more powers for overpowered NSW Police?
from AntBlog701

more powers for overpowered NSW Police?

A bad news for NSW citizens, and actually also a bad news for all visitors to NSW. According to yesterday's news, New South Wales Police will have new powers on disperse groups people slurring their words or being rowdy. The official excuse is to keep NSW safe from the drunks. (NSW police get new powers over drunks)

Want to have a few drinks with some friends and music on at the beach? Forget about it.

The powers will allow police to disperse groups of drunken and unruly individuals. Originally, police already have the powers to dismiss groups of people who are ‘seriously affected’ by alcohol or drugs. Now, there no need to be ‘seriously’ affected.

NSW Police Minister Tony Kelly said, “The difference between someone noticeably affected - they could have slurred speech for example - whereas seriously affected is a much higher threshold.”

Lawyer Phillip Gibbson said, “The one guarantee I can give you about more police powers is that they will be abused. The police will get it wrong.”

In the past, there are numerous reports of police abusing powers, including Bouncer Tarek Nassr's case. The magistrate condemned the Police.

News source: NSW police get new powers over drunks (The Sydney Morning Herald, 6 May 2009)

Here's the news clip from 7News:

(Click the screen shot above to watch the video clip)

The video clip is encoded with state-of-the-art video codec H.264, which delivers stunning quality at remarkably low data rates. QuickTime Player 7 (free) is recommended for watching the video.

Content of the video clip is copyright Seven Network.