The danger of the NZ Police mass surveillance state – we have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity

ByMartyn Bradbury

neilroberts1

Graffiti outside the Whanganui Police Computer before an anarchist blew himself up.

38 years ago this year a young NZ anarchist punk blew himself up outside the new Police computer building fearing that the big brother state was looming.

The irony of what the State can now do would have that young anarchist reassembling in his grave. In this week the NZ Police were caught threatening researchers wanting to use that data with bans if they publish anything critical of the Police.

It seems every worst fear of  Neil Roberts have borne fruit with news that 2 million NZers are on the police computer…

Revealed: 2 million Kiwis have police alert on their names

Nearly two million people appear in a New Zealand police intelligence system with an alert against their name, inquiries by the Otago Daily Times have revealed. Those in the database are generally flagged without their knowledge, and a leading security analyst says the broad sweep of the system raises privacy concerns

…I know full well the damage Police abuse of power can create. My credit rating was shredded by Police involving me in their illegal search of Nicky Hager and I face a secret trial using secret evidence as I fight them in the Human Rights Review Tribunal.

The immense unchecked power the Police secretly wield over us with their intelligence computer is as far as I can see, a total no go area. It seldom comes up for debate and it rarely gets any focus. How much of what they hold is correct or even justified? When you consider there are barely 5 million of us in NZ, the Police holding information on almost half the population seems a tad ghoulish doesn’t it?

The Police are always pushing their DNA data base as well and are always trying to use tricks to get young people who have been arrested their give DNA samples voluntarily.

There needs to be an urgent stock take of the information held by the Police and justifications for holding it, but no such public curiosity has been amplified anywhere, which must be very comforting for the Police.

There has been an enormous expansion of Police powers under the last Government, before we hand over anymore to them in the wake of the Christchurch atrocity, surely we should check up on what they currently have and whether it’s justified.

 

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11 Comments

  1. L0L !,… half the population… I wonder if my 92 year old mum’s on that database? or the head tenants two 6 and 8 year old sons?

    Probably , oh well , its nice to be wanted…

    Really ,… how ridiculous.

    How ridiculous .

    And you can thank John XKEYSCORE Tapeworm Key for that , New Zealanders. All he ever wanted was to make you all feel included and wanted.

    Seems he succeeded.

  2. Yet we are okay for the Police and Police Association to push their views with the recent changes to the Arms act. Seems a little inconsistent.

    1. The police now have Henry VIII clauses in the arms act to determine what guns people have, not the government.
      Rushed through, before we see the reports on police licensing failings that allowed a foreign national to do this.
      Police also want to permanently carry arms themselves.
      Police Association even admits it has lied about gun crime to enable all this.
      A police state, courtesy of the sleepy hobbits of NZ and a police force making its own rules.

  3. No doubt I’m on that data base.

    Ironically, I doubt very much if the (alleged) Christchurch terrorist is listed on it.

    It is incredible what has come to pass, under stealth. Big Brother is definitely watching.

  4. Spoiled brats always want the latest toys. But what about the other toys? Neglected in boxes. There’s no point getting them more really

    Power without perception is spiritually useless and therefore of no true value.

  5. +100 “There has been an enormous expansion of Police powers under the last Government, before we hand over anymore to them in the wake of the Christchurch atrocity, surely we should check up on what they currently have and whether it’s justified.”

    Also in the face of terrorism which the police and security forces seem to be completely in the dark and unprepared about and in some cases helped aka by poor police inspections when giving him his weapons licenses, as they are so busy watching animal activists, looking for whistle blowers who are disclosing for public interest reasons and doing the public a service and Nicky Hager.

  7. Given that there are 2 million in the database you’d have to assume simply posting a comment on this blog would be enough to get on the list. I went on the anti-GE March in the early 2000s and also once interviewed Nicky Hagar on a community radio station so that’s probably 2 more reasons, I’m sure I can come up with more.

    It’s a pity they don’t publish the criteria because it would be great sport to see how many times we can get ourselves on there 🙂

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