New Zealand’s reputation in Japan has been damaged by revelations that our GCSB has been spying on its government communications. “New Zealand spied on Japan to help US at 2007 whaling confab” read the 26 April headline in the Japan Times.
The new mass surveillance state using Government Agency big data was first aimed at the gangs, then beneficiaries and now the Government is swivelling its Eye of Mordor upon the children of the poor…
The irony of the ‘If-you-have-nothing-to-hide-you-have-nothing-to-fear’ Brigade is that if it was Helen Clark who was ramming mass surveillance spying powers through under urgency and giving the SIS extra powers after helping collude with them to stop John Key getting elected, they would make Trump supporters look moderate.
Feeling safe yet NZ? You don’t protect democracy with a police state.
We have been concerned year on year with the extension of powers and resources to our spy agencies the SIS and GCSB. This latest extension of power to spy on New Zealanders is another savage blow to freedom and privacy by an obsessive, intrusive, controlling state.
The NZ Intelligence and Security Bill is the culmination of twenty years of increases in the powers of NZ’s spy agencies. It gives them everything they could hope for. The Bill radically broadens the focus of the SIS and the GCSB so they can run operations on almost anything. It allows them to do literally anything to advance on operation or to cover it up. It allows them to co-opt anybody else into an operation. And it grants immunity from prosecution to everyone involved.
In this series of three articles, I outline why I think this Bill represents the most disturbing attack to date on the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders. Part two traces two decades of intelligence and security legislation from 1996 to 2016.
Nicky Hager, TVNZ and Glenn Greenwald’s Intercept have come together to look at state funded mass surveillance programs created in NZ using University money…
The speed with which the National Party have conned the sleepy hobbits of muddle Nu Zilind to just hand over their civil rights is truly astonishing.
As a nation we are so easily manipulated by distractions.