COMMISSION DEFENDS SEARCH AND SURVEILLANCE CHANGES

A controversial bill changing search and surveillance powers does not
extend them the way critics say it does, Law Commission deputy
president Warren Young says.

Lawyers, the Privacy Commissioner, Human Rights Commissioner and
activists have spoken out against the Search and Surveillance Bill
which is based on a 2007 Law Commission report.

Parliament's justice and electoral select committee has extended out
to next May its consideration of the bill after the intense public
reaction.

Dr Young told Radio New Zealand this morning that much of the focus of
the criticism was on part four of the bill which opponents said
extended powers of non police agencies in an unwarranted way.

"Part four does no such thing, part four simply spells out how
agencies are to execute a power if their own statute has already given
them the power," he said.

"It doesn't give them any independent powers at all and the bill is
very clear about that."

In many areas of search and surveillance law at the moment decisions
were made case by case by the courts over individual searches, Dr Young said.

"That's very unsatisfactory because it creates uncertainty for law
enforcement officers, it often means cases are lost before the courts
because people don't know what the law actually was."

He said part four drew on existing case law to spell out what agencies
could do when carrying out a search power they already have.

Far from extending powers, it provided many safeguards for individual
citizens.

Concerns had also been raised about visual surveillance but again Dr
Young said new powers had not been added and the area was "completely
unregulated" at the moment.

He gave the example of a video being trained on a suspect's window 24
hours a day without any prior judicial approval.

Dr Young also disputed that the bill gave police powers to conduct
fishing operations when searching computers and warrants had to be
specific.

"We certainly in the bill have done nothing to change the law in that
respect."