Posts by Alfie
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Speaker: The End of Trust, in reply to Andre,
Loving the fact that Greenwald is seeking to debate the PM in person now.
Do you have a reference for that Andre? I can't find it in either of the major papers.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to nzlemming,
The legislation forbids the Director of the GCSB to take any action that would further the interests of a political party, and declassifying and publishing would further the interests of the National party.
Whoa... a few hours later and we've changed our mind.
Prime Minister John Key says he will not release documents that show that spy agencies do not conduct mass surveillance on New Zealanders until after journalist Glenn Greenwald tries to prove there is substance to the claim.
There's more waffle from Key about cyber security to muddle the waters. Otherwise it's "You show me yours..." and I'll see what we can come up with to minimise any damage.
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Key also claimed that Greenwald was being "paid" by Dotcom -- Greenwald denies that. The Herald is reporting that Greenwald's appearance fees are being donated to a local charity.
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Key certainly looked nervous on last night's TV3 News. Apart from claiming a Pulitzer prize winning author was one of Dotcom's "henchmen", he announced that Snowden was merely a "hacker" who had only obtained scraps of documents which didn't show the whole story. Methinks our PM needs to polish up on the definition of "whistleblower".
TV3 asked Key to confirm he would resign if Greenwald's documents proved he had been lying to NZ. He said "Yes." I'll bet he had his fingers crossed behind his back.
Greenwald told the Herald on Sunday he would be releasing details on The Intercept ahead of tomorrow's "Moment of Truth" town hall rally.
"If I were him I would come to seriously regret that pledge given the reality of what his Government has been doing," the American said.
He would also reveal the New Zealand spy agency was electronically tapping governments considered far from hostile.
"There's several countries that I think New Zealanders would not view as natural targets for New Zealand to spy on."
Surveillance intelligence that implicated the GCSB included internal government communications and those between governments and third parties.
He said his information was based on spy activity as recent as May last year. "It would be better for New Zealanders to have as much information ahead of the election on which they could base choices."
From what I've heard so far, Key's defense is that the GCSB planned (and set up?) a full scale surveillance programme then somehow changed their minds and didn't go through with it. If that's true, why did he change our law last year to make such mass surveillance perfectly legal?
Roll on Monday.
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to Angela Hart,
I've been wondering whether in fact the Five Eyes partners merely have an agreement whereby they analyse each others' data. That way each state could claim full deniability, as Key has done many times, while enjoying the "benefits" of massive surveillance operations being conducting against their own citizens. So Waihopai could be processing all US data (for example).
Or is that tipping too much of nod towards the tinfoil hats?
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Sorry to interrupt the discussion people, but we have a hint at the Dotcom announcement which is due on Monday.
This morning on TV3's The Nation, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald said that New Zealand's spying agencies had been conducting mass surveillance on New Zealanders as part of the Five Eyes arrangement between the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
There's a good chance that Greenwald has documentary proof, probably from the Snowden files, as John Key has already dissed Greenwald as "Dotcom's little henchman" and accused him of being "part of a Dotcom smear campaign to swing the election."
"There is no mass surveillance of New Zealanders by GCSB, and there never has been mass surveillance of New Zealanders by GCSB.
"Now in the fullness of time we'll respond to Dotcom's little henchman, but mark my words, he's wrong."
Key said what the GCSB did do was "provide support to agencies like the police if required".
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In the Slater v Blomfield case, Justice Raynor Asher has declared that Slater is a journalist. That will probably come as a surprise to genuine journos and to people like me who believe that putting your own byline on others' writing or accepting money to ruin people's lives really struggles to qualify as journalism.
However Slater can't claim this as a win.
Although Slater has blogged over the judgment saying "it's official now" - Justice Asher's full judgment says the sources Slater was trying to protect need to be disclosed in the full defamation proceedings.
Justice Asher said the case was not a whistle-blowing issue in which sources needed to be protected.
"Any public interest in protecting sources must be further diminished when there is evidence that a personal vendetta appears to be driving (Slater's reports)," Justice Asher said.
"Further, where the material provided by the sources appears to have been unlawfully obtained, that is a further factor lessening the public interest in the free flow of information."
The justice said the blog published by Slater "are extreme and vindictive and have the hallmarks of a private feud."
Justice Asher also states that the sources used by Slater came (from a) "hard-drive and other documents (that) appear to have been obtained illegitimately."
Slater has therefore been ordered to comply with discovery requirements in the substantive defamation hearing ahead and must pay Blomfield's costs.
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Facebook is trialling disappearing posts a la SnapChat in NZ. Could there be any truth to the rumour that messers Slater & Collins signed up immediately?
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Speaker: Telling Our Own Tales, in reply to Greg Dawson,
That one electorate has a hell of a lot to answer for.
When it comes to Epsom, David Parker has the right idea.
In a light hearted dig at Dr Whyte, Mr Parker said "we've promised Epsom that if we're elected and they elect Act we'd like an RMA-free zone for Epsom and see how long it is before they want the RMA back".
"A few more prisons, nice five-storey buildings blocking everyone's view, all permitted without the RMA", he said, drawing laughter from the audience.
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Speaker: Telling Our Own Tales, in reply to Hebe,
If "Jake" was correct, wouldn't our newspapers and TV screens would be full of Christchurch stories, embarrassing the government into actually fixing the problems? If that was the case, I doubt there would be so many people being royally screwed over by insurance companies and EQC. What colour is the sky in your world "Jake?
There's a lot to be said for banning the odd IP address.