Key changing his story (again)…

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, September 15th, 2014 - 60 comments
Categories: election 2014, john key, Spying - Tags: , ,

Well well – Mr “No middle ground. I’m right. He’s wrong” is changing his story:

Mr Key has said the GCSB was working on a business study for a form of “mass cyber protection” following cyber attacks on several large New Zealand companies. Mr Key had told them it was too broad a net. However, this morning he indicated it had gone ahead on a limited capacity.

“I said I think it’s too broad .. so in the end I said let’s set it at a much more narrow level.”

What was it that Key was saying – could it be only yesterday?

Mr Key said Cabinet signed off a proposal for the GCSB to investigate a business case for widespread cyber protection of New Zealand entities, but he personally stopped the work in March last year because he thought it was a step too far.

“In the end, that never even got to a business case.”

And now he says it did go ahead at a “narrow level”?! Key is a liar. He will say anything, do anything, to cling to power. His credibility is finished. Vote him out.

60 comments on “Key changing his story (again)… ”

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  1. Barfly 1
    15 September 2014 at 12:48 pm

    I’m stunned…even when I know the mendacity of this man the sheer speed of the ever increasing lies, obfuscations and misdirections leaves me gobbsmacked

  2. Lanthanide 2
    15 September 2014 at 12:57 pm

    The public at large are too enamoured with Key, and have bought into their lines about Cunliffe, that these misrepresentations and diversions by Key won’t phase them.

    It may be enough to allow the left to win the election, but unless we have some very hard evidence that cannot be wriggled away from, Key will get away with this too. At least in the short term.

    • weka 2.1
      15 September 2014 at 1:09 pm

      Cognitive dissonance. Betrayed by Labour in the 80s and National in the 2010s, where will the NZ psyche go next?

      • Clemgeopin 2.1.1
        15 September 2014 at 1:58 pm

        “Betrayed by Labour in the 80s”

        That is not strictly and absolutely correct because the people were betrayed not so much by the ‘Labour party’, but rather by a traitorous faction, the present and past ACT members in Labour who did the unsuspected betrayal, fooling many in the Labour party itself. Those traitors were people like Roger Douglas, Richard Prebbel and a dozen others. The good thing is that in the end, the good people in the Labour organisation prevailed, kicked these bastards out, and made the present Labour party a strong, caring, sensible and moderate social democratic unit which now has the very best of social, environmental and economic policies and has very good trustworthy leaders to usher in a stable and great government. Give Labour your party vote without any doubts at all, because in my opinion, for many reasons, Labour and the country urgently needs those votes more than any other party now.

        • KJT 2.1.1.1
          15 September 2014 at 2:03 pm

          Except half those people are still there. Outed themselves as the ABC’s.

          Which is one of the reasons I hope Cunliffe stays.

          I believe he will be a good Prime Minister with the Green MP’s.

          • blue leopard 2.1.1.1.1
            15 September 2014 at 2:11 pm

            Since reading ‘Dirty Politics’ I have been puzzling over how much the ‘ABC’s’ were a fiction made up by Whaleoil.

            Potentially an exaggerated narrative from the National Party’s dirt creating website (W.O).

            • weka 2.1.1.1.1.1
              15 September 2014 at 2:41 pm

              my understanding about the ABCs has come from reading ts and TDB. I don’t read WO 😉

              Does Hager make a connection?

              • blue leopard …
                15 September 2014 at 3:00 pm

                You don’t actually have to read that site to be exposed to Nat party lies.

                I don’t think Hager directly linked to the ABC narrative. This is something I have wondered since reading the book due to the tactics that the propagandists use, that Hager pointed out.

                i.e. The whole way this dirty slinging system has worked is by a lie being repeated enough that people start believing it – this has been assisted hugely by members of our media taking these lies wholesale and repeating them. It appears no critical analysis was employed.

                Plenty of commenters on the Standard indicated they read W/O (can tell by what they say or the way they link to it ) around the time that narrative was the strongest.

                (There appears to be a distinct dearth of those types around now banned or slipped off into the dark corners from whence they came after Dirty Politics was released).

                …and therefore I have wondered how much substance there really was in the ABC narrative. Might be a bit of truth to it but strongly exaggerated. Might have been a complete fabrication too.

                This is actually one of the big issues when the strategy of lying starts being used – one ends up finding it extremely hard to know what is made up and what is factual.

                That is one of the reasons why I was shocked and horrified when people in NZ reelected a PM in 2011 who clearly resorted to such tactics.

                Here is hoping there is not a repeat of such willful blindness this year.

                • phillip ure …
                  15 September 2014 at 3:41 pm

                  “.. Might have been a complete fabrication too..”

                  no – no -no – no – no…!

                  ..they still lurk there..

                  ..those deep-undercover unreconstructed neo-libs..

                  ..yoo-hoo..!

                  ..you know who you are…

                  ..and that it is way past time you just moseyed off..eh..?

                  ..you have been there that long..that you can go and really gorge/pig-out on that uber-generous superannuation-scheme you voted/gave yrslves..eh..?

                • Clemgeopin …
                  15 September 2014 at 4:05 pm

                  Very well said. Thank you.

                • weka …
                  15 September 2014 at 4:48 pm

                  bl, apologies in advance if I have misunderstood you here.

                  “This is actually one of the big issues when the strategy of lying starts being used – one ends up finding it extremely hard to know what is made up and what is factual.”

                  True, and understanding how to assess information and its source is a critical critical thinking skill.

                  In this case, I’ve been listening to people who are active Labour party members (esp those that attend conference), and people like Martyn Bradbury, who while full of rhetoric and often himself, is sufficiently embedded in the political scene to see at least some of what is going on. This doesn’t mean I take Bradbury’s words uncriticially, but that I put his analysis on the context of people here in ts who have actually been involved.

                  If I had to choose between a theory re WO and trusting people like Lynn, CV, micky, Irish and the myriad of other Labour party members here, I know where I go. When I first started learning about teh ABC thing I was critical in the sense that I questioned things until I felt like I had a decent enough understanding. Questioning doesn’t have to involve distrust so much as suspended trust of the issue.

                  “
and therefore I have wondered how much substance there really was in the ABC narrative. Might be a bit of truth to it but strongly exaggerated. Might have been a complete fabrication too.”

                  The problem I have with that is that I can’t see the evidence you are basing that on. You appear to be basing it on the idea that because the VRWC are liars, no-one else can be trusted to understand the truth. But I seriously doubt that people like the ts authors, and many of the commenters here have been reading WO and getting sucked into a conspiracy that says that Labour is full of neoliberals who hate Cunliffe and then repeating it here. It just seems highly unlikely. One of the main reasons I hang out here is because there are so many people here with good to excellent critical thinking skills and that is embedded in the culture of the place.

                  I certainly don’t think those people got their ideas about the ABCs from other ts commenters who read at WO.

                  Add to that, the neoliberalness of Labour is overt and visible to everyong, as is the historical antipaty towards Cunliffe.

                  I think this raises another whole issue, which IMO was at the core of the GP thing the other day. For me critical thinking goes hand in hand with developing relationships of trust with sources of information and analysis. If we don’t have solid relationships to sources of information, then things get very shitty and tricky when big issues come up.

                  You seem to be feeling like your trust in general has been shaken, which makes me sad. Kia kaha though, I think there is a way through this.

                  • blue leopard …
                    15 September 2014 at 5:41 pm

                    I am simply saying I am questioning the narrative re ‘ABC’ – especially the extent of it, yet also the veracity.

                    I in no way mean to convey “no-one else can be trusted to understand the truth”. I do, however, still stand by my comment that it gets substantially harder to get to the truth when the entire culture becomes complacent about lying. This is the conditions we have to be aware of. We are all susceptible to getting it wrong in this climate of lies.

