TONIGHT!
CIA torture whistleblower John Kiriakou was recruited from the high school he taught Jared Leto at. In the decades to follow, he travelled the world, recruited other spies in turn, and oversaw operations that captured Al Qaeda militants and sent them to Guantanamo Bay. Trained to keep secrets, there was one he couldn’t live with – his government was torturing people. Eventually, he shared what he knew with his fellow countrymen. Tonight, he will share it with New Zealand.
When Obama begrudgingly admitted “we tortured some folks”, he was downplaying years of war crimes committed by the US military and intelligence agencies. What we know of the highly classified Senate Torture Report could fit in a thimble, but it is shocking material. Contractors with personal histories of sexual and domestic violence were selected precisely for that criteria. Sadistic tendencies were cultivated and encouraged. The very committee tasked with compiling the report, was famously spied on by the CIA. An act for which then Director John Brennan, also had to apologise.
While we saw with the Abu Ghraib scandal that only low-level perpetrators of such violence and degradation against detainees are ever ‘brought to justice’, we know full well that the culture of abuse and flagrant disrespect for international law is perpetuated from the top down.
As with mass surveillance, and wholesale spying on the West’s own domestic citizenries, torture wasn’t a sporadic or incidental occurrence – it was official government policy, but hidden from the eyes of the public. Done in their name but without their knowledge.
The whistleblowers who have risked their lives and paid high personal prices to bring information to the public that we should have heard from our own politicians first, are our last line of defence against governments obsessed with secrecy, who use it to cover-up their own lawbreaking.
The New Zealand government quakes with fear at the idea that the day may come where they find a member of the GCSB has blown the whistle on our own government’s egregious violations of the public interest. This is why they recently changed the law to guarantee 5 years jail for anyone making such disclosures to media or the public.
They outright attempt to intimidate truth tellers and whistleblowers and have an advanced playbook of discomforts with which to inflict on anyone who dares dissent.
But the Internet Party is not scared and is continuing to shed light on these issues and is teaming up with some of the world’s most significant whistleblowers to do so.
Where the media refuses to report on it, we make such a racket about it that we can’t be ignored.
Subsequently the national media blackout about our campaign, and our events was finally broken on Friday with this Newshub article. The more than 2,000 shares on the article – an astronomical amount by normal Kiwi media standards – shows how much New Zealanders really do care about privacy and human rights.
Again tonight, some of the world’s brightest citizen heroes are coming together to once again shine a spotlight on the crimes of the spy agencies against New Zealand citizens and residents.
Last time around it was Barrett Brown, Lauri Love, and Lee Camp. Tonight, John Kiriakou joins Kim Dotcom, myself and others. We will again discuss everything that our government and their collaborators do not want us to talk to you about. Everything that the media will never say.
Julian Assange tweeted today that journalism is a “method for turning bullshit into history… [and a] method for turning history into bullshit.”
It is we, the eye-witnesses, who write the true history of this generation.
We implore you to listen, to absorb and to share the information.
Then to participate in building the solutions.
Haere mai, Aotearoa. See you at 8pm tonight.
Zoom webinar registration (100 spots only – gives special access to chat with panelists)
Suzie Dawson is the Leader of the Internet Party of New Zealand. She is an activist and investigative journalist who specialises in writing about whistleblowers, intelligence agencies and technology. Read more at her official website: https://suzi3d.com
