Hard News: The GCSB Bill: eleventh-hour arguments
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small-goverment conservatives
An oxymoron. Conservatives need big government to keep the disenfranchised in check. Even propertarians want to replace government by corporates in fulfilling this function.
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Yes, there is a great deal of saving jobs at the cost of any vestige of integrity or independence. Peter Dunne is a worm and ACT a cluster of worm casts. There needs to be an MP with the independent will of Marilyn Waring (even if she chose the wrong party) to scupper the whole process.
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You've seen how unpleasant John is with anyone who is criticising his bill so imagine what life would be like for anyone within National who voted against it. I think a very nasty accident would befall them.
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I have just posted an extensive open letter to Peter Dunne. Right now we really do need him to change his mind and everybody telling him he is craven and has already betrayed us isn't necessarily helping the process.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1308/S00125/dear-peter-dunne-sos-save-our-souls-500-words.htm
It's more like 3000 words actually. And concludes thus:
Peter, the fact is that the only person who can ensure the right thing is now done is you.
The people of New Zealand and Wellington and perhaps even Ohariu will be enormously grateful if you ensure that due process is properly followed and that at the very least the Privileges Committee inquiry into the report leak is completed before the passage of the GCSB Bill.
The issues at the heart of the illegal mass-surveillance controversy - which now thanks to the disclosures of former NSA staffer Edward Snowden are now several orders of magnitude more serious that they were when the Kim Dotcom case began - are globally significant.
What happens with the GCSB Bill this week in NZ matters not just here, but throughout the world.
In 1985 the NZ Government chose - backed by a massive public mandate - to pass legislation the effect of which was to stop US ship visits to New Zealand. Four years later the wall came down and thirty years later the number of warheads has fallen from 60,000 to 16,000.
The legislation New Zealand passed was trenchantly opposed by the State Department at the time.
The US was fearful of what message us passing such legislation would send to the rest of the world, and particularly Denmark, Norway and Japan.
28 years later with NZ nearly back in ANZUS there is a strange symmetry between those events and the current situation.
Now the US Government is keen for us to pass the GCSB Bill as quickly as possible.
This time the US would like an example of NZ's acquiescence to the legality of it's ubiquitous surveillance infrastructure to provide to other nations whose politicians are coming under increasing pressure to explain just what the NSA, GCHQ, ASIO (Australia) and GCSB are doing and why it is ok that they are doing what they are doing.
Here in NZ what happened to you at the hands of the David Henry inquiry illustrated the dangers of investigators who do not understand the limits of their powers.
What happened to you also illustrated very clearly why it is not ok to grant powers of surveillance to agents of the executive - especially when those powers are poorly defined.
I hope you agree with me that down this is path we find Star Chambers, despotism and the destruction of freedom.
This is not something that should be allowed to pass softly as if we do not care, while we concentrate our attention on what our Prime Minister thinks ought to concern us, namely, how much snapper we are allowed to catch.
Dear Peter, right now the only thing that stands between the aspirations of millions of NZers to live in a country they are proud of, and the passage of this bill is you.
And this is why I entreat you to think on what I am saying.
S.O.S. (Save our Souls) and do not support the third reading of the GCSB or TICS Bills until there has been a proper inquiry into the matters which are raised by the Kim Dotcom and David Henry cases of investigative over-reach.
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Rich of Observationz, in reply to
Not gonna happen. I've heard the deal is that, after a suitable interval, he gets his limo back. That means more to someone like Dunne than all that liberty and integrity crap.
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Kumara Republic, in reply to
Yes, there is a great deal of saving jobs at the cost of any vestige of integrity or independence.
Does Peter Dunne have more to gain from supporting the GCSB changes, than just keeping his seat?
I think a very nasty accident would befall them.
Or at the very least, their names turned to mud and the subsequent loss of rank & status.
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Tamure never comes...
It looks like Key may free up the demand on the nation's thought processes...
Now possibly they can all think about the GCSB bill now that their Snapper haul isn't threatened.Prime Minister John Key has sent his strongest signal yet that the Government is poised to back down over plans to cut anglers' bag limits on snapper.
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I was dumbfounded reading that Kerre McIvor piece:
I couldn't give a fat rat's bum if they monitored my house and my life
A quote for the ages.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
Waste of time. I wrote a similar plaintive missive to him before he committed to swallowing, and heard nothing more than the automated response from the parliamentary email system. He's not interested in doing what's right by NZ.
