Internet Users Collaborate to Help Draft New Zealand Law

New Zealand's Police Act was enacted in 1958 and the government realized that it needed to be updated to meet contemporary policing challenges. As a result, the New Zealand government launched an 18-month long review of the Police Act (statute) and sought public consultation as part of the review. To engage the public in online consultations, the police launched an Internet collaboration tool, a "wiki". It allowed citizens from all over the world to work together to draft a new online version of the statute. This wiki version of the statute will be given to a parliamentary committee in 2008, to be considered along with other information gathered during the review process. The police hoped that the wiki would showcase a wide range of views about the statute from anyone who wanted to shape the new law. To encourage more people who were unfamiliar with the law to post their ideas, New Zealand police also created a "wiki sandbox" - a place for new users to practice drafting entries before posting them in the actual wiki Police Act. The New Zealand police were pleased with the overwhelming response to the wiki initiative, and the wiki has now been closed. All of the entries and suggestions have been consolidated in a final version of the wiki Police Act, available online. However, people can continue to e-mail suggestions about the statute to the New Zealand police department. Aaron Smith of the Pew Internet Project claimed that the wiki Policing Act 2008 was a major step forward in online democracy and that any corruption of the new law would have been reduced by the community of online contributors recognizing and correcting any false or malicious entries. For more information, visit: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7015024.stm To read the Wiki Policing Act 2008, see: http://wiki.policeact.govt.nz/ Summary by: Andrei Edwards