Slip, slip, slip

Written By: - Date published: 1:48 pm, September 16th, 2014 - 82 comments
Categories: john key, slippery - Tags: , , ,

John Key will no doubt – like with Dirty Politics – keep saying that “most of it is proven false” about the Snowden revelations… while slowly admitting most of the charges against him.

The bulk of it is wrong, just all the details are right, or somesuch.

But we’ve had a Prime Minister going from “there’s no mass surveillance” to “we made a business case, but I stopped it” to “yes we did tap into the Southern Cross cable, but we didn’t do anything once we’d done that” to “we implemented something narrower” (along with “we didn’t go for the full version because we couldn’t store it all”!)… and now we have Sir Bruce Ferguson describing XKeyScore and saying – essentially – we do hoover up the information, but we don’t look at it without a warrant.

So we are doing mass surveillance then – it’s just alright because we never look at it without someone’s say so.  And we trust the other members of the 5 Eyes who we supply that data to, to do likewise.

Well I don’t trust them.

And I don’t trust John Key either. Particularly when his version of “we don’t do mass surveillance” is slowly dragged out of him to be “we do do mass surveillance, we just don’t look at it”.

And I don’t trust anyone with the morals of Dirty Politics to be in charge of people looking at our personal correspondence.

82 comments on “Slip, slip, slip ”

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  1. paddy 1
    16 September 2014 at 1:52 pm

    Can we get the election back to important issues like poverty and education rather than this sideshow?

    • blue leopard 1.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:05 pm

      Can’t get any issue addressed if our government has gone awol, paddy.

      This issue needs to be addressed in order to ensure that it is the people of NZ that the NZ government holds as top priority.

      How the NZ people respond to this issue will give a strong message to all future governments what they can get away with.

      If the NZ public go ‘meh’, things will only get worse
      If the NZ public get angry and assertive all political parties in NZ will know they need to take a lot of care about compromising New Zealanders’ interests for dubious agendas.

      • Colonial Viper 1.1.1
        16 September 2014 at 2:19 pm

        Can’t get any issue addressed if our government has gone awol, paddy.

        And/or our media infrastructure+Fourth Estate.

        • blue leopard 1.1.1.1
          16 September 2014 at 2:33 pm

          +1

          I hope this shifts attitudes in the media, government and corridors of power. Their cynicism is palpable and is destroying our entire system.

          The system they, funnily enough, enjoy greater privileges from than a lot of others.

          • Jilly Bee 1.1.1.1.1
            16 September 2014 at 2:55 pm

            I bet attitudes in the MSM will rapidly change if the Nats are voted out on Saturday. They will suddenly become extremely investigative.

        • Local Kiwi 1.1.1.2
          16 September 2014 at 8:14 pm

          Who’s gonna turn the lights off when we all are forced to leave?
          Opps that’s from the 1970’s.

          A brighter future says the key clown,, well who is gonna keep the lights on when the money runs out keyster?

      • Draco T Bastard 1.1.2
        16 September 2014 at 3:51 pm

        I do wish that the left leaning parties would put up some decent anti-corruption policies. A large chunk of National should be in jail right about now.

    • Tracey 1.2
      16 September 2014 at 2:51 pm

      Of course we can…

      national claims to have some policies but their leader is a habitual liar so you cant actually believe any of their policies.

    • Draco T Bastard 1.3
      16 September 2014 at 3:48 pm

      The corruption of our democracy by National isn’t a sideshow.

    • Douglas 1.4
      16 September 2014 at 4:10 pm

      How can you call this a “sideshow”? This is single-handedly the most important issue facing our country. Years from now we will look back at this five eyes scenario and realize just how important it was. We are at a turning point in the worldwide socio-political landscape: foreign policy; diplomacy; intelligence… and no, this is not a conspiracy. At best, it’s fact, at worst, it’s circumstantially evident. This isn’t just about a KDC v. JK vendetta: it deals with matters of integrity; sovereignty; and the very nature of politics and how we, as an informed public, perceive it.

      For the record, no, I am not a conspiracy theorist, no I did not vote Internet Mana, and no, this comment is not Anti-National. Surveillance is not an election issue, it is a New Zealand issue, and a global issue that we must acknowledge.

