Australian Police Now Can Randomly Wand People With Metal Detectors

Under new laws that came into effect this week, police in New South Wales (the state in Australia, Sydney is the capital) now have the power to randomly “wand” people with metal detectors in public places. This law already existed in another state but was rolled out nationwide in Australia after a mass stabbing in Sydney last year.

Back in 2001, New South Wales passed a similar law giving police the power to randomly sniff people with drug detection dogs at pubs, train stations and music festivals. Fast forward to today and every weekend you’ll see operations where large numbers of police will raid pubs and bring the dog around to sniff people. Same deal at train stations. You’ll regularly see operations where a dog will be randomly sniffing commuters while large numbers of police stand around and watch. These dogs are notoriously inaccurate, and there are reports on social media of handlers forcing their dogs to sit in front people in order to have them searched.

Music festivals are the worst. The police have drug detection dogs at every music festival in Sydney. People at these events are routinely subjected to full body strip searches. We’re talking completely naked searches where guys are told to lift their balls, girls are told to lift their boobs, attendees are told to squat and cough, bend over etc. Most of these strip searches don’t find any drugs, and you’ve got reports of innocent people being left sobbing and shaking after this has happened to them.

During the wanding operation in the photo, police searched 382 people and only 10 of them were found with anything illegal, including a slingshot and ‘drug paraphernalia’. Australia is a fine country but we have a shocking record when it comes to civil liberties.