Why hasn’t Key sacked McCully?

Written By: - Date published: 11:10 am, February 16th, 2012 - 10 comments
Categories: national/act government - Tags:

If you or I or, say, an Mfat official were storing confidential work files or, worse, officially classified information in our personal email and those files were hacked, you or I or the Mfat official would get the sack for gross misconduct. So when’s McCully being fired? Or is Key’s flippant “if it was really sensitive it would be out by now” what passes for security standards in the government?

10 comments on “Why hasn’t Key sacked McCully? ”

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  1. tc 1
    16 February 2012 at 11:52 am

    Didn’t you know the hollowmen are above the law and make the rules up to suit themselves.

    McCully/Joyce/English etc all part of that circle so pretty much untouchable in their eyes.

  2. ghostwhowalksnz 2
    16 February 2012 at 11:55 am

    Get an OIA request out for MFAT policies on work data on home computers.
    But this story in the NYTimes about travel to China shows :

    He leaves his cellphone and laptop at home and instead brings “loaner” devices, which he erases before he leaves the United States and wipes clean the minute he returns. In China, he disables Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, never lets his phone out of his sight and, in meetings, not only turns off his phone but also removes the battery, for fear his microphone could be turned on remotely. He connects to the Internet only through an encrypted, password-protected channel, and copies and pastes his password from a USB thumb drive. He never types in a password directly, because, he said, “the Chinese are very good at installing key-logging software on your laptop.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/11/technology/electronic-security-a-worry-in-an-age-of-digital-espionage.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

    In these circumstances its safe to assume the Chinese and probably the russians have all the data from McCullys xtra account .
    And of course they dont let you know what they know

  3. insider 3
    16 February 2012 at 11:57 am

    No you wouldn’t.

  4. hoom 4
    16 February 2012 at 5:22 pm

    Not fired because Key himself does the same thing.
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10785859

    “I have quite a number of emails but because I have my electorate office and others I tend to use a private email address.”

    I mean while horrifically incompetent, its far from being the most grossly incompetent thing which has come out of this Government.
     
    Aside from the security issues there is the question of how much of this is intentionally keeping dodgy stuff off Official records?
    An example was that bit of talk in the Teacup Tapes where they were clearly in contact & planning the thing prior but agreeing to publically say that they hadn’t.

    • Draco T Bastard 4.1
      16 February 2012 at 5:44 pm

      Aside from the security issues there is the question of how much of this is intentionally keeping dodgy stuff off Official records?

      Yep, needs to be a rule/law that says all government/public service communications will be through government channels. It’s to do with that accountability thing the RWNJs are always going on about and yet always seem to be trying to avoid.

      • insider 4.1.1
        16 February 2012 at 5:54 pm

        Sarah Palin got pinged for using gmail for that.

        The problem you get wiht your approach is the ability to access information. If you ‘have’ to go through govt comms, then you potentially restrict access, and politicians are dead scared of that in these days of media demands for instant reactions on absolutely everything. And the govt’s attempt to create its own secure telecoms network was a disaster.

        • Draco T Bastard 4.1.1.1
          17 February 2012 at 12:28 am

          Sarah Palin got pinged for using gmail for that.

          Actually, it was the entire Republican Party despite the US having such a law.

          The problem you get wiht your approach is the ability to access information. If you ‘have’ to go through govt comms, then you potentially restrict access, and politicians are dead scared of that in these days of media demands for instant reactions on absolutely everything.

          Working from the PoV that all government communications is public it should improve access because we (the people) will know exactly where to look. The fact that it is public information and that it needs to be publicly available is actually the reason why government communications need to go through government channels rather than private.

          And the govt’s attempt to create its own secure telecoms network was a disaster.

          And that just means that they may need to try again. Failing once doesn’t make it a permanent condition.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 4.2
      16 February 2012 at 8:07 pm

      Its exactly why he does it . To keep his crony capitalism deals off the record. probably the US , China etc has no problem accessing them but thats another story

  5. What about this 5
    17 February 2012 at 12:31 am

    This sorry saga reminded me of something else I once saw from the man himself, have a look at this link:

    http://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/cabinet-material-changes-nzaid

    and open the documents attached, the first is classified “Sensitive” and the second “Restricted”. Now, I’m no expert but when I google nz governement security classifications, the first thing that comes up is a cabinet website. This was way back in 2009 when it was posted to the web, it’s been there ever since…..

    http://cabguide.cabinetoffice.govt.nz/context/writing-papers/security-classifications

    which states the following in relation to Restricted material:

    Restricted: Compromise of information would damage national interests in an adverse manner.

    Sounds pretty bad to me, seems like it’s been posted on the beehive website by Mccully, I would have thought that this is dodgy or at least it would be marked “declassified” or something….

    It show’s that he’s really got no idea anyway, what a goon.