    • Hanswurst 1.5
      16 September 2014 at 7:00 pm

      Apart from any of the points mentioned above, there is rather a lot of evidence (from TVNZ’s rather piecemeal and hodge-podge “vote-compass” coverage, for instance) that National has already lost the policy debate in the minds of most NZers, but that those NZers either don’t connect the (lack of) policies to National or for some peculiar reason don’t see policy as the most important tool of an elected government.

      Given that, I don’t see how there is much advantage for the Left in continuing to push policy. Key’s integrity is a legitimate target, and it appears that that may resonate more with voters.

    • Roy 1.6
      17 September 2014 at 4:03 pm

      Isn’t the honesty and integrity of the incumbent PM seeking re-election an important issue?

  2. Tom Gould 2
    16 September 2014 at 1:53 pm

    Why is Key incapable of proving there has been no mass surveillance on New Zealanders as he claims? He has all the power and access at his disposal. Yet he is unable to prove what he says it true. There is no evidence to back up his assurances. Surely we can expect better from him?

    • Roflcopter 2.1
      16 September 2014 at 1:59 pm

      — Why is Key incapable of proving there has been no mass surveillance on New Zealanders as he claims? —

      For all the same reasons as all previous Prime Ministers state, going right back to WWII.

    • Bill 2.2
      16 September 2014 at 2:10 pm

      Tom, ‘mass surveillance’ implies something very different to mass collection of meta data. ‘Mass surveillance’ would involve intruding into all the meta data. And data collection implies the collection of all the content associated with the meta-data.

      Journalists (on the back of my link in comment #3) really need to get focused and cut the crap.

      • Colonial Viper 2.2.1
        16 September 2014 at 2:25 pm

        Nah I think you’re wrong on this count, Bill.

        Is attaching a tracking device on to your car which records all your movements around town placing you under “surveillance”? I would say it is. Or is it (as you seem to be saying) only “surveillance” when someone finally looks through the readouts of your movements.

        Which to me is clearly nonsense.

        ‘Mass surveillance’ would involve intruding into all the meta data.

        All the metadata collected is processed, including being run through scanning algorithms to flag items of potential interest, and ordering/indexing the information for quick and orderly retrieval.

        Is that not enough “intruding” into the data, from your point of view?

        • Tracey 2.2.1.1
          16 September 2014 at 2:32 pm

          If someone or their “automated investigative capability” is collecting/downloading all my electronic data then I am under surveillance.

          Then we have the issue of what key-word filter searches are done?

          Donations to the Green party? Donations to Greenpeace? Does that qualify?

          I have an Uncle who sincerely believes, never having read a word Hager has ever written, that it is right to spy on Hager because he holds “extreme views” and what he wants for NZ is dangerous.

          National, Key and Collins have shown, if nothing else, they cannot be trusted with secrets. Mr Key and Ms Collins have both misused their Ministerial warrants for personal/political purposes.

          Anyone who thinks that is not the case needs to read more widely, start examing ALL the documents released over the last 12 months, and put those odcument sunder the microscope. THEN go look at Key’s statements and how they change and change and change…

        • Bill 2.2.1.2
          16 September 2014 at 3:00 pm

          Nah I think you’re wrong on this count, Bill.

          Yeah, maybe. What I was trying to do was highlight potential slippery wordsmithery on JK’s part – not suggest that mass collection of meta data was somehow or in any way acceptable or ‘neutral’ as far as activity goes.

      • Not a PS Staffer 2.2.2
        16 September 2014 at 2:48 pm

        John Key used SIS files to knobble Phil Goff.

        Do you think John Key, knowing that the capability exists to access massive amounts of information on enemies, would not do so?

        It would be like taking a child to a chocolate factory and expecting it to not eat the stuff!

        • Local Kiwi 2.2.2.1
          16 September 2014 at 8:30 pm

          Key stood in parliament near end of Parliament during debate and said glaring at Labour cross benches and said be careful I have a draw full of dirt on you so if you want I am happy to use it!
          Do you want this as your leader remembering he is harvesting all our documents and data as we speak now?

          Back to Pre-war Germany days of public fear and suppression again folks.

          Best we kick his rotten lot out and save our land from evil.

        • Colonial Viper 2.2.2.2
          16 September 2014 at 9:02 pm

          More like taking that greedy, mean fat boy to Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory…

      • greywarbler 2.2.3
        16 September 2014 at 4:20 pm

        Thinking about surveillance and snooping and information gathering.

