In an interview broadcast on state broadcaster (well, for now) TVNZ’s Q&A current affairs programme this morning, John Key characterised New Zealanders who’ve expressed dissent about his GCSB Bill, and specifically the thousands of us who took part in protest rallies throughout the country yesterday, as “either politically aligned or misinformed“.
Listen to this 20 second audio clip from his interview with Jessica Mutch:
Watch the full interview at the excellent TVNZ on demand website: PM prepared to compromise with NZ First on GCSB Bill.
It starts out as a very good, strong, clear interview when Mr Key discusses the South Korean free trade talks (he’s brilliant at explaining that stuff in my opinion. World-class) … but disintegrates when the politicking about his GCSB Bill starts.
Sadly, one has come to expect shallow dismissals like that (‘politically aligned or misinformed’) from the prime minister, especially under pressure.
Consider Mr Key’s own track record and the changing narrative of his involvement in the appointment of his school friend Ian Fletcher as head of the GCSB (just as an example, see: Tripping over the paper trail. Spokesman says Mr Key advised cabinet about Fletcher link ‘orally’.)
Also, I think Mr Key’s glib deflection insults the integrity of New Zealanders, like me, who feel deep and sincere — and informed — unease about how he, personally, has ‘handled’ the state security apparatus … and his proposed law change, the GCSB Bill.
But let me say this as clearly as I can: ‘Politically aligned or misinformed’? Actually Mr Key, no, I’m neither of those.
Expressing my misgivings and concerns as a citizen about some of the Government of the Day’s policies and actions doesn’t automatically make me (a) ignorant or (b) a supporter of the National Party’s political rivals.
Not just ‘No’, Mr Key. ‘Hell no!’ (With apologies to Harper Lee.)
John Key plays the man, not the ball. Again
Mr Key seems quick to disparage Rodney Harrison QC by name. That is the prime minister’s MO, as I have observed before. He does that. It’s one of the traits people point to when seeking to compare John Key with Sir Robert Muldoon. Another example: John Key threatens Human Rights Commission funding.
Anyway, have a look at this interview from TV3’s The Nation recorded yesterday featuring the very same Rodney Harrison QC, and Tech Liberty’s Thomas Beagle:
Do those two critics sound ‘misinformed’? No? They don’t?
Well then, by Mr Key’s characterisation, they must be ‘politically aligned’ — along with those notorious left-leaning Marxist-Socialist-Leninist wreckers I mentioned yesterday, The NZ Law Society (whose submission on the GCSB Bill was presented by … Rodney Harrison QC – quelle horreur!) … as well as The Human Rights Commission, The Privacy Commissioner, New Zealander of the Year Dame Anne Salmond, Internet NZ, The Human Rights Foundation …
And Thomas Beagle’s rhetorical question to the divine Rachel Smalley ‘Are you a threat? You’re probably not. Then why do they want to spy on you?’ (about 5’10”) has been given breathtaking new sharpness with the revelation today (see below) that the NZ Defence Force asked US intelligence to spy on Kiwi journalist Jon Stephenson’s communications in Afghanistan.
You may already know Ms Smalley reported from Afghanistan. Is it possible SHE has been ‘monitored’ as a ‘subversive’, like Jon Stephenson? (see story below) Pic: @Rachel_Smalley
US spy agencies eavesdrop on Kiwi
by Nicky Hager
The New Zealand military received help from US spy agencies to monitor the phone calls of Kiwi journalist Jon Stephenson and his associates while he was in Afghanistan reporting on the war.
Stephenson has described the revelation as a serious violation of his privacy, and the intrusion into New Zealand media freedom has been slammed as an abuse of human rights.
The spying came at a time when the New Zealand Defence Force was unhappy at Stephenson’s reporting of its handling of Afghan prisoners and was trying to find out who was giving him confidential information.
The monitoring occurred in the second half of last year when Stephenson was working as Kabul correspondent for the US McClatchy news service and for various New Zealand news organisations.
The Sunday Star-Times has learned that New Zealand Defence Force personnel had copies of intercepted phone “metadata” for Stephenson, the type of intelligence publicised by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. The intelligence reports showed who Stephenson had phoned and then who those people had phoned, creating what the sources called a “tree” of the journalist’s associates.
New Zealand SAS troops in Kabul had access to the reports and were using them in active investigations into Stephenson. …
… A leaked New Zealand Defence Force security manual reveals it sees three main “subversion” threats it needs to protect itself against: foreign intelligence services, organisations with extreme ideologies and “certain investigative journalists”.
… The manual, which was issued as an order by the Chief of Defence Force, places journalists among the hostile individuals. It defines “The Threat” as espionage, sabotage, subversion and terrorism, and includes investigative journalists under the heading “subversion”.
Read the full mind-blowing article at stuff.co.nz
These are extraordinary and troubling developments.
– P
Here is Andrew Geddis’s response to NZ Defence Force’s view of journalists as ‘subversives’ …
http://pundit.co.nz/content/morale-was-deteriorating-and-it-was-all-yossarians-fault
I let out a private cheer as I read Professor Geddis’s pundit post, before tracking down my fiancee and reading it out to her and her friend as well.
There is something rather frightening about the obvious contempt that the NZDