Remember when this was reported last week? The Stuff version:
New Zealand was “reintegrated” into the controversial Five Eyes intelligence network only five years ago, America’s top spy agency has revealed.
[…]
Prime Minister John Key said he could not recall any such change since National took office.
“I don’t know exactly what they are referring to.
“My understanding of it is that even through the challenging times of the relationship post the anti-nuclear legislation, New Zealand continued to be an active member of Five Eyes.”
Asked to confirm whether his Government had ever made a decision to actively rejoin Five Eyes, Key responded: “I don’t think that’s right, but I remember there were some vague things . . . ”
He then said he would check.
“If they are increasingly sharing more, then that’s news to me but they would know that more than I would.”
Now, today Audrey Young is reporting in the NZ Herald, reports that Key has made a trip to the NSA while in the US. However, this was left off the published Key schedule, because of “the heightened political sensitivity about the NSA over mass surveillance and the Edward Snowden leaks.” Young reports that,
Prime Minister John Key took a secret trip to the NSA spy agency while he was in Washington last week.
It is not surprising that he went — he made the same trip the last time he was in Washington in 2011.
This time, it was left off the published schedule of meetings that is handed out to the news media. Last time, it was declared.
[…]
Mr Key all but confirmed his side trip to the National Security Agency headquarters to the Herald. Asked if he had gone, he said: “From time to time I always try to make sure I am fully briefed on intelligence matters.”
Got that!? He always likes to be fully briefed on intelligence matters. Yet he was unaware of the 2009 change….not to mention his claims that he only heard about surveillance on Kim Dotcom a little while before Dotcom’s mansion was raided.
The article also reports on Key’s (alleged) check on the 2009 change in NZ-US surveillance relationship:
Mr Key also clarified the issue of when New Zealand became fully integrated into the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network after the anti-nuclear rift with the US.
The two things that had endured “even in the worst of times” of the diplomatic rift were the Five Eyes relationship and Antarctic co-operation.
But the level of intelligence given by the US had been reduced — and most of the information supplied in Five Eyes came from the US, he said.
In 2009, the US decided to clear New Zealand to again receive top-level intelligence and the country was again fully integrated into the Five Eyes alliance.
With the amount of misinformation, spin and smears coming from Key’s government and his party, it really is looking like setting the stage for a full, open source revolution [h/t Draco T Bastard]. Guardian article on Robert David Steele and his book, The Open-Source Everything Manifesto: Transparency, Truth and Trust.
Steele argues that:
all the major preconditions for revolution – set out in his 1976 graduate thesis – were now present in the United States and Britain.
Steele’s book is a must-read, a powerful yet still pragmatic roadmap to a new civilisational paradigm that simultaneously offers a trenchant, unrelenting critique of the prevailing global order. His interdisciplinary ‘whole systems’ approach dramatically connects up the increasing corruption, inefficiency and unaccountability of the intelligence system and its political and financial masters with escalating inequalities and environmental crises. But he also offers a comprehensive vision of hope that activist networks like Reclaim are implementing today.
Steele puts a powerful case for the public recognising the powerful tools that we have at our finger-tips, through the use of collective action and open-source collaboration. We shouldn’t allow the spin merchants, anti-democratic forms of governance, or the compliant media render us feeling helpless.
“Believe it or not, 95% of what we need for ethical evidence-based decision support cannot be obtained through the secret methods of standard intelligence practices. But it can be obtained quite openly and cheaply from academics, civil society, commerce, governments, law enforcement organisations, the media, all militaries, and non-governmental organisations. An Open Source Agency, as I’ve proposed it, would not just meet 95% of our intelligence requirements, it would do the same at all levels of government and carry over by enriching education, commerce, and research – it would create what I called in 1995 a ‘Smart Nation.’
Get out and vote, collaborate, talk, engage!
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