        If someone is looking into my life and movements, and keeping records for a short or a long time, informing themselves of my doings to use sometime, or to possibly gossip about now or in the future to my embarrassment or harm, to twist and use to create a false impression about me, to show a true impression about me that I might not be wanting to reveal to others now or in the future, then my privacy and the essence of my life is being breached and stolen from me.

        Like the ideas that peoples in undeveloped countries are said to have – “Take my image (my life events and spoken and written thoughts) and you steal my life, my reality for your own use.”

        This is intrusion into people’s lives and cannot be categorised simply as bad, okay or inevitable.
        edited

        • Bill 2.2.3.1
          16 September 2014 at 4:25 pm

          Yeah, I agree with you. But what I’m trying to get at is JK’s selective use of language to potentially obfuscate and maintain a degree of (thanks emergency mike) deniability.

    • JanMeyer 2.3
      16 September 2014 at 4:40 pm

      You mean prove a negative? What exactly did you have in mind? What more can the government do to “prove” there was no mass surveillance? The onus is on those who claim there has been mass surveillance to produce the hard evidence to back that up.

      • Bill 2.3.1
        16 September 2014 at 7:06 pm

        The evidence has been produced. And the government hasn’t engaged with the evidence.

        Or are you suggesting that the guys who did the physical work must be found and swear under oath that they were tapping the cable? Or that the guys who searched the meta-data that was compiled from non collection of meta-data….oh wait, we already have Snowdon to verify that one 😉

        I mean, what exactly would be required to clear the bar of your burden of proof?

        • karol 2.3.1.1
          16 September 2014 at 7:12 pm

          John Key accuses the opposition of his own tactics:

          He said Mr Greenwald has miraculously turned up six days before an election “to try and bamboozle people and try to make all these claims which don’t stack up.
          […]
          “They’re a bunch of henchmen out here six days before an election trying to bamboozle people, making incorrect and false information.”

        • Local Kiwi 2.3.1.2
          16 September 2014 at 8:37 pm

          1000%+++++ Key nis a gambler with our truth and soon it will confront him as it did Nixon, who’s’ favourite saying was “I have never lied”.

          Talk about deniability eh!

          Times up “Creepy-Key.”

  3. Bill 3
    16 September 2014 at 2:05 pm

    What’s so difficult about the term ‘meta data’? Anyone listening to John Key would think the term doesn’t exist. What’s this shit he keeps spouting about ‘mass surveillance’ as though that somehow means there has been no mass and or indiscriminate collection of meta data?

    Video link here for anyone interested in hearing the whirr of spin.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11325598

    • emergency mike 3.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:54 pm

      He did state in that interview that there is no mass ‘collection’ of NZer’s data. That’s more specific than ‘surveillance’.

      • Bill 3.1.1
        16 September 2014 at 3:08 pm

        But doesn’t data refer to (say) the contents of this comment rather than any meta data concerning where the comment was sent from (IPS address for example), how many other communications have been sent from this location and to where/who and on what subject etcetera?

        What I’m suspecting is that by referring to data and absolutely avoiding the term meta-data, JK is being deliberately obtuse in order maintain a degree of honesty. (Honesty isn’t the correct word, but hopefully you get my meaning).

        Anyway, I’d just like to hear journalists shut him down when he makes announcements about data and pointedly ask him about meta data.

        • weka 3.1.1.1
          16 September 2014 at 3:32 pm

          I would take data to mean anything being communicated (content, metadata) but I agree someone should be asking him to clarify what he means.

          Watching that, I can see how plausible he will come across to people who haven’t listened to/read any other sources. I’m also thinking he has nothing left to lose now and can just lie outright.

        • emergency mike 3.1.1.2
          16 September 2014 at 4:13 pm

          “But doesn’t data refer to (say) the contents of this comment rather than any meta data…”

          To me and surely to any reasonable person, ‘meta data’ is a subset of ‘data’. So for me, to say you are not collecting any data when you are collecting meta data, would be wrong/lying. Meta data is a kind of data.

          “What I’m suspecting is that by referring to data and absolutely avoiding the term meta-data, JK is being deliberately obtuse in order maintain a degree of honesty. (Honesty isn’t the correct word, but hopefully you get my meaning).”

