Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Copping it left, right and centre

The Police Association announced their wishlist for political parties today. While the list doesn't include martial law, the list moves significantly towards it:
  • Funding for the new Supercops
  • Urgent passage of the Criminal Proceeds Bill (where reasonable doubt is replaced by probabilities)
  • ASBOs investigation (cops want to go through the illusion of a trial period, a bit like...)
  • Tasers for all cops
  • Compulsory DNA from all suspects (thereby giving them familial DNA of non-suspects)
  • Complete archive of all text messages for six months by phone companies (how's that for flyng under the Bill of Rights radar?)
  • Giving automatic name suppression to cops who kill people
In fairness, there is one thing I do agree with, being able to issue temporary "on-the-spot" domestic violence protection orders. It's a better form of domestic violence triage than is currently available.

The bad news is, neither of the big parties seem to have a problem with any of this list. Sheesh, most of this stuff is happening under Labour anyway. Some years in the future, when your kid is busted/tasered for smoking marijuana, just take heart that the police will be grabbing YOUR DNA as well as your errant child's at the station. And if that information turns up in a landfill or a gutter, it will be to late to whinge by then.