Earlier this week I saw Frank Mackasy described as an ‘another activist’ making submissions on the proposed GCSB bill at the Intelligence & Security committee….

Earlier, another activist Frank Macskasy told the committee the existing oversight of intelligence agencies hadn’t worked.
Mr Macskasy said he was concerned that within a few years the GCSB and other intelligence agencies would be seeking additional powers.
He warned the expanding powers of intelligence agencies spy on New Zealanders was creating a society similar to those in Soviet era Eastern Europe.
“There’s no just reason for spying on New Zealanders it should be taken off the books, it’s as simple as that.”

I don’t know Frank, but I enjoy reading what he communicates now and then. ‘Activist’ or not (how does one get a label like that attached to one, when spin doctor David Farrar is merely called a ‘right-leaning blogger’?) I agree with Frank’s expressions of concern about the GCSB power grab.

A while ago I subscribed to the RSS feed of his blog Frankly Speaking … so, saw this post Dueling Bainjoes (heh!) this morning. The Bain case is interesting, as we’ve discussed here before.

If you care, have a read.

– P

PS While I mention RSS feeds, here’s a great post on Google’s duplicitous reasoning for their sudden abandonment of their dominant Reader service from one of my favourite Internet thinkers, Marco Arment. Discussing the bully-boy tactics of the ‘big three’ (Google, Facebook, Twitter) Marco links to another very good article with the lovely title of Battle for the planet of the APIs by Jeremy Keith. Whether you have a whisker of geek in you or not, these are worth a read.