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Search warrants

Sneaky devices 3

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

The cameraman in the middle of cuppagate, Bradley Ambrose, is reportedly seeking a court declaration that he committed no crime because the recorded conversation wasn’t private. (That is, that the conversation did not occur in circumstances in which any party ought reasonably to expect that the communication may be intercepted by some other person not having the express […]

Searching inquiries

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

I’ve just stepped off the plane back from Melbourne to find that the police are following up a complaint from the Prime Minister by executing search warrants against the media in what could be seen as an attempt to prevent the publication of material that might embarrass him shortly before an election. I’m just wondering […]

Staggering bunk from Collins over surveillance bill

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

Apparently, Police Minister Judith Collins has a law degree. That was not evident during her performance on Morning Report today. Was she deliberately misleading us, or did she simply not know what she was talking about? She said: Actually, video surveillance has been used by the police with the support of the Court of Appeal […]

Police search warrants against the media

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

In light of the police’s impending execution of a search warrant on the offices of the Herald on Sunday over Holmes’s (apparently) recorded interview with Tony Veitch, I thought y’all might be interested in the Court of Appeal’s guidelines for the issue of such warrants (from TVNZ v Attorney-General [1995] 2 NZLR 641): One guideline, […]

Police raid TV3

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

It’s being reported that police are executing a search warrant in TV3’s premises. As I’ve noted, given the case law, I’m not surprised that the police were able to obtain a warrant. An important factor for a judge in deciding whether to grant the warrant is the cogency of the evidence. Here it seems likely that TV3 have information about the identity of a confessed criminal. (NB […]