I'm not at all convinced by what he is saying. Does he have a personal grudge against the PSNI, or does he just fancy himself as an investigative journalist? To counter some of the points he makes in his article:
I regularly see the police announcing that they suspect there has been no "foul play" in a death, well before an autopsy has been carried out.
I don't ever remember a case, even the high profile ones we are all familiar with, where police have acquired warrants to search properties in the area. The police would have asked for a search warrant, and got one, where there was good reason to suspect a particular property. He is naive if he thinks that they can be used across a whole residential area. And you'd better believe he'd be the first one complaining about it in his blog if it was his property being searched under a wide-area warrant.
Can the police demand that householders hand over their CCTV footage. I doubt it, but perhaps NI has laws that allow this.
I see that comments are not being allowed on his article.