Under pressure from Glenn Greenwald’s revelations, John Key, using various smoke screens, is starting to reveal his complicity in working with the GCSB & its 5 Eyes partners, to extend the scope of their spying. Could the Southern Cross Cable Network not have known their systems had been tapped? Update: Statement by Southern Cross Cables
An interesting article by lawyer Steven Price at Media Law Journal. Some extracts quoted, but well worth going and reading the full article.
John Key and National let the GCSB spend 12 months on plans to conduct our mass surveillance. Without telling us. And he intends to release the details now only for political considerations. Without Glenn Greenwald’s presence we probably would never have learned about this.
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Glenn Greenwald is standing firm in the face of Key’s attacks and denials. A fascinating interview with Steve Braunias yesterday contains a key claim.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
They’re at it again. David Farrar has a guest post from fellow VRWC member Charles Finny about FiveEyes, arguing that it’s kept us safe in foreign wars and Labour did it too. Which of course is not the point of the current debate about massive government surveillance of innocent citizens. Farrar then gets himself tangled in knots – if Dotcom is right Labour did it too – but he’s not of course says Farrar.
Jackal has compiled a number of the reasons why NZ First and particularly Winston Peters are unlikely to form a coalition or even to support National and John Key. Probably the way that National through their sockpuppets Act, David Farrar, and Whaleoil attacked with spurious charges in 2008. That he came back must have been a shock…
information is supposed to be classified only for valid reasons of national security. The information Key wants to release is likely classified SECRET or TOP SECRET. Its worth remembering that Key and his office are already under investigation by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security for politically-motivated declassification decisions.
Landline polls are a traditional gripe for lefties. But this election polls look seriously out of whack with reality. Is National at 55%, 50%, 48% or 46%? But it’s always far too large for a party at National’s current stage in the political cycle. Just unbelievable and highly unlikely.
David Cunliffe has announced his final big policy. It’s called NZ Inc and it’s a bloody smart move.
The positioning re Kim Dotcom’s “Moment of Truth” has started this morning.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
The Jackal cleared up some more strange tweeting behaviour from Matthew Hooton. It appears that he has been tweeting that he has heard from a “left source” that The Standard have the last whaledumps. Yeah right…. Perhaps he should ask before making a fool of himself.
Action Station want to run a full-page ad in the Herald calling on politicians to clean up NZ politics. (Update: only $580 needed! Let’s do it!)
Here we sit just a week out from an election. It’s a week in which you face a stark choice. Three more years of smile and wave dirty politics or a new direction.
Glenn Greenwald has arrived in New Zealand and has been interviewed on the Nation. He has alleged that the GCSB is a fully fledged member of the 5 eyes network and has been engaged in mass surveillance of New Zealanders, contrary to assurances previously given by John Key.
John Key reckons increasing the minimum wage would hurt “the hairdressers in Levin or Foxton”. So Rob McCann, Labour’s candidate for Ōtaki, asked one how she felt about that.
Nicky Hager has exposed the two track strategy of the Whale Oil, Kiwiblog, Nat smear machine. Why is it allowed to continue?
National is not interested in doing anything about poverty in NZ. They won’t even officially measure poverty, because they don’t want to know.
Is Cunliffe inauthentic? Does Key get to have his own facts? And when will we get proper (ie not game) analysis from our pundits? (spoiler warning: praise for Josie Pagani)
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
A nice decision by Justice Asher. We are now sort of journalists. But it left Cameron Slater naked in front of the clipping shears of Matthew Blomfield’s defamation case.
So much for any abatement of dirty politics…
No its not our politicians, media or PR and pundits trying to make sense of what is happening here but according to the Tatler the Scottish aristocracy is nervous. Change is afoot.
If we, the electorate, reward dirty politics by re-electing a National government, we will be validating the most vile tactics this country has seen since Muldoon.
Frank Macskasy at the Daily Blog has produced a timeline on the 11 year old David Cunliffe – Donghua Liu letter that shows some more seriously dodgy Dirty Politics
National have gambled everything on “Team Key”. They may yet wish that they hadn’t.
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Publishing a photo of your voting paper could earn you a $20,000 fine, and other warnings from the Electoral Commission.
In a series of tweets Giovanni Tiso has highlighted important issues concerning the relationship between the media and National as disclosed by Dirty Politics.
With Labour supporting the plan, I/S at No Right Turn makes the case against “working prisons”.
Gordon Campbell posted an excellent piece yesterday on 19 Reasons Why We Can’t Afford Another National Government. I’m sure that Standardistas can add to the list…
Open mike is your post. For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose. The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy). Step up to the mike …
Well that time rolled around again today some time. We are now past 800,000 comments. It seems like only yesterday that we were at 700,000. But it turns out that was just over 6 months ago.
David Cunliffe’s performance in tonight’s head-to-head with John Key was exactly what I wanted to see from the next Labour Prime Minister of NZ.