                    There is a certain level of echo chamber activity going on, and this is exactly what that tactic of the National party are cashing in on. People hear something from someone they respect doesn’t mean it is the truth – everyone can get things wrong. What if that one person they heard it from got it wrong? It gets shared as being from a reliable source and very much becomes established as fact, in that way, because it is believed to be from a trustworthy source.

                    I really was expressing a genuine question.

                    It would appear that it is common for political parties to have a certain amount of factions – it is the extent to which that ABC faction was marketed that I am questioning. How much disharmony was there really in the Labour party? How much was exaggerated for National’s benefit – because they very much have benefitted from the view that Labour weren’t internally harmonious.

                    Now look at National – how disciplined and aligned they have appeared – they could have very much been marketed in the same way re ‘the Collins vs the Joyce’ faction – or the hard right vs the softer right faction. If the media were challenging National’s internal harmony as much as they were Labour’s, do you really think National would have been polling as high as they have been?

                    I think in the current culture, it pays to really question what we are hearing.

                    Funny you mention the ‘neoliberalness of Labour’ – this is actually an area where I think there is a very poor amount of critical thought going on. It is a complex matter as to what ‘neoliberal’ is or not, yet one feature is that it dismantles any notion of the collective. Mr Cunliffe’s narrative throughout the whole year has been one of encouraging a sense of togetherness. I fully see this narrative that Cunliffe is supplying as the absolutely imperative first step of loosening the neoliberal narrative’s grip on NZ minds.

                    Market theory that is mixed with distribution is not where the neoliberal mindset want to take us. I think it is very wrong to confuse the use of market theory as a tool amongst other tools with neoliberalism. Neoliberalism (NL) applies the theory of the markets to an extreme – that is one of the main problems with NL, any redistribution or sense of community is heresy to NL because such notions ‘distort the market’.

                    I don’t think Labour this year are as neoliberal as a lot of people have been commenting on TS – this has shown me that even some people I have respect for, don’t get everything correct at all times.

                  • weka …
                    16 September 2014 at 12:02 pm

                    “There is a certain level of echo chamber activity going on, and this is exactly what that tactic of the National party are cashing in on. People hear something from someone they respect doesn’t mean it is the truth – everyone can get things wrong. What if that one person they heard it from got it wrong? It gets shared as being from a reliable source and very much becomes established as fact, in that way, because it is believed to be from a trustworthy source.”

                    What did you make of my points about critical thinking? It’s not about accepting the opinions of people one respects at face value. Quite the opposite.

                    • blue leopard …
                      16 September 2014 at 1:27 pm

                      What I understood from your comment is that you are emphasizing trusting those that write here and elsewhere. This is to slightly bypass the issue that I am questioning. Perhaps it is part of the puzzle, yet not the entire one.

                      Yes, these people that you mention certainly hold sway for me too (I respect their opinions and the direct experiences they share) however when a matter becomes as polarized and polarizing as the ABC theory has, and particularly with the information Hager supplied us with re how propaganda spin is being applied in this country, I am now taking a back step and reassessing the extent of the ‘ABC theory’ and what certain people have said on this site or elsewhere doesn’t entirely answer what I am questioning.

                      By ‘not entirely answer’ I mean that as soon as the framing of ‘severe conflict’ takes a hold – someone simply relaying that there are differences of opinion, and perhaps one who shares an example from a conference, may unwittingly feed the manufactured narrative that these are severe rifts. i.e. whether the person conveying their direct experience is trustworthy or not is not actually the issue. The issue is whether this ABC thing is a massive war, as has been painted, or whether it is simply a common element of a large party – one that needs to incorporate a wide range of political persuasions and therefore has a wide range within the party – that has been exaggerated for the right wing’s (National’s) advantage.

