So the SIS broke the law (again) by spying on a journalist exposing NZDF abuse of power.
What does this mean for New Zealanders?
We all agreed post 9-11 to allow our Governments to ramp up powers to protect us from a terrorist attack of that magnitude, but who has the State actually been going after since 9-11?
We now know that the GCSB, SIS, Police Intelligence Unit and a plethora of Government agencies illegally spied on New Zealanders or circumvented transparency by hiring private spies to spy on Māori protesting big oil, Tuhoe, Greenpeace, MANA, the Green Party, Nicky Hager, Me and Muslims while they managed to miss an actual white supremacist terrorist who plotted an atrocity on NZ soil for two years, who had multiple complaints made about him and who crossed the border half a dozen times.
I’ve always believed that the enormous powers the State had amassed for itself had checks and balances in place to protect us as citizens from abuses of power.
I was wrong.
In my case against the NZ Police for involving me in their flawed prosecution against Hager, I’ve seen how utterly thread bare the so called checks and balances actually are.
This is the Intelligence apparatus of NZ – SIS (Secret Intelligence Services), the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau), the NSG (National Security Group), the CNSN (Cabinet National Security Committee), the ODESC (Officials’ Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination), the SIB (Security and Intelligence Board), the CTCC (Counter-Terrorism Coordinating Committee), the NICC ( National Intelligence Coordination Committee) the IAD (Intelligence and Assessments Directorate), the NRU (National Risk Unit) and the NSPD (National Security Policy Directorate), NZDF military intelligence and the Police Intelligence Unit.
These agencies cost anywhere between 300m-500m each year, are we actually any safer?
There are no checks and balances in place to prevent vast abuses of power by these agencies, the only way to hold them to account is the person targeted has the tenacity to fight it on their own. Kim Dotcom, Nicky Hager and my own case where the police are trying to set a precedent to gain secret trials using secret evidence, are the only places where this fight back is occurring and that’s all fine and good while we are in a benign environment, but if push ever came to shove, the speed of transformation from a democracy to Police State is far quicker and easier than most New Zealanders appreciate.
The Police State is perpetually waiting in the shadows and those they wish to control have no comprehension of how large and powerful that shadow is. You won’t appreciate it until you actually face the beast and by then, it will be too late.
Thankfully we have people like Dotcom and Hager who are prepared to fight and remind us how the individual can stand against the State.
It means we have the wrong people in our jails it means when national are in power we have corruption at the highest level, It means we have one law for the rich and one for the poor, it means our country is fucked and it means some heads need to roll (accountability)
It means we have the wrong people in our jails it means when national are in power we have corruption at the highest level, It means we have one law for the rich and one for the poor, it means our country is fucked and it means some heads need to roll (accountability)
Martyn; no one is safe any more now in big brother land.
To me it means that all these agencies can do what they want to, without even having any grounds, and that there seems to be no mechanism to make them accountable. Felix Geiringer, taking to John Campbell about the SIS Hager illegalities says:
“So here we still have Rebecca Kitteridge covering up unlawful acts by her own organisations used to protect their own reputation and not protect national security at all.”
If the SIS did this for the NZDF, they will most likely will have done it for others, but few are able to follow through as Nicky Hager has. When they – the heads of the SIS and the NZDF- are able to blatantly lie baldy claiming national security, they should be stood down for incompetence – for lying, and for lying so badly.
When the top is unable to admit its own mistakes, it can’t expect the bottom to. What is really reprehensible, is that we have ex NZDF and SAS guys in NZ saying they’ve been sworn to secrecy about Afghanistan – which can be a really heavy burden for some to carry- while the top brass just lie their way out of trouble like children do. I’m shocked.
but the bottom echelons of society are being held accountable for what they do that is why over 50% of inmates are Maori
An example of how our systems favour the rich is nationals sarah dowie who got of texting ross to kill himself yet another NZ women was just recently pursued by our nz police she was arrested and she didn’t do it and they had to pay out yet sarah dowie who did it and got of scott free. So how do you expect us to have any confidence and trust in a system that priviliges the rich and punitively punishes the poor and its still happening in the meantime Rebecca kitterrige and others are too busy covering their own arses getting top wages when really they should be getting the fucken boot
Michelle -Where I’m talking about the “Top” and ‘Bottom” I ‘m only referring to these two particular organisations, the NZDF and the SIS. I’m not talking about our community generally, and I certainly wouldn’t measure top and bottom based on wealth or income.
Ever heard anyone say, “poor but honest’?
Ever heard anyone say, “rich but honest ?”
Didn’t think so.
Most of us stuff up every now and then, and we learn to own up to it, apologise, pay penalties etc. Here, the people at the head of the SIS and NZDF, lied, and they lied stupidly – because they are stupid, and because they think that we are too.
If the people at the top are tricky and dishonest, then it’s a big ask expecting those down the bottom to behaviour better than their leaders. The fish rots from the head down- that makes it quite hard for Jack to be better than his master – and it’s not money that comes trickling down, it’s the other.
I think that the cases which you refer to would have been differentiated on points of law, but these two tax-payer funded services, the NZDF and SIS, have shown arrogance in thinking that the other relevant parties could be fobbed off with lies.
