordinary use of highways or public roads.
geezus!!!
The right of ordinary use of publc roads and highways is an aspect of one of the natural rights of English common law, namely the right of liberty. Not only does the state not respect the natural rights of New Zealanders, it actually misrepresents the nature of the common law itself by describing it as being nothing more than case law. This is an issue that goes to the the heart of the civil institutions of the state, and addressing the problem involves exposing the constitutional fraud which has been committed against the public from the time that the Crown assumed sovereignty over the land of New Zealand.
John Casey, ex-US republican senator said,
“The government’s favourite way to control the population is to keep them misinformed.”
This is what Key has been doing since he took over this country as leader, and the Police are included in the public agencies that he is using to control the population as Pre War Germany did.
Government control though fear and misinformation is now rife in N.Z.
Surely the winds of change will come around to throw this corrupt lot out as Australia Victoria voters did on the weekend.
Australian Labour Party was voted back into power in the Victorian elections, on the weekend in a land marking trounced victory over a one term controversial errant right wing Government racked with corruption as we have here with FJK.
The Australian MSM was saying it was historic as the first time in almost 60yrs that the ruling National/Liberal coalition government was swept aside after just one term.
Halleluiah!
It made getting up on Sunday worthwhile, but I notice on our sleepy press MSM not a word of a labour victory in Australia was to be found this side of the ditch.
Does FJK actually control all the media this side of the ditch too?
Must be part of his control of our population by fear and misinformation?
I was always under the impression Police had to have a court order to collect DNA….perhaps I am wrong. I know they used to have to…is this yet again another law change snuck through without us being aware?
Revenue gathering and increased control, public safety is just a pretense. I guess it’s expected with tax cuts benefitting the wealthy.
What I find interesting where I live is many Thursdays when many beneficiaries receive their benefit there are Police checkpoints on the road. Almost seems like they’re targeted.
How long before the Police have a reason to barge into your home and issue fines and the like?
They will target beneficiaries because they know they’re more likely to find someone who hasn’t had money to register the car, or to buy new tyres, or 101 other things. You don’t see them in Epsom with their booze bus, but there’d be plenty there over the limit.
Where does it say police can take DNA samples from drink drivers?
What is wrong with those number plate systems? A bit of scare mongering in this article really.
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