          However I do take your point, it’s John Key we are talking about here, (or his office perhaps). We have seen for years his uncanny ability to make words mean whatever he decides is convenient for them to mean at that particular time. You could well be right about his chosen understanding of the word ‘data’. And I think the word you are looking for is ‘deniability’.

    • weka 3.2
      16 September 2014 at 3:14 pm

      Just watching now.

      Did Greenwald/Snowden say that the mass collection was being done by the GCSB (as opposed to the NSA)? Key seems to be saying that they aren’t doing that, but that doesn’t mean the NSA isn’t. Or is he suggesting that he is privy to what the US intelligences services do?

      • weka 3.2.1
        16 September 2014 at 3:19 pm

        “GCSB doesn’t have the physical capability to do that” (mass surveillance). Well duh, isn’t that the point of being part of the Five Eyes?

        • Tracey 3.2.1.1
          16 September 2014 at 3:26 pm

          and the other point of being part of 5 eyes is to share… but apparently we are neither capable or sharing…. could sum up the national party of course, but is a lie about our secret services (IMO)…

  4. NZJon 4
    16 September 2014 at 2:06 pm

    Bunji,

    Can you provide any URLs for the places where Key said the following bits:

    But we’ve had a Prime Minister going from “there’s no mass surveillance” to “we made a business case, but I stopped it” to “yes we did tap into the Southern Cross cable, but we didn’t do anything once we’d done that” to “we implemented something narrower” (along with “we didn’t go for the full version because we couldn’t store it all”!)… and now we have Sir Bruce Ferguson describing XKeyScore and saying – essentially – we do hoover up the information, but we don’t look at it without a warrant.

    I’m just really interested to hear these bits… 🙂

    Jon

    • One Anonymous Bloke 4.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:22 pm

      Bit o’ basic searching is your friend.

      This one’s for free.

    • Tracey 4.2
      16 September 2014 at 2:27 pm

      Hi Jon

      Take a close read of the documents that Key released yesterday. I think you will see that it doesn’t answer the core question of whether kiwis have been mass spied upon and their data mass collected in the past, or today.

      No mention in Key’s documents of Operation Spearhead or X-KEYSCORE, yet today he is claiming he proved he was right yesterday.

      • Local Kiwi 4.2.1
        16 September 2014 at 8:42 pm

        “Take a close read of the documents that Key released yesterday. I think you will see that it doesn’t answer the core question of whether kiwis have been mass spied upon and their data mass collected in the past, or today.

        No mention in Key’s documents of Operation Spearhead or X-KEYSCORE, yet today he is claiming he proved he was right yesterday.”

        Where the hell is the Investigative journalism to go over these documents as no one has yet mentioned this?

        Talk about a corrupt press and media are we taken over by mafia here in NZ? Corruption corruption everywhere.

  5. exitlane 5
    16 September 2014 at 2:14 pm

    “Sir Bruce Ferguson describing XKeyScore and saying – essentially – we do hoover up the information, but we don’t look at it without a warrant.”

    That may or may not have been the case under his watch which ended in 2011, but as this NZ Herald column by lawyer Denis Tegg points out – all this changed under the 2013 GCSB Act. Loopholes were deliberately placed in the Act to allow warrant-less surveillance of New Zealanders.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11308965

    And as Greenwald pointed out, Phase 2 of Operation Speargun for accessing the Southern Cross cable and carrying out mass surveillance – relied on that Act being passed – complete with its convenient and cynically placed loopholes

    • Tracey 5.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:28 pm

      Stop doing an analysis, there is no room for analysis in this country. You, sir/m’am are a traitor

  6. Tracey 6
    16 September 2014 at 2:14 pm

    IF Key said

    ““yes we did tap into the Southern Cross cable, but we didn’t do anything once we’d done that””

    how is that reconciled with

    “Earlier, the Prime Minister acknowledged that project did involve putting “a probe” across the Southern Cross cable but he said the probe was never used.”

    Is key saying the probe was put in but never used or the probe was never put in”?

    Then we have the twisting of the issue by Key and others to the issue of the GCSB doing stuff that is legal and therefore ok…

    ”
    US spies have two bases in New Zealand: Snowden

    By Adam Bennett, Rebecca Quilliam, Derek Cheng
    8:22 AM Tuesday Sep 16, 2014

    Bill Arkin, a US national security analyst, said he believed XKeyscore was being used in New Zealand, but that didn’t mean it was illegal surveillance.

