Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Media3: Watching the Fourth Estate

Rob Stowell

Thu, 04 Jul 2013 15:13:07 +1200

And in more media news, Murdoch possibly caught admitting he knew of bribery, and heading for more trouble with the rozers?

Whoops

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 22:09:37 +1200

Kind of related, but certainly eye-opening to see it laid out like this;

http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention/

FletcherB

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 21:51:03 +1200

Does he actually have the powers he exercised?

He got the results he was looking for, so most evidently, he does...

It's the same line of logic that claims the new laws don't give GCSB new powers... it just "clarifies" what they are already doing.

If you do something thats…

Sacha

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 16:11:20 +1200

a lot of email responses from ministers are now coming from @parliament.govt.nz addresses rather than the Ministerial Services mail system, presumably in a misguided attempt by the ministers to avoid those messages being exposed under the OIA

Just like that hero of the unprincipled, Karl Rove.

Matthew Poole

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 16:10:56 +1200

What a mess.

Snowden’s only real hope at this point if he’s to continue blowing the whistle (ETA: given Russia's ultimatum) is military transport by a sympathetic country, which would be immune under diplomatic convention (ie: not starting a war) from interference by any country that was over-flown or landed…

Matthew Poole

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 15:53:11 +1200

the very political purpose of tracking down leaks to the press.

Indeed. It'd be one thing if it was the cops conducting a criminal investigation for the leaking of a classified report, and the PM's CoS ordered cooperation rather than demanding a warrant (though I suspect that, as a matter…

Russell Brown

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 14:20:07 +1200

Wikileaks has just fired off a volley of tweets indicating that Snowden is seeking asylum from pretty much any country that might have him and a few that definitely won't: Austria, Ireland, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Cuba, Nicaragua ...

What a mess.

Paul Campbell

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 13:15:39 +1200

statement from Snowden

Jonty

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 11:02:36 +1200

Putin's condition on offering Snowden asylum is that he mustn't release any more information and thereby embarass Mr P in his relationship with his good friend Mr O :--)

Russell Brown

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 10:39:52 +1200

And meanwhile, the Snowden debacle rolls on. He has now been obliged to seek asylum in Russia:

Russia maintains one of the world's most developed intelligence mechanisms and is widely believed to engage in snooping on its own citizens. In stark contrast to Russia's approach to Snowden, whom Putin likened…

Russell Brown

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 10:27:21 +1200

I think, if parliamentary email records are being provided at the request of the PM's Chief of Staff, MPs have to assume they have no private communication (to be honest, they should be assuming this anyway, it is just the other people in the know are much more local than…

Sacha

Tue, 02 Jul 2013 08:20:17 +1200

Dubya confirms his status as an easily-led dunce.

"I put that program in place to protect the country. One of the certainties was that civil liberties were guaranteed"

It's only metadata, after all..

Aidan

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:22:00 +1200

I agree with Paul that the “we only hack all the non-US scumbags” is not all that comforting. Unlike Haroon Meer who wrote that post, NZers have already had our “Oh, we aren’t special …” moment with the ANZUS nuclear-free NZ kerfuffle, and the Rainbow Warrior bombing.

When I came…

David Hood

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 17:05:45 +1200

Because, in New Zealand, our traffic is read by the U.S. (and probably, I would speculate, Australia), I hope that the U.S. outrage with their own government spurs privacy measures that benefit the world. At the moment, encrypted email is still a messy, complex option for most people.
I think,…

Sacha

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:01:41 +1200

One can't possibly comment, etc. :)

Stephen R

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 15:37:49 +1200

Echelon

Or in other words, we're already giving them all our traffic, so they don't need to put in effort to spy on us?

Sacha

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 14:55:32 +1200

Greens complain to Ombudsman about conduct of Henry leak inquiry.

Dr Norman said the issue was "very serious".

“The parliamentary server belongs to Parliament not the Executive. MPs control whether their email logs are released from the parliamentary server, not the Prime Minister’s office."

Russell Brown

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 14:46:27 +1200

Also the guardian published an article on potential European involvement in the whole thing, and then withdrew it. Someone kept it and has posted it here.

Total screw-up. They published and then unpublished the story online – but it stayed as the front-page lead of The Observer’s printed edition.

The…

Sacha

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 14:26:24 +1200

I wonder what we did that makes us more "ally" than the Germans?

Echelon

Jonty

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 13:13:05 +1200

All this hyper surveillance must surely be for 'commercial' information and advantage? So-called 'terrorist' traffic apparently employs highly sophisticated 'both ends' encryption buried 'deep' below this regular surveillance radar.

Kyle Matthews

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 12:16:01 +1200

I wonder what we did that makes us more “ally” than the Germans?

Not invade Poland :)

Stephen R

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 11:41:54 +1200

It's worth remembering these things for context.

Indeed. I remember thinking as the news broke that he'd flown to Russia that I wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable going through Russia carrying secrets about the NSA, and then when Snowden disappeared, I wondered if he was being "hosted" by the Russian Intelligence…

Kyle Matthews

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 11:16:51 +1200

Also the guardian published an article on potential European involvement in the whole thing, and then withdrew it. Someone kept it and has posted it here.

Russell Brown

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 10:46:54 +1200

Let's hope the Russkies, who apparently don't have an extradition treaty with the Yanks, will offer poor old Snowden sanctuary. Though I suspect Putin is wary of upsetting Uncle Sam ... refusing to co-operate over Syria is one thing but harbouring a US fugitive is something else.

I'd be hoping…

Jonty

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 10:41:31 +1200

Ian Dalziel

Mon, 01 Jul 2013 07:21:26 +1200

Orwell would be proud – big brother is watching
Happy Birthday George!
well last Tuesday...

Sacha

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 20:18:44 +1200

I doubt there is any legal basis for action (probably fine-print aplenty in the issuing agreement for parliamentary swipe cards), but I agree with David Farrar that the constitutional implications are dodgy.

I think this was the wrong decision by The Parliamentary Service.

Actual employees of a parliamentary agency have…

Alastair Thompson

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 19:02:23 +1200

"It’s yet another element in an endlessly metastasising story that began with a change in the global surveillance climate..."

Aha! The perfect adjective for this story :) Although if it is cancerous, it is only so to the intelligence apparatus and might be considered benign to civil society more generally.…

Paul Campbell

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:36:35 +1200

One of the things about the NSA revelations is the agonizing the 'merkins are going through about whether they're being spied on ... while being told "we only spy on foreigners" ... in other words us ...

This article hits some of the hot buttons that I feel at the…

Public Address

Sun, 30 Jun 2013 17:36:35 +1200

Discussion from blog post.