Posts by Matthew Poole
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Rob Stowell,
But isn’t the wording seems clear enough for (almost?) everyone to agree there was ILLegal surveilance?
In hindsight, yes, though Kitteridge is still equivocal in her conclusion. She hasn't announced that the law is crystal clear. The situation is far from certain.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to DexterX,
Operating outside the law was standard operating procedure – my view is that Key, Fletcher & even Ferguson would be in the know.
The hurdle in the track of your certainty is that it appears from the report that the institutional understanding within GCSB was that if they were assisting NZSIS or the Police they were allowed to undertake the work because there was a warrant. So even if Fletcher knew about all these past cases he still almost certainly would have given the same answer about there having been no other illegal surveillance, because it was believed to have been legitimate. The practice of assisting other agencies, as the report also makes clear, is decades-old and it was only the 2003 Act’s ambiguous wording which clouds the legal waters.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,
Are you sure it was all three at once?
Matt McCarten was certainly under that impression at the time, and I found a couple of other references that indicated that Douglas was triple-dipping into the public purse during the last term.
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Hard News: Thatcher, in reply to tonyH,
will we dance on [Roger Douglas’] grave?
If I were Roger I’d be planning to be cremated, with my ashes scattered on Sir Rob Jones’ farm. That would deny the bastards the chance to dance on my grave.
ETA: I know that Roger also has a knighthood, but I cannot bring myself to show the slightest respect to a man who railed against government waste and then displayed not the least bit of discomfort at accepting NZ Super, a Parliamentary pension, and an MP’s salary all at the same time.
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I can't help wondering whether NZ would have endured the same degree of fervour from the Rogernomes if they hadn't had Thatcherism as a beacon. Yes some change was necessary, but the manner of the flogging-off of state assets has had some exceptionally negative consequences for NZ as a whole. We also saw the NZ Labour Party, in the same way as its UK namesake, embrace the market wholeheartedly; and fuck the working-class prolles.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to DexterX,
should GCSB head Ian Fletcher’s have to resign over his comments earlier in the year that GCSB had not unlawfully spied on any NZ Residents or Citizen’s other than KIm Dotcom?
Your appalling abuse of innocent apostrophes aside, there’s no suggestion that Fletcher presided over any other illegal activity. Given the concept of compartmentalisation that pervades intelligence services it’s not unreasonable for him not to have known. It’s also very unreasonable to expect that he would have had a full review conducted of all past domestic operations to check their legality. It’s not his job to investigate the legality of operations that concluded before the start of his tenure; supposedly it’s the job of the Inspector-General to ensure legal compliance on an ongoing basis.
The outcome of this report should be all the ammunition required to overhaul the oversight of our intelligence services and turn the Intelligence Select Committee into a fully-fanged monitoring body in the mould of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees in the US. Not holding my breath for National to support such a thing, but given that the sin is across both major parties it’s less of a face-losing exercise.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Keir Leslie,
And really, sticking to the line is not hard. “Sorry Paddy, but I’m not going to comment on that hypothetical situation” or “As I said, New Zealand calls on North Korea to …” is pretty much Media 101, and it isn’t even problematic in that context.
Quite. The whole "Key is rushing to declare war on North Korea" beat-up has completely missed that he shouldn't have said what he did. The outrage hasn't been over his choice of answer, it's been over the incorrectly inferred context. Insert the context of Gower's question and Key's full answer (as opposed to whatever choice snippets might be used) isn't in the least bit warmongering. It is, however, terrifyingly impolitic.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Matthew Hooton,
it involved Paddy asking Key what might happen if North Korea invaded South Korea and then the US and Australia went to South Korea’s defence, and Key saying he didn’t want to speculate but that NZ had a record of defending South Korea.
That's kinda what I thought it would be. It seemed like too-detailed an answer for an innocuous question like "What are your thoughts on the North Korea situation?"
As far as Helen being a threat to a free media goes, Key's unwillingness to set a firm line around the TPP's IP clauses is at least as much of a very real threat as whatever you might imagine Helen posed. Helen had the BSA supporting her reaction to Campbell, whereas I can't imagine that Key will even try and get a ruling from them or the Press Council in this case because he's got no leg to stand on.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Kumara Republic,
Not a new issue either…
Nope. The ethnic constitution of the US military is very skewed away from the population as a whole, and also away from the wealthy. It's poor black and white kids from deprived states who compose the enlisted ranks. I have no particular illusion that NZDF is more representative and egalitarian, though our opening of the officer corps to people who don't have a degree (it's preferred, but not mandatory) does even things up somewhat.
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Hard News: Key Questions, in reply to Stewart,
Get his son into the military & see if his tune changes.
But that's a job for poor (usually brown) people. The Parnell latte set don't have offspring in the military. It's just not the done thing.