rights

Goodbye, Nanny State! Hello, Big Brother…

The governments proposed amendments to the Criminal Investigations Act are, quite simply, chilling.

The police already have powers to store your DNA but under very strict circumstances – under Judicial allowance or after being convicted of serious offences (rape, murder and some other). The Government wishes to change that so the police will have the authority to extract and store your DNA for simply being suspected of a crime.

This idea is at ends with the New Zealand Bill Of Rights Act (BORA). The governments Attorney General, Chris Finlayson, has reported back to the government this fact and it’s looking like it’s going to be ignored, and National will ram through more legislation under urgency totally bypassing the select committee submission process once again.

This is ridiculously scary stuff. Especially since similar movements to allow police fishing expedition in the UK are now under investigation for breaching the European Bill of Rights.