It turns out the Worker's Party weren't the only political party caught up in the police's dragnet of left-wing groups. According to a press release from Keith Locke, the police also spied on the Greens:
"The Green Party is also concerned that some of its own emails were forwarded by their agent, Rob Gilchrist, to the Special Investigation Group. We will be asking the Police whether they encourage this practice. There is no evidence to date that they have discouraged it."As Keith notes, spying on political parties is an anathema in a democratic society. Our police are dangerously out of control, and it is time they were brought back into line.
Meanwhile, I find it interesting that all our legislative and judicial safeguards against wiretapping and intercepting emails can be legally circumvented by bribery. Those safeguards exist for good reasons, and the sorts of crimes the police claim to be investigating these groups for are things they would never be able to get an interception warrant for. But apparently that all goes out the window if they pay someone. It's a nasty end-run around a law designed to protect us from exactly this sort of abuse of power, and a loophole Parliament should look at plugging.
