Cops get their wish and have killed the right to silence

Judges' okay needed to use SFO's powers
Police Minister Annette King says the new Organised and Financial Crime Agency will have the same powers as the Serious Fraud Office it replaces, but judicial approval will be needed to use it.

There has always been a suspicion that the bloody cops who have always wanted to kill the right to silence, would try and steal the power from the SFO when it was stupidly merged into the Police, and Annette King has just spilled the beans – the question now is the ‘drift’ the Police will now try and use this power. Previously the SFO had very specific guidelines on how they could use that power against large and powerful corporations, but watch how the cops will manipulate that against gangs and we won’t be far away from a position when gangs – who are the new terrorists – will suddenly be forced with this power to answer questions that have nothing to do with serious fraud – and that will be what cops have always wanted because once they breach that legal point over a group of people NZers love to hate, it can then start being used against you and me. We are allowing our civil liberties to be eroded without even debating it, we are turkeys voting for an early Christmas without looking to see who is on the menu.