Posts by mark taslov
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And these agencies are very good at manipulating public discourse
For me the biggest question which I'd love someone to answer is if the GCSB/NSA/FYES are so powerful, and Government are so corrupt, then how did Rawshark manage to get away clean as a whistle?
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I think that one of the things that has happened is that military structures in general have insulated themselves from the political process. And the kinds of claims that are made to justify their growth, whether putting people in fear of terrorism or other kinds of threats, are very powerful tools. No politician wants to be seen as making the country less safe, or to be vulnerable to claims that they stood in the way of the security of citizens. And these agencies are very good at manipulating public discourse to make sure that they’re continually fed greater authority and greater budgetary support – and just generally allowed to operate without much interference from political officials.
There is a document that we published maybe four or five months ago. It was an interview that was done internally at the NSA with the official in charge of foreign partnerships. And they asked him, why is it that for example in Europe, where you have wildly disparate swings in the election outcomes, from the right to the left, it doesn’t really affect the partnerships that we have with these countries’ intelligence agencies?
And he said, that’s because virtually nobody in the political process, anyone outside of the military structure, even knows these partnerships exist.
For me this is the most important clarification of the last week. It’s crucial to make the distinction between FYES/GCSB and New Zealand. FYES has been evolving since before the GCSB was amalgamated in 1977 under Muldoon, and under every Prime Minister since.
What if the GCSB was re-directed to spy on tax evaders and PR hacks?
If tax evasion is disclosed to the relevant authorities then they may be subject to prosecution? If someone breaks the law then they can quite rightly expect punishment. From my limited reading it doesn’t appear that the FYES infrastructure is necessarily that petty, goals: i.e. TPPA and more generally simply Power.
Whether John Key did or didn’t know about the spying on Kim Dot Com, the point is that the authorities, the police, the legislative arm decided to pounce at the behest of the US. With the trumped up charges the spying probably wasn’t even necessary.
And these agencies are very good at manipulating public discourse
Very good. Because they observe response. in order to successfully bring about civilised revolution. Resistance is KungFu vs The Ocean. If you don’t want to be spied on, go bush.
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True story and one of my faves. -
Yeah, you’re right Greg, thanks for pointing me in the right direction, I’ve spoken to a lawyer, who also referred me to the New Zealand Law Society’s report. He had a read through what I wrote and told me it was the tip of the iceberg and basically spun off the same kind of line as Michael Hadyn had that you just need to embrace it because Government surveillance of NZ citizenry has been going on for ages, mass surveillance for over a decade, and that anyone with any gumption already knows this to be true. He dismissed XKeyscore as a glorified product launch for cyber security geeks, and maintained that there was no way of dismantling the apparatus and the only way to bybass it would be to invent your own technology or get Amish. Brunt of it was that they got everyone’s number long ago, all six lines of it, and they’re for the most part quite entertained, so get with the program* it's the least of your worries.
He also said the people need to flush out any Anti-conspiracy theorists=luddites, they are deluded, dangerous, technologically challenged and not to be trusted.
*I'm very serious about this.
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but anyway
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to mark taslov,
nothing can be collected without a warrant
“nothing” meaning: absolutely no communication, "private" or otherwise.
“collected” meaning: intercepted* by the GCSB.
*needs a prescribed interpretation
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And sorry [correction] I mistitled “Section 16” above, it was amended as “Section 15” last year; (2)(b) still applies. The only other section I can find “private communications” mentioned is Section 15B”:
“15B Involvement of Commissioner of Security Warrants
“(1) An application for, and issue of, an interception warrant or access authorisation under section 15A must be made jointly to, and issued jointly by, the Minister and the Commissioner of Security Warrants if anything that may be done under the warrant or authorisation is for the purpose of intercepting the private communications of a New Zealand citizen or permanent resident of New Zealand under—
Again, maybe no qualifier at all is necessary for both 15 and 15b, simply “…intercepting the_communications of a New Zealander…” covers all that. And perhaps completely removing the interpretation of “private communications” from the legislation so that nothing can be collected without a warrant – shifting the focus to foreign intelligence gathering as David Cunliffe mentioned in the 3rd leaders debate……ah ideals….
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2013/0109/13.0/whole.html#DLM5177706
Graeme?
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Greg Dawson,
Yes, true, no lack of legal minds in New Zealand, actually with due respect to Helen Clark, I'd assumed she was a lawyer, checking now I see she's not so I should rein that in.
tangentially I have received three Adware Adinstaller.Astomenda attacks in the last 5 minutes.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Greg Dawson,
Oh, neither am I, and tbh why bother when it’ll all be over-ridden by some unknown clause in the TPPA anyway?
If the country lies down like a soggy rights reneging dishcloth as it clearly seems to have done since I left, then quite possibly yes. defo buddy.
Thanks for your questions Greg, I wish there was more discussion going on about it, hoping to stir some pots so someone can give me a good bitch slap.
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Hard News: Vision and dumbassery, in reply to Greg Dawson,
That may be right, I’m not lawyer and I left my grammar in 1996 but we need to remove any exploitable loophole for the *circumstance* in which NZer's is collected here because this section deals with interception without a warrant. Hopefully there’s some legal mind in New Zealand who can accomplish that.
I feel like a cup of tea.
WRT to your edit, there are sections in the bill for the disposal of incidentally collected communication. but again if there’s no warrant out on you then they should not be intercepting your communication.