Fran O’Sullivan has correctly stated that the investigation of the $100,000 donation made to the National Party that was partitioned to hide it should be of much greater concern to the New Zealand Police than Sarah Dowie’s texts.
Sarah Dowie has been identified as the MP under police investigation for sending the text to Jami-Lee Ross saying that he deserved to die.
David Fisher in the Herald has reported that the Taxpayer’s Union has used numerous fictitious identities to make Official Information Act requests.
Simon Bridges has justified his claim that the three strikes law is working by releasing an Italian study that has not been peer reviewed on the effects on white collar criminals of a pardon system.
Newsroom has released details of media emails sent to the police about the Clarke Gayford rumours.
The Government has announced it will not proceed with the Waikeria mega prison as part of its policy to decrease the prison muster by 30%. And the called for public debate starts off with one of the major players using a study the author of which subsequently retracted because the data he relied on was wrong.
David Fisher has written an in-depth article for the Herald that suggests that John Key’s promise, three years ago, that the Government had cancelled the Speargun project which would have allowed for the mass surveillance of New Zealanders was not actually correct.
It’s starting to feel a lot like 1996 all over again. Another term of the Nats would be bad news for the institutions of democracy. We’ve had recent warnings on the state of the justice system, press freedom, and the public service.
Bomber Bradbury has succeeded in getting the Privacy Commissioner to rule that Police accessing his bank records without a search warrant was illegal.
David Fisher on the Dotcom spying debacle: “But the legal action which disclosed the extended spying also targets English specifically, saying he acted “unlawfully” when he signed a ministerial certificate intended to bury the spying operation forever.”
David Fisher in The Herald exposes yet another NZDF “error” on Operation Burnham. Intelligence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan: “I’m absolutely certain that what we’re seeing is part of the ongoing cover-up.”
Why did the NZDF wrongly claim that there were no photographs of the mission? Intelligence analyst Dr Paul Buchanan has a suggestion.
According to David Fisher (Herald) the NZDF never investigated allegations of civilian deaths at the time of Operation Burnham. They received only a summary of the whitewash ISAF report. They refuse to look further. This is the behaviour of an organisation with plenty to hide. Hager and Stephenson have facts, the NZDF are hiding behind a transparent fig leaf of deliberate ignorance.
I’m finding that the way that stories are reported rather interesting and full of hidden bias. Looking at the London attack and the “Hit and Run” stories, you have to ask about what editors and some journalists choose to focus on in stories. They often seem to miss the point about why things happen and what the consequences are.
Todd Barclay has chosen to co-operate fully with the police investigation into his actions by getting a lawyer and refusing to say anything to them.
Police censorship of research is causing widespread outrage today. Well done to Dr Gilbert and The Herald for bringing it all to light.
Over at Public Address, Herald reporter David Fisher has written a long and fascinating piece on his experiences in getting access to public information. Short form – NZ has over the last 25 years gone from a good place to a very bad place indeed.
National’s dirty politics, for all its corrosive damage, also marks an opportunity for NZ. An opportunity to take stock, recognise such tactics for what they are, and reject them. An opportunity to clean up both politics and the media’s coverage of it.
Bad day for National’s favourite blogger yesterday (plus journalist David Fisher on the Kiwiblog comments section).