They’ve also publicly shown that they are idiots, and you know I don’t have a great deal of confidence in organisations which look as if they are lead by idiots; the NZDF can’t hurt you or me, they just mainly kill strangers America wants them to, but the Security Intelligence Service is a different story altogether – secretive, and not averse to breaking the law, and that is a bit sinister.
And. If they wanted to snoop on Nicky Hager, and one of their own staff, they should have to apply for an appropriate warrant from a judge like the police do, and not model themselves on American television programs – this is real life, where people have rights, and people get hurt.
I can also honestly say, that the biggest liars I know are right wing zealots…
Right on Bomber is all I can say!
It is amazing that the finding re the NZSIS was made in the latest Hager case, let alone made public. Is there a Govt. dept that has not apologised to him now?
NZDF has been caught with their Camo pants down over the documents locked in a safe, Jon Stephenson and Nicky Hager ultimately did them over in Court, despite Defense spending hugely on lawyers services. The Police have apologised and coughed up a substantial settlement for violating Nicky’s rights with their illegal search of his home and seizure of his equipment.
And all Nicky, and Jon, and you Martyn of course, were doing was their jobs! Doing what the vast majority of the media refuse to do.
“And all Nicky, and Jon, and you Martyn of course, were doing was their jobs!”
There’s a difference here, though. Nicky and Jon took on a specific job, with its inherent risks. The apologies to Nicky were certainly a good thing, and a long time coming. Now if that were the end of the story it would be a relief, with some restored sense of, “Okay, that’s that. Mistakes were made, they’ve been acknowledged, now we can all get back to work”.
But instead they’ve now gone after Martyn?? With all this crap secrecy stuff? This is wrong in so many ways.
For one thing it makes their apology to Nicky look wobbly at best, .. or rather, deeply cynical.
For another, Martyn is out there, publicly accessible. It is not as if he’s someone who is hiding away or difficult to contact. If they have something to say to him there is NOTHING to stop them saying it openly to his face, in any public venue.
I mean, what’s with all the secrecy crap anyway? The only possible reason that officials give for that stuff is some sort of threat to National Security. Martyn a threat to our National Security?? (Give me a break!) And he is not even allowed to know why that is supposed to be the case? It is beyond bizarre.
One more reason why it is so wrong is that this kind of situation can easily be set up by hackers or others to frame someone they don’t like, eg for political or other purposes. Which is why it is essential that the person being targeted is told, is informed of whatever charges or accusations are being made. This is so fundamental to our individual personal rights – to defend ourselves.
There is yet another reason this is all so wrong. With Nicky and Jon, the effects and repercussions were for them as individuals and their own immediate families. Martyn however is the host of an unapologetically Left wing public forum, so if he were impeded in what he does, this would affect a much wider group of New Zealanders (ultimately, everyone).
I’ve read through this a couple of times now and I’m still trying to process it.
I knew about Nicky H. Did not know about what happened to Martyn.
Nor had I read that report on Govt Agencies using P.I.s.
If ever there was a time when we needed to wake up, I guess it’s now.
“Thankfully we have people like Dotcom and Hager who are prepared to fight and remind us how the individual can stand against the State.”
Song around the World – Don’t Give Up the Fight
Even less than the fact that THERE”S (AT LEAST) ONE FUCKING PRC SPY IN PARLIAMENT SITTING AS AN MP….
Run that story every day until the Beehive gets stormed and the fucker is lynched by the mob… Xiriously… WTF?
Castro: Yep. It just adds to the sad joke of having all those paid “Security” groups in operation.
This bears repeating:
“This is the Intelligence apparatus of NZ – SIS (Secret Intelligence Services), the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau), the NSG (National Security Group), the CNSN (Cabinet National Security Committee), the ODESC (Officials’ Committee for Domestic and External Security Coordination), the SIB (Security and Intelligence Board), the CTCC (Counter-Terrorism Coordinating Committee), the NICC ( National Intelligence Coordination Committee) the IAD (Intelligence and Assessments Directorate), the NRU (National Risk Unit) and the NSPD (National Security Policy Directorate), NZDF military intelligence and the Police Intelligence Unit.”
This is CRAZY stuff. It reads like something out of one of NZ’s satirical dark comedy files.
A dozen different groups, presumably all people being paid to do their jobs, ostensibly to look out for the security and protection of New Zealanders? That many of them?
And someone from Aus strolls in and wipes out 50 people, the heart of an entire community in the centre of one of our cities. Those units and bureaus and boards and committees etc – what the heck are they all there for?
A dozen different different Intelligence Units in NZ, all with people being paid, presumably, to “keep us safe”, and yet no-one of them has managed to stem the flow of Meth into the country. We’re being flooded with it, and it will destroy the lives of many Kiwis.
How can we know that some vested interest group, or some foreign power with interests counter to our own interests as a nation, .. some group with values and aims which are at odds with ours, …has not already infiltrated and taken over the workings of one or more of those “Security Units”?
How would we know?
And, given that as ‘Castro’ has noted, there is at least one (former?) foreign espionage agent sitting openly as a N.Z. government representative … this is not an unlikely scenario. If it has not happened already, there seems to be nothing to stop it happening in the future.
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