3 News’ Patrick Gower seems to be incensed by the latest Dotcom revelations:
Dotcom: A systematic cover-up by police and spies
It is sad to say, but it is becoming increasingly clear there was a cover-up by our spies and the police in the Dotcom scandal. I want to make my opinion perfectly clear here: the police and spies are donkey-deep in bureaucratic butt-covering of the highest order. I base this on a reading of the email trails between police and spies as seen in my story last night. …
The police and spies appear so arrogant they covered-up their illegal spying from everyone in the country from the Prime Minister down. …
Even those out there who don’t like Dotcom should be concerned that the police and spies were, in the own words of one of the police officers on the case “a bunch of clowns walking roughshod over the law”. The spy agency the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and the police Organised and Financial Crime Agency (OFCANZ) appear to be in cahoots in trying to cover up an almighty blunder.
It is quite simple and it works like this: spying on New Zealand residents is illegal. It is a basic rule. It is in the GCSB’s own law. Now on December 16, 2011, the spying started. ON THAT SAME DAY, the officer in charge of the case, Detective Inspector Grant Wormald personally received documentation showing Dotcom was a “Resident”. I have that documentation on my desk right now. …
The documents that Labour obtained in the Court of Appeal also show the GCSB also knew from February 20 that Dotcom was a NZ resident – thanks to reading media reports.
- So the cover-up could have been for nine months (if Wormald turned a blind eye in December 2011).
- The cover-up could have been for eight months (if police turned blind eye in January 2012).
- And the cover-up was definitely for seven months (from when the GCSB learned in February).
… The documents show the crisis that ensued from February when the illegal spying was widely realised. After a flurry of worried emails, the GCSB’s legal adviser Hugh Wolfensohn came up with a wrong definition of the GCSB’s law – that made it appear as if the spying was OK, and everybody relaxed. …
Labour has always attacked John Key with the “how could you not know” line. Well the sickening truth now is that there may have been a cover-up by the police and spies – so Key didn’t know, and neither did anybody else.
The reasons why Key should have known have been well covered here before – not least because he is the Minister in charge of the GCSB, and should know what they’re up to. But according to Key:
Mr Key was asked by reporters whether the GCSB should have told him as early as February. He replied that it was an operational matter and he is never involved in operational matters.
Everything that the GCSB does is an “operational matter”, if Key isn’t briefed on “operational matters” then what possible oversight can he provide? What point is there in having a Minister who knows nothing? I think we can safely assume that Key’s predecessor Helen Clark was well briefed on GCSB “operational matters” – but then she was a much better PM than Key.
(Update: Key’s excuse is ridiculous – in fact he was briefed on this “operational matter” – the only question is when.)
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