Posts by Alastair Thompson
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Nicely said Russell. This was my thought when the decision was first taken, and I wondered which genius at the Labour Party was responsible for the timing - the morning after the GCSB Bill passed.
Unconventional politics, perhaps. But dramatic!
And potentially high risk.
So far however it is working like a dream.
It has had the effect of sucking all the oxygen out from what would have been the spectre of John Key basking in his victory over the powerless communists, civil libertarians and their Twitter Chorus.
And as you say - if that process can be managed in a way to produce light rather than heat, then it can be fantastic experience both for the country and for the party as well as building "him" a great platform for beyond.
Which is why I was keen for Jacinda Ardern to be in the race. Shane Jones is not a real contender and never has been, Jacinda is, and the absence of a woman from the line-up is a bit of a shame IMO.
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I have just posted an extensive open letter to Peter Dunne. Right now we really do need him to change his mind and everybody telling him he is craven and has already betrayed us isn't necessarily helping the process.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1308/S00125/dear-peter-dunne-sos-save-our-souls-500-words.htm
It's more like 3000 words actually. And concludes thus:
Peter, the fact is that the only person who can ensure the right thing is now done is you.
The people of New Zealand and Wellington and perhaps even Ohariu will be enormously grateful if you ensure that due process is properly followed and that at the very least the Privileges Committee inquiry into the report leak is completed before the passage of the GCSB Bill.
The issues at the heart of the illegal mass-surveillance controversy - which now thanks to the disclosures of former NSA staffer Edward Snowden are now several orders of magnitude more serious that they were when the Kim Dotcom case began - are globally significant.
What happens with the GCSB Bill this week in NZ matters not just here, but throughout the world.
In 1985 the NZ Government chose - backed by a massive public mandate - to pass legislation the effect of which was to stop US ship visits to New Zealand. Four years later the wall came down and thirty years later the number of warheads has fallen from 60,000 to 16,000.
The legislation New Zealand passed was trenchantly opposed by the State Department at the time.
The US was fearful of what message us passing such legislation would send to the rest of the world, and particularly Denmark, Norway and Japan.
28 years later with NZ nearly back in ANZUS there is a strange symmetry between those events and the current situation.
Now the US Government is keen for us to pass the GCSB Bill as quickly as possible.
This time the US would like an example of NZ's acquiescence to the legality of it's ubiquitous surveillance infrastructure to provide to other nations whose politicians are coming under increasing pressure to explain just what the NSA, GCHQ, ASIO (Australia) and GCSB are doing and why it is ok that they are doing what they are doing.
Here in NZ what happened to you at the hands of the David Henry inquiry illustrated the dangers of investigators who do not understand the limits of their powers.
What happened to you also illustrated very clearly why it is not ok to grant powers of surveillance to agents of the executive - especially when those powers are poorly defined.
I hope you agree with me that down this is path we find Star Chambers, despotism and the destruction of freedom.
This is not something that should be allowed to pass softly as if we do not care, while we concentrate our attention on what our Prime Minister thinks ought to concern us, namely, how much snapper we are allowed to catch.
Dear Peter, right now the only thing that stands between the aspirations of millions of NZers to live in a country they are proud of, and the passage of this bill is you.
And this is why I entreat you to think on what I am saying.
S.O.S. (Save our Souls) and do not support the third reading of the GCSB or TICS Bills until there has been a proper inquiry into the matters which are raised by the Kim Dotcom and David Henry cases of investigative over-reach.
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Hard News: Fly My Pretties Schwag!, in reply to Elinor,
Brilliant.... you are our first entrant Elinor. And at the moment you have a 100% chance of indeed being a muppet. Is good that someone has shown the way. Now we need some fast followers.
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Whatup! Nobody wants to be a Muppet?
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Hard News: The Real Threat, in reply to Russell Brown,
Illegal stuff happens accidentally these days, apparently rather a lot.
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Tried to post this from my mobile phone some brief thoughts, prompted by Toby Manhire's excellent post at The Listener.
I was discussing this on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/Zagzigger/status/361664892014567424
Where RussB suggested I check in here.
Hi!
I haven't yet caught up but here is my thought.
We have a secret order in 2003 which was reissued in 2005, it was unbeknownst to the CDF at the time - Sir Bruce Ferguson - who seems to have a good opinion of Nicky Hager - so you would have thought that he would remember it.
And 2003 is also the same time as the GCSB legislation - and in April of that year when according to the Kitteridge report SIS/GCSB cooperation on domestic spying under PM's warrant began.
As we are debating the use of the word "Certain" in the context of the phrase "Certain Investigative Journalists" is odd. Either this is further defined in the order or it it begs the question who?
Notably this is way before Jon Stephenson was on the scene which leads back to Nicky.
The other reason the latest revelations are so fascinating as they create a way out for National. Now an inquiry into all this will also be very painful for Labour - and potentially also for the poster child of the GCSB Bill opponents former CDF and GCSB chief Bruce Ferguson.
The plot thickens. Mind boggles. And this much is certain. This story has just moved up another notch.
Is this a constitutional crisis yet?
It will be if Peter Dunne changes his mind. And for that to happen it would help if David Shearer were to stop throwing rocks at him.
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"It’s yet another element in an endlessly metastasising story that began with a change in the global surveillance climate..."
Aha! The perfect adjective for this story :) Although if it is cancerous, it is only so to the intelligence apparatus and might be considered benign to civil society more generally.
Looking forward to the show.
If anyone has missed it they should catch up with Glenn Greenwald's address and introduction by Jeremy Scahill at the Socialism 2013 conference in Chicago last week.
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Fantastic post RB, now I understand what you have been getting so obviously irritated with Bernard Orsman about. I also seriously commend the Niall Insight Documentary – it is a great radio feature, understated but very clear in what it conveys. The govt is at sea over Auckland. clueless. In am even beginning to have some sympathy for the idea of Amalgamation here in Wellington. It would be nice for my town to have some real klout and that NZTA couldn't just snap it's fingers and have several lovsl Mayors jump to its attention - as it does now.
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Flat3 is very very cool. Such sympathetic characters - and it proves that 7 minutes is really rather a long time.
In other news Peter Griffin has posted a superb post on his FutureNews blog about the Scoop Foundation Project here: http://futurenews.co.nz/2013/04/11/scoop-foundation-how-it-could-work/
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This is the comment that appears in the photograph above of myself posting this comment from Jucy Hotel and taken during the screening of the TV version (not time shifted) following the launch event at AUT’s awesome new media school.
They call it convergence. Getting late. Getting meta!
Gnight Public Address.
