NZ police broke the law when they raided investigative journalist's home

Cory Doctorow 10:01 am Wed Jan 6, 2016

The New Zealand High Court has ruled that the NZ police broke the law in 2014 when they raided the home of Nicky Hager, an investigative journalist whose work was sharply critical of the NZ government, and who was working on Snowden-related disclosures.

Hager's defense was funded by donations raised by the excellent Freedom of the Press Foundation. The court called the police's "good enough" warrant "fundamentally unlawful," and declared the raid to be illegal.

This reminds me of the raids on Kim Dotcom's house as well, which involved a bogus warrant. Though, in that case, the High Court, after admitting that the warrants were not drafted properly, decided they were "good enough." Either way, those are the only two law enforcement raids in New Zealand, and both came under sketchy circumstances, where the police couldn't be bothered to actually follow the rules. What's going on down there?

New Zealand's Raid On Investigatory Journalist Was Illegal
[Mike Masnick/Techdirt]

(Image: Nicky Hager July 2008, SimonLyall, CC-BY)

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