    “Using XKeyscore and being a member of this [Five Eyes] partnership and being engaged in the collection of what is called raw, unselected, bulk traffic does not necessarily mean to me that people in New Zealand are illegally being surveilled,” he told Newstalk ZB radio this morning.

    Snowden had “very ably demonstrated” that mass collection of information was capable, but Mr Arkin said he was “still agnostic on the question as to whether or not innocent people are being surveilled”.

    “What I see is just a collection system that is out of control and I’m not quite sure at this point that there’s any evidence that indicates that a normal New Zealander who is not engaged in terrorism, crime, or some other illegality, that their communications would ever be looked at,” he said.”

    Then Mr Briscoe

    “The cables, which link New Zealand to Australia, the Pacific and the United States, are untouched, Mr Briscoe noted.

    “I can tell you quite categorically there is no facility by the NSA, the GCSB or anyone else on the Southern Cross cable network.”

    “Let’s be quite blunt. To do this, we would have to take the cable out of service and I can assure you there’s no way we are going to do that.

    “It is a physical impossibility to do it without us knowing. There is just no way it can be done. I can give you absolute assurances from Southern Cross – and me as a Kiwi – that there are no sites anywhere on the Southern Cross network that have to do with interception or anything else the NSA or GCSB might want to do.””

    • Tom Gould 6.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:18 pm

      It’s the exact same ‘rolling maul’ as with Collins and Oravida, dripping out a bit of information as you get caught out in the last lie. Remember ‘dropping in for a cuppa on the way to the airport’?

      • Tracey 6.1.1
        16 September 2014 at 2:22 pm

        had to edit my post above due to it putting in more than I wanted in my copy and paste…

        yWhich is why we need, butnever get, a journalist doing a timeline of John key’s statement son this… when you see them following in chronological order you see the lies and the flip flopping and the bamboozling and the light shows he accuses others of.

        A chronology of his statements would be so easy to do and yet, no MSM person is doing it…

    • weka 6.2
      16 September 2014 at 3:37 pm

      Tracey, can you please link to the things you are cuting and pasting from? It makes it so much easier to understand what you and others are saying to be able to see it on context.

      For instance, the first part of your comment 6, I can’t tell what is actual quote of Key and what is speculation. Nor do I know where that came from (which all things considered is important).

    • Bill 6.3
      16 September 2014 at 4:19 pm

      “Let’s be quite blunt. To do this, we would have to take the cable out of service and I can assure you there’s no way we are going to do that.

      Except the cable suffered a supposed catastrophic failure, and so was out of service, apparently due to an “unauthorised and un-notified software change” in Sept 2012. Oh well.

      (See comment 14 for link)

  7. Tracey 7
    16 September 2014 at 2:25 pm

    Conbfidant from media coverage this morning that he has managed to fudge the press and NZers, Key now swings into his “Greenwald and Snowden should prove it” mode.

    Anyone who has read the documents released by Key yesterday should know by now they do not prove that NZ is not involved in mass surveillance…

    They raise more questions than they answer…

    It seems NZ is the only nation which has been able to prevent its cables being tapped… its people being surveilled. Canada, UK, Australia… all succumbed but not Mr key, that champion of independence from the USA

    • Rich 7.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:45 pm

      Love that last bit of sarc. Thoroughly deseverd target.

    • Bill 7.2
      16 September 2014 at 3:18 pm

      If I put up pretty convincing or damning evidence that points to you being a sheep shagger, it’s up to you to explain or demonstrably refute the evidence in order to convince me that, no, you’re not a sheep shagger.

      It isn’t up to me to somehow shove your feet back into the muddy gumboots and have you retrace your steps to the arse end of your last sheep, is it?

      And yet, it appears that’s the farce JK would have us engage in.

  8. Rich 8
    16 September 2014 at 2:38 pm

    Yes and it’s pretty obvious that Key himself thinks this is a lolly jar he can stick his hand in anytime. Some of his comments to journalists before this blew were along the lines of “I know what you write in your emails’.