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Matthew Poole, in reply to
I was dumbfounded reading that Kerre McIvor piece:
I couldn’t give a fat rat’s bum if they monitored my house and my life
The local perverati will be pleased to hear that she'll be dispensing with curtains forthwith, I take it?
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"chris", in reply to
The local perverati
Yes, we're here, no one appears to be home so we're taking pics of her furnishings - Global knives, Nice!
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Sacha, in reply to
she'll be dispensing with curtains forthwith
Nah, they're for the protection of others (as I describe my own).
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This live feed is excellent viewing. Cheers for the link Russell.
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I facepalmed at that Kerre McIvor column too, but I believe that it represents a huge chunk of the population who believe we should all be nicer to each other, and not be down on people undergoing "genuine hardship", but some people need a firm hand to make sure they stay in line. And that nice Mr Key just has our best interests at heart.
I shouldn't sound so patronising, but the tone of that whole piece invites it. This is the dangerous complacency of many. Those who lived through an era where politicians clearly signalled their agendas, perhaps. You knew full well what Muldoon and Bolger/Richardson were like, whether or not the full detail was clear. If you voted for them, you wanted the "hard line". Key just comes across like a massive concern troll.
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andin, in reply to
that Kerre McIvor column
She'd probably had a wine or 3...
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Craig Ranapia, in reply to
I couldn't give a fat rat's bum if they monitored my house and my life
You know what, Kerre - I don't believe you. I think you've give a whole lot of fucks if some tabloid sleazebag pulled a Screws of the World on the cellphones and e-mail of you, your partner and daughter. So what's so different about it being done by a state agency, without clear justification or oversight?
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Speaking of Dunne, has anyone done anything in the way of polling his electorate since this whole* issue occured? I know we can never count the guy out, but I'd be interested to know how the electorate is taking it all, more so than just speaking to friends who live there.
*The GSCB bit and his party deregistration
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nzlemming, in reply to
Dear sir
You have engaged one of my pet peeves in that letter. You write :The Speaker of the Parliament was apparently lied to by his own staff about the phone records of Andrea Vance. At the very least they were less than fulsome with the truth and eventually only found out via the persistence of Green Party Co-Leader Russel Norman.
However
ful•some (fo͝olˈsəm)
adj. Offensively flattering or insincere. See Synonyms at unctuous.
adj. Offensive to the taste or sensibilities.
adj. Usage Problem Copious or abundant.I expect a full report of your self-flagellation.
To be fair, you are far from the only journalist to misuse this word and many do it far more egregiously than you, but you did misuse it and there must be consequences.
Yours sincerely
a lemming -
Ian Dalziel, in reply to
fool some of the people...
one of my pet peeves
+1
...and is it too late to save 'decimated' as well !?
PS My devil's advocate has piped up and pointed out that: egregiously
is another of those morphed and debased words...egregious
adjective
1 outstandingly bad; shocking : egregious abuses of copyright.
2 archaic remarkably good.guess we cleave to what we can...
buggercleave
1: split or sever
2: stick fast to...it's a bloody minefield the English language....
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Bully beef...
Just a reminder of the kind of folk we are in the 'intelligence' bed with...
Whitehouse & Whitehall liaise to intimidate reporter's partner
No real good will come of this Bill as it stands... -
izogi, in reply to
Speaking of Dunne, has anyone done anything in the way of polling his electorate since this whole* issue occured?
Indeed, especially as he really only got in to begin with due to National effectively pulling its candidate (who still received 7000 votes!) Unless UF has a surge in popularity nationwide, or National plans to pull its candidate again for other reasons, it doesn't seem as if it'd help him to be doing everything that the National Party does.
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I think that Dunne knows that he and his party are toast and all he has left is his sinecure - of course if he really wanted to actually try for the votes he'd take a stand and do the decent thing rather than sell his vote to the highest bidder
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Ian Dalziel, in reply to
securing the future...
all he has left is his sinecure...
an insecure sinecure it is at that,
still he has a parliamentary pension
and all that free travel to look forward to... -
and yet another reminder of the kind of folk we are in the ‘intelligence’ bed with…
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andin, in reply to
still he has a parliamentary pension
and all that free travel to look forward to…Wish he didnt, its certainly undeserved
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