The mass surveillance state Key has built was supposed to be guarded with a ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’ mantra chanted by the suburbs of ZB listening NZ.
Putting aside the intellectual bankruptcy of ‘if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear’ as an argument, the expansion of the NZ Intelligence apparatus has been matched by a vast erosion of our civil liberties. The GCSB and SIS are joined by the Organised Crime Intelligence Unit, Financial Intelligence Unit, Strategic Intelligence Unit, National Bureau of Criminal Intelligence, Identity Intelligence Unit, Threat Assessment Unit, Police Terrorism Investigation and Intelligence Group and the Special Investigation Group.
That’s a whole lot of spies with vast new spying powers. And now the NZ media connect a blog TDB posted last month to the GCSB today. Turns out the NZ spooks were given the same training in manipulating protestors online as their GCHQ counter parts.
I speculated in last months blog that perhaps the most damning Snowden revelations will be the private cables of anyone of the top NSA witch kings who quietly visited NZ. As Snowden’s leaks about NZ start dripping out we can expect Key to be in constant damage control down playing everything.
What is more concerning than our intelligence agencies being taught how to illegally manipulate protest groups online is that they won’t tell us if they are funded by America…
The Government’s spy agencies have refused to tell Parliament’s intelligence and security committee if they receive funding from the United States.
Both the Government Communications Security Bureau and the Security Intelligence Service also declined to reveal if they have hired controversial US big data company Palantir.
…seeing as Snowden revealed that the GCHQ received $200m from the NSA and the news that the NZ spies were taught these dirty tricks was also revealed by Snowden, isn’t there a large chance that our spy agencies have also been paid by America and that it’s only a matter of time before that comes out?
If the GCSB or SIS took money from America that should demand a new Treason law to include Government Departments who conspire with foreign powers to the negative impact of their citizens. If they are accepting huge cash amounts to upgrade their equipment so that America can have complete access to all our electronic data, then they will have betrayed our interests for America’s interests!
Key will claim any payment was to purchase equipment upgrades and that we should welcome this largesse by our American Overlords, I’m hopeful NZers won’t buy one seconds worth of that explanation.
I was deeply skeptical and opposed to giving the State mass surveillance, and these revelations and continued questions over who is actually funding our intelligence services alleviate none of those concerns.
If America funds the GCSB or SIS, who do they ultimately answer to? Washington or Wellington?
I think we know the answer Martyn. Getting them to own up is a forlorn hope. Snowden and Assange are our only sources of reliable information on the true nature of the “five eyes” … which is quite bizarre when you think about it. Mass surveillance was never justifiable for New Zealand, purely for national security. There is quite another purpose for these wide ranging powers and secrecy. It’s at the point where there are those who have the agenda, those who know there is one, and a massive core of brain-dead either apathetic, or still locked into the domestic left-right paradigm, who seem incapable of seeing the wood for the trees. WW3 is underway and has been for several decades. Like every struggle for world domination, it’s fought with the technology of the day. Write that off as a conspiracy theory at your utmost peril. What’s five eyes if it’s not a five-nation conspiracy?
100% agreeance on that! This has been obvious to me since Palantir sleazed into the country. They didn’t open a branch down in little old NZ for the hell of it. I think DonKey was head-hunted for National but who by? That is the question.
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