    • emergency mike 8.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:59 pm

      Yep a moment in that infamous 20min standup he did straight after Dirty Politics was released stuck with me. Key said (from memory) “Probably if we looked at your emails they might be a bit rough Patrick Gower.” He delivered it with a nasty lingering grimace/stare and the recipient. That and the stating of Gower’s full name like that…

      • Local Kiwi 8.1.1
        16 September 2014 at 9:06 pm

        Same for me when I felt a shiver down my spine when key had a strong threatening glare at Labour cross benches late July in Debate and said;
        “I have a draw full of dirt and if you want me to use it I am happy to”…. The shock resounded around parliamentary chamber then.

  9. Iron Sky 9
    16 September 2014 at 2:39 pm

    Qutoe from “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold:

    “Alec Leamas: What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They’re not! They’re just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?”

    The illustration here, is that they are just human to. Like the rest of us a ragtag mob of good, bad and in-between.

    The problem, however, is here:
    “What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They’re not!”

    I suspect a certain number have morals, do philosophize etc, however, in general are they just high functionalised trained attack dogs with too much power and not enough thinking. Thats what the HR vetting process is about. Because if you think too much, those wheels doth maketh crazy and suddenly black and white fades to grey.

    Note how on the News Oceania Gold is now suing El Salvador for $301 million

    Note how also the TPP was mentioned in The Moment of Truth with the majority of MSM overlooking this point (even RNZ)

    I apologize to the “spies” that are enabling this to happen in NZ to, but I have to say this.

    With your high intelligence, your disciplined life styles, well groomed clothes, deep pockets, loyalty to your master, EQs, the veneer of diplomacy hidden by a confident walk and softly spoken but authoritative words coupled with designer clothes

    I give you a white feather.

    • Tracey 9.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:48 pm

      which is why Snowden is a hero. And rare

    • Local Kiwi 9.2
      16 September 2014 at 9:16 pm

      MSM never mentioned at all questions raised over TPPA revelations that were released last night at “Moment of truth’.

      So because the media failed to raise this vital issue they will be afterward be held to account for their crimes as a complicit partner in the crime that is lose our sovereignty to a few corporate global elitists who will control us all after TPPA takes us.

      This is a taking over of countries without a shot fired.

      Key is a traitor to all New Zealanders.

  10. One Anonymous Bloke 10
    16 September 2014 at 2:48 pm

    Q. “Does the NSA have a base here?”

    A. “we don’t operate a base with NSA”

    That’s a yes, then.

    • Tracey 10.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:50 pm

      it has a facility though…

      and then we cut to this tried and true measure of John Key

      Do you promise to answer questions even if journalists forget to ask them?

      JOHN KEY: I will do my best

  11. politikiwi 11
    16 September 2014 at 2:57 pm

    The smoke and mirrors here are important: Key said “the GCSB has not illegally spied on New Zealanders.”

    That leaves the door wide open for another agency (NSA etc) to have spied on New Zealanders, and for the GCSB to know about it.

    It also leaves the door wide open for saying the GCSB have legally spied on New Zealanders, as they are allowed to do under the 2013 law.

    He’s extremely good at grey areas is John Key, and the media are shamefully bad at pointing that out.

    • Tracey 11.1
      16 September 2014 at 2:58 pm

      it also leaves open the interpretation that under the new legislation he misleadingly rammed through, it is legal, or arguable that it is legal.

      • politikiwi 11.1.1
        16 September 2014 at 3:03 pm

        Precisely.

        That’s the law they were waiting for before deploying the probes they considered but never planned. I mean, they planned but they never installed. I mean, they installed but they never used…

    • tricledrown 11.2
      16 September 2014 at 3:05 pm

      so the GSCB didn’t spy on Dotcom didn’t need a warrant which John Key would have to have signed off!

  12. tricledrown 12
    16 September 2014 at 3:03 pm

    their maybe some NSA operatives but their is no base well hello!
    Do they need a Base they can rely on the GSCB and the SIS along with 5 Eyes
    Key is saying yes no yes no yes no but at the end of the day in the end you know its a left wing conspiracy to hijack my knighthood,
    Keys hoodwinking as many people as he can con!

  13. just saying 13
    16 September 2014 at 3:08 pm

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=11

    Another slip

    Eminem is suing National for breach of copyright for using his song “lose yourself’ for their campaign.

    Beautiful, symmetrical even.