                      Like I said, all parties – and particularly the larger parties who have to appeal to a wider selection of people – will have people with a variety of different views within the party. This, then means a certain amount of ‘factioning’ could be quite common. i.e. those of similar views within the party will be drawn together. This doesn’t mean there is anything horribly awry with the party. It is when these ‘factions’ start warring that there is a problem. The warring within Labour has been emphasized over recent years (not so much now, thankfully) I am questioning the extent of that warring within the Labour party; whether the degree of warring has been exaggerated.

                      I am questioning (haven’t concluded) whether the conflict between the ‘factions’ within Labour has been as severe as it has been presented to us.

                      The group that has been most damaged by this ABC theory is the Labour party (their popularity has taken a hit). I had been of the view that the internal factions were complete idiots and it was them doing the damage – now I wonder how much of that damage was initiated by MPs inside Labour, and how much was created by National’s spin doctors/dogs.

                    • weka …
                      16 September 2014 at 1:56 pm

                      “What I understood from your comment is that you are emphasizing trusting those that write here and elsewhere. This is to slightly bypass the issue that I am questioning. Perhaps it is part of the puzzle, yet not the entire one.”

                      No, I am saying that critical thinking should be applied to those people too. That’s the safe guard.

                    • blue leopard …
                      16 September 2014 at 2:21 pm

                      Edit: Am already doing that, this doesn’t address the issue I am raising.

            • Murray Olsen 2.1.1.1.1.2
              16 September 2014 at 8:55 pm

              I don’t think Whalespew made up the way Hipkins treated Cunliffe around the time of Gower’s infamous interview. Whalespew didn’t invent Sealord Jones, nor did he invent Goff’s and Davis’s outbursts against Internet Mana. There are quite a few people in Labour that seem to see their party as alternatives to NAct as administrators of business as usual, rather than as innovators and reformers who actually want to undo some of the damage done in the last 30 years. Looking at the proposal for retirement income, some even want to accelerate the process.

        • weka 2.1.1.2
          15 September 2014 at 2:44 pm

          “That is not strictly and absolutely correct because the people were betrayed not so much by the ‘Labour party’, but rather by a traitorous faction, the present and past ACT members in Labour who did the unsuspected betrayal, fooling many in the Labour party itself.”

          Sure, so let’s take ‘Labour’ in my comment to mean caucus rather than the party as a whole, although I assume there were party officials involved too.

          It does beg the question though, why it has taken until 2013 for the membership to change the rules so that the membership has more control. This as I understand it despite opposition from the neoliberal faction within caucus.

          Plus what KJT said. Too many neoliberals still there.

          • Clemgeopin 2.1.1.2.1
            15 September 2014 at 4:26 pm

            “Too many neoliberals still there”

            You are absolutely wrong there, repeating a RW inspired falsehood and spin.
            It is great that Labour is a truly broad replica/representation of the people of this country and includes people of varying persuasions who have sincere workable aspirations for the country and hence for themselves and our future generations in their social, economic and environmental needs, without being too far left or too far right or being a bit mad or silly as obvious from the tactics or utterances of some of the talking-head leaders of political parties we see now.

        • graham 2.1.1.3
          16 September 2014 at 12:54 am

          Rhodes Scholars Roger Douglas and Richard Prebble took advantage of the Anti Nuclear lange Labour Govt. Rogernomics and selling Kiwirail (Prebble)

    • Tracey 2.2
      15 September 2014 at 1:17 pm

      so, how far back is it now that he can’t recall from one evening to a morning following?

      How do you do a narrow mass surveillance?

      I would like to see proof of this statement

      “he personally stopped the work in March last year because he thought it was a step too far.”

      Can we have that evidence declassified too please.

    • Draco T Bastard 2.3
      15 September 2014 at 6:24 pm

      The next government will have to have an inquiry into all of this BS that we’ve been fed and bring charges if possible.

