Geesche Jacobsen
Crime Editor
March 5, 2009
NEW powers to secretly search homes and computers of people suspected of crimes ranging from murder to organised theft are wider than those now used against suspected terrorists.
The new covert search warrants would give police up to three years to delay informing targets they had carried out a raid on their property.
Standard search warrants, routinely issued by magistrates in closed hearings, require police to inform the target at the start of the raid.
Figures obtained by the Herald show that last financial year lower courts issued about 6600 search warrants to NSW police and other law enforcement agencies - an average of 18 a day.
Only about 300 applications were refused.
The proposed covert laws became necessary after the Supreme Court found in 2007 that three covert searches on a children's author suspected of drug offences had been unlawful.
The Council for Civil Liberties and the Law Society warned that the new laws could lead to an abuse of police powers and restrict the rights of citizens.
But the Premier, Nathan Rees, said: "If you are a serious criminal you should be very anxious. We now will have the power to enter your home without you knowing and collect evidence for subsequent prosecutions."
The new powers are to cover indictable offences carrying a maximum seven-year prison term and involving drugs, firearms or explosives, money laundering and fraud, violence causing grievous bodily harm, murder, destruction of property, organised theft, corruption, kidnapping, sexual offences or computer crime.
The covert search warrants would be approved by designated Supreme Court judges, who must hold reasonable suspicions that evidence of the alleged offence is at the home, or will be there within 10 days, and that it is necessary to search without the resident knowing.
The new laws would allow officers to impersonate another person while executing the search warrant and "do anything that is reasonable" to conceal the covert raid. However, the judges also have to consider the target's privacy.
The president of the Law Society, Joe Catanzariti, said it opposed the concept of covert search warrants. "The requirement for notice of an intended search is an important safeguard and in its absence the potential for abuse is extreme.
"[It] seriously undermines the balance between the state's right to investigate and prosecute crime and the rights of individuals to carry out their proper business and lives without fear of intrusion by the state."
Stephen Blanks, the secretary of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties, said police had enough powers. "Police will be opening themselves up to allegations that they have planted evidence or tampered with evidence when they are conducting searches without any independent supervision," he said.
Powers granted for suspected terrorists were being extended, showing the need for a human rights bill, he argued.
The Police Minister, Tony Kelly, said the NSW laws would grant police up to seven days to examine data from computers, whereas federal laws, aimed at terrorists, grant only 72 hours.
The proposed laws provide for reports on covert search warrants to Parliament and the Ombudsman. Mr Blanks also called for oversight by a public interest monitor, as in Queensland.
The Police Association's vice-president, Sergeant Scott Weber, said the powers were "a much needed tool … in the fight against organised crime".
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