from theBFD
Trust us, we know what we’re doing’ is, sadly, not a motto that sits comfortably in the perception of NZ Police by the general public; think more, ‘Heavy-handedness is our thing’.
So when the NZ Herald announced front-page on the 29th of December that police had set up a new unit which is, as we speak, “monitoring” our social-media proclivities, we should all be very concerned. Worse, when the raison d’etre for the impingement imposed on our privacy is couched in utter gobbledygook:
“The team provides a dedicated capability that assists in the understanding and collection of information from online sources”
our concern should be doubled, or perhaps squared.
Another of this government’s little stink-bombs released in the slow-news period when public attention is minimal, and this one smells the most.
Police have no place, whatsoever, intruding in the privacy of the New Zealand public’s individual activities without due cause.
They have zero right to go fishing, yet that is exactly what they are doing. Claiming some sort of prerogative as a result of reviews into the last year’s mosque atrocity, the police justification is baseless in light of the very clear-cut message from the Royal Inquiry published earlier this month.
If the police had done their job properly in vetting the Ch Ch mosque shooter for a gun licence there would be no need for an AI UNIT to monitor kiwi scocial media.
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It’s difficult to see what the Police expect to find on open Social Media. We commented in November: “But with the practice now of governments requiring the Social Media companies to censor content…the next alternative is what is called the Dark Web, the realm of most crims, terrorists and extremists. Will the government censorship of Social Media start pushing law abidding people there?
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