    • Tracey 13.1
      16 September 2014 at 3:20 pm

      So that is twice the National party has flouted copyright laws and used a song that is remarkably similar to an International hit…

      Three strikes rule on copyright…. do we really have to wait for the next election to Act

  14. riffer 14
    16 September 2014 at 3:15 pm

    This link is starting to appear all over facebook. Timing is interesting:

    http://www.zdnet.com/southern-cross-cable-hit-by-an-outage-7000007153/

    • tc 14.1
      16 September 2014 at 3:35 pm

      “unauthorised and un-notified software change” and connecting the dots Pacific Fibre cable didn’t get too far given it’s well heeled backers and the need for diversity should stn cross fail.

    • Bill 14.2
      16 September 2014 at 4:00 pm

      The 9th of Sept 2012 potentially dovetails with shit how closely? (Sorry to ask. Just too much flying around my head at the moment.) S’okay, found it. From ‘The Intercept’ article

      One top secret 2012 NSA document states: “Project Speargun underway.” Another top secret NSA document discussing the activities of its surveillance partners reports, under the heading “New Zealand,” that “Partner cable access program achieves Phase I.”

      and

      completion of Speargun was “awaiting new GCSB Act expected July 2013.”

      While the illegality of GCSB spying on Dotcom and others was apparently ‘discovered’ or ‘realised’ (or we were told about said ‘realisation’) in …Sept 2012.

      • emergency mike 14.2.1
        16 September 2014 at 4:51 pm

        The zdnet article says November 9, 2012.

      • One Anonymous Bloke 14.2.2
        17 September 2014 at 2:39 pm

        Using a Speargun to catch a big fish. Hollywood script much? Creative fingerprints all over this shit.

        When in the fuckety fuck did civil disputes about distribution paradigms become the purview of Military Intelligence?

        Around about the time Congress sold itself, or long before that?

  15. Tracey 15
    16 September 2014 at 3:22 pm

    Cant be relevant cos CEO Briscoe would know about it… if NSA were tapping his probe… 😉

  16. dave 16
    16 September 2014 at 3:23 pm

    The bastard has to resign

  17. Penny Bright 17
    16 September 2014 at 7:56 pm

    Seeking TRUTH from FACTS – FYI
    _____________________________________________________________________________________

    16 September 2014

    ‘Open Letter/ OIA request to NZ Prime Minister John Key regarding questions arising from the Edward Snowden GCSB/ NSA ‘revelations’

    Dear Prime Minister,

    Under the ‘urgency’ and ‘public interest’ provisions of the NZ Official Information Act, please provide answers to the following by 5pm Thursday 18 September 2014:

    Please provide the following information that explains:

    1) Why did you inform the public that the GCSB Amendment Bill would not lead to an expansion of powers when at the same time you were planning the Speargun mass surveillance initiative?

    2) Why was phase one of the Speargun project completed if it was, as you have claimed, something that never made it past the “business case”?

    3) Why New Zealanders were not informed about the Cortex project until the NZ Government’s hand was forced by disclosures based on documents from Snowden?

    4) How much data is collected on a daily basis by GCSB under the Cortex project, and how does the agency ensure this data does not “incidentally” include the content or metadata of citizens’ communications?

    5) What technology is this, referred to in the Cortex documents, that “has been around for some time”?

    6) Is any information collected by GCSB under Cortex — or any other program that accesses internet data — shared with the NSA and/or other Five Eyes agencies through systems such as XKEYSCORE?

    7) Does GCSB have access to XKEYSCORE and, if so, for how long has this been the case?

    8) Does GCSB use its access to internet data streams — under initiatives like Cortex or similar — to launch active/offensive cyber operations that involve hacking computer systems to collect information?

    9) When will you declassify documents detailing the Speargun project and showing that it was not completed?

    _________________________________________________________

    Please be advised that I have based this OIA request upon information contained in the following article:

    “THE QUESTIONS FOR NEW ZEALAND ON MASS SURVEILLANCE”

    https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2014/09/15/questions-new-zealand-mass-surveillance/

    I believe that these are fair questions to which the New Zealander voting public need true and accurate answers.

    Yours sincerely,

    Penny Bright

  18. Inky 18
    16 September 2014 at 11:23 pm

    The Guardian:

    Greenwald, Dotcom, Snowden and
    Assange take on ‘adolescent’ John Key

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/15/moment-truth-greenwald-dotcom-snowden-assange-new-zealand-john-key