  3. Ttt 3
    15 September 2014 at 1:22 pm

    The sad thing for Nz public is that Keys problems will only escalate if he gets back into power. Question time will be a never ending saga for his legacy. Brand Key will be damaged forever and books will be written about it forever.. The public should be worried about brand Key getting into power again, followed by his resignation on medical grounds and then we end up with co leaders namely Joyce and Collin,s GHU

  4. cogito 4
    15 September 2014 at 1:26 pm

    Good that Greenwald has had a few days to get acclimatised to the sorts of tricks and dirt that he’s up against with Key.

    Hopefully, he will be more determined than ever to present his evidence in the most compelling way possible.

    Key has to go.

    • Tracey 4.1
      15 September 2014 at 1:34 pm

      Given he has been Snowden’s conduit of sorts I am sure he has seen it all before…

      last time the right tried to pre-empt something Cathy Odgers plunged a knife between Slater and Collins’ shoulder blades with an email apparently not part of the dump…

      Is the debate now going to be cancelled “due to illness”?

  5. Tracey 5
    15 September 2014 at 1:32 pm

    Access to a cable or no access to a cable? Access to a cable or no planned access to a cable?

    “At the time, a spokeswoman for the Prime Minister told the Herald that questions about the SSO visit appeared to be about “a cable access programme”.

    “We can categorically state that there is no such programme operating in New Zealand, and any claims that there is are utterly wrong.”

    In relation to plans for access of cables, she said “we are not and we have no intention of introducing one”.

    The conflicting claims are in direct conflict — a specific point in an argument over mass surveillance. Key has said he canned a plan for mass surveillance in March 2013 because it was too intrusive.”

    Fisher reporting in Herald online
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11324936

    he provides a timeline

    “Timeline

    2011: Cyber attacks on New Zealand.

    Early 2012: GCSB starts looking at a mass protection solution.

    April 2012: Cabinet approves GCSB working towards a business case.

    September 2012: Illegal spying on Kim Dotcom admitted.

    October 2012: Then-Cabinet secretary Rebecca Kitteridge reviews GCSB.

    February 2013: NSA engineer specialising in cable tapping comes to NZ.

    March 2013: GCSB draft review tells Key bureau’s practices don’t fit with the law. Key puts GCSB “mass protection” plan on hold.

    April 2013: GCSB review made public raising concerns about illegal spying on Kiwis.

    May 2013: Two new spy laws are introduced. Key says it stops mass surveillance, opponents say it allows it.

    June 2013: Edward Snowden begins to divulge NSA documents, which include the GCSB cable-tapping plan.

    August 2013: After months of public meetings and concerns over mass surveillance, the new laws pass.”

  6. emergency mike 6
    15 September 2014 at 1:38 pm

    So, the GCSB investigated a business case for 12 fricken months?!

    Hey, that sounds a bit like bullshit.

    • Tracey 6.1
      15 September 2014 at 1:50 pm

      well given they aren’t int he business of business it could have taken them ages to work out what the fuck a business plan looks like

      • karol 6.1.1
        15 September 2014 at 2:14 pm

        Unfortunately, that’s just part of the way the corporate ethos has infiltrated the public sector. That term is used widely in public services.

        • Tracey 6.1.1.1
          15 September 2014 at 3:06 pm

          Except I think it is another Key lie. I don’t think they were preparing a cost benefit (financial/business) analysis. It is more likely they were doing a plan for mass surveillance, how to do it and timelines. Not quite the same thing as a business plan but given how key views the world he might have seen it that way.

          The REAL cost benefit analysis would have been done by Key and his very inner circle (not focusing on money but political cost/benefits)

          • ghostwhowalksnz 6.1.1.1.1
            15 September 2014 at 4:53 pm

            Exactly, a business case doesnt involve getting a NSA specialist over to NZ, who is an expert in tapping into cables. Thats when you have the go ahead

      • yeshe 6.1.2
        15 September 2014 at 4:58 pm

        lol Tracey — that really made me laugh out loud !!!

    • tc 6.2
      15 September 2014 at 2:10 pm

      Business case is all about costs and benefits and ROI whereas Action plan is how to get it done, how long, who and how much do you need.

      Wouldn’t have taken longer than a few months as these folk know their stuff but Business case sounds more smiley wavey for the sheeple

      • emergency mike 6.2.1
        15 September 2014 at 2:43 pm

        tc, Key is saying they investigated a business case for 12 months, and that it never got to the business case stage.

        • tc 6.2.1.1
          15 September 2014 at 3:19 pm

          That clears that up then as of 15/9 mid afternoon till he changes his story again:
          Our highly trained operatives with access to the best tools and experts who use them investigated something for a year that became nothing at all…..back to sleep sheeple.

          • marty mars 6.2.1.1.1
            15 September 2014 at 5:00 pm

            How long, how bloody long are we going to have to put up with this disgraceful liar key – not long, not very long at all – he is going down with shit all over him, his bullshit and forked tongue are out in the open and they are repellant.

  7. Hami Shearlie 7
    15 September 2014 at 1:42 pm

    If Key was so worried about foreign powers hacking into NZ companies, why did National do a deal with the Chinese company Huawei for our ultra-fast broadband network?

  8. adam 8
    15 September 2014 at 1:43 pm

    Newspeak, never missing a day to change the language to suit what they need their truth to be.

  9. emergency mike 9
    15 September 2014 at 1:56 pm

    At the end of the video in the Herald article John Key says that not only had he never heard of Dotcom before the raid, neither had the heads of the GCSB nor the SIS.

    I could have sworn the GCSB were spying on him before the raid…

    • ghostwhowalksnz 9.1
      15 September 2014 at 2:08 pm

      They were:
      Herald inquiries revealed that Telecom and staff at its technology service company Gen-I were investigating irregularities with Dotcom’s Internet connection as early as November 2011, well before the illegal GCSB spying was said to have happened (the GCSB admitted spying on him from December 16, 2011 until the day of the raid, January 20th, 2012). When Gen-I technicians did a standard “trace route” search of his Internet signal, they discovered that it was being diverted within New Zealand, rather than going directly to an overseas Xbox computer server.
      http://yournz.org/tag/gcsb/

      • weka 9.1.1
        15 September 2014 at 2:49 pm

        Translation for the non-technical? Being diverted within NZ could only be done by the GCSB?

        btw, your link doesn’t got to what you quote.

        • Tracey 9.1.1.1
          15 September 2014 at 3:08 pm

          DotCom’s lawyers are saying that the FBI is leaving out emails and other communications which show that DotCom moved quickly when alerted to illegal material on MegaUpload.

        • McFlock 9.1.1.2
          15 September 2014 at 3:12 pm

          The computer games he was playing sent packets of information to game servers. The packets find their way from his machine to the southern cross cable and thence to the xbox game server.

          It’s like each packet was a passenger in a taxi going from his place to the airport so they could catch a flight to Hawaii. Only what the telecom folk found was that the taxi was taking a long detour, instead of going straight to the airport. Which stuffed KDC’s games because of the delay, so he called the telecom techs in.

          Given that we are essentially talking about a basic compromise of the telecom network, IT staff generally try to avoid third parties getting that level of control over packet routing. But they do work with government agencies to provide that service, because the government are not a good enemy to have. And giving the timing, it seems to quack like a duck.

        • ghostwhowalksnz 9.1.1.3
          15 September 2014 at 4:45 pm

          Sorry about incorrect link, I checked my html history and its here
          http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1211/S00027/a-dotcomedy-of-errors-gcsb-illegally-spies-on-nzers.htm

    • Anne 9.2
      15 September 2014 at 3:10 pm

      Well, its obvious isn’t it emergency mike. They were spying on someone but they didn’t know who he was. 😛

  10. Inky 10
    15 September 2014 at 10:09 pm

    He’s changed his story. He admits it did go ahead? So where’s his resignation?

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