The narrative that the Government has tried to sell, and which has been largely accepted to date, is that the GCSB’s illegal spying on Dotcom was a cock-up. They claimed that Key wasn’t briefed, when he was. Using the same ‘unclearly and confusing law’ play as they used on Banks’ donations, the Nats also claimed only a change in immigration law in 2009 protected Dotcom. Now, we know that’s rubbish. Cover-up it is.
See, under the previous law, the GCSB couldn’t spy on people with residence permits. They could spy on people with residence visas. But the visa was just the thing that Immigration gave you when they said ‘OK, you can come to NZ’ before you got here and were given the permit at the border. So, there was theoretically a small window of time for someone who was about to become a permanent resident but hadn’t arrived in NZ yet where the GCSB could spy on them as if they were a foreigner. But the rule was clear: you can’t spy on a permanent resident.
None of that matters to Dotcom because a) he came in under the new law and b) if he had come in under the old law, he would have had the permit and so been protected from the GCSB.
Under the new law, the rule is still the same – the GCSB can’t spy on permanent residents. All that changed was Immigration’s paperwork. They got rid of permits and, instead, you get entry permission when you arrive with your visa. The GCSB’s rules changed so that they couldn’t spy on people with resident’s visas, whether or not they had arrived in the country yet.
Dotcom had a resident’s visa.
For its entire history, the GCSB has not been allowed to spy on permanent residents. A person with a residence/resident’s visa who is in New Zealand has always been protested from GCSB spying. Contrary to Key’s claim that “had he come to New Zealand at the time, without changes to the other laws, in particular GCSB’s law, then his activities would not have been protected”, Dotcom would always have been protected from the GCSB once he was in New Zealand – just his paperwork would have been different.
We’re being asked to believe that a law change that made it illegal for the GCSB to spy on people with resident’s visas before they entered the country was well as once they were here was misinterpreted by them as allowing them to spy on permanent residents all the time because they didn’t have residency permits – because they didn’t exist any more!
Nope.
This smells like bullshit that the GCSB worked up months ago and fed to the senile Judge Neazor.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress