Police take legal action against Hager
Hager prepares separate judicial review case.
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Hawke’s Bay
Dirty Politics author Nicky Hager is being taken to court by the police, who are seeking access to information he insists is privileged and therefore off-limits to them.
Police searched Mr Hager’s home in early October in an effort to uncover clues to the identity of the hacker known as ‘Rawshark,’ who apparently provided the investigative journalist with the source material for his book.
That source material consisted of emails and other information ‘Rawshark’ allegedly hacked from the computer of ‘Whale Oil’ blogger Cameron Slater, whose complaint to police about the theft of his property eventually triggered the search of Mr Hager’s house and the removal of some of his property – which included computers, drives, phones, CDs, an IPOD and a camera, in addition to documents.
Mr Hager subsequently asserted that documents uplifted by police are protected by privilege because they contain information that might identify confidential sources. As a result, the police sealed the documents and lodged them with the High Court.
The police have in turn asserted Mr Hager has no valid claim of privilege in relation to the sealed documents and are seeking the opportunity to argue that view before the court to review the material as part of their investigation.
Today there has been a preliminary teleconference held to discuss these issues between the High Court, and lawyers for Mr Hager and the police.
Meanwhile, Mr Hager has decided to challenge the legitimacy of the police search of his home and the seizure of his property via a judicial review, and intends to launch these proceedings in the next few days.
Soon after the search of Mr Hager’s house, a crowd-sourced legal fund was launched on Mr Hager’s behalf. The total raised currently stands at over $56,000.
Nick Grant
Thu, 23 Oct 2014
Thu, 23 Oct 2014
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Police take legal action against Hager
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