Police spying on the rise

NORTHERN Territory Police spent more than 80,000 hours secretly spying on suspects last financial year.

Figures tabled in Parliament reveal NT Police spent 3895 days in 2004-05 conducting surveillance, almost double the total of the previous financial year.

There were 59 warrants issued for listening, tracking or filming devices to be used for surveillance. These included 35 applications for a tracking device, 26 for listening bugs and 16 for filming.

No warrant applications were refused and the length of time that police could conduct surveillance operations ranged from three days to 90 days.

Information gleaned from electronic surveillance resulted in 21 arrests and four convictions.

Acting Assistant Commissioner Crime Command George Owen refused to comment about the upsurge in the use of electronic surveillance when contacted by the Northern Territory News.

After repeated requests over several days to speak to Mr Owen about the use of electronic surveillance, the only comment he made via a typed press release stated: ``With the emergence of new technology, electronic surveillance has been embraced by NT Police as another tool in our intelligence-led approach.''

Mr Owen was more forthcoming about the creation of a specific Informant Management Unit after the number of paid informants rose sharply over the last 12 months from eight to 24.

``With the increase in police numbers the organisation was recently able to create a specific Informant Management Unit,'' Mr Owen said in a typed press release.

``This unit is tasked with increasing the human source of intelligence, or in other words, gaining credible information on criminal activity.

``Despite an increase in electronic surveillance, human sources are often the best source of intelligence.''


Newshawk: http://www.napnt.org
Pubdate: Thur, 27 October 2005
Source: Northern Territory News (Australia)
Author: Greg McLean
Copyright: 2005 Northern Territory News
Contact: ntnmail@ntn.newsltd.com.au
Website: http://ntnews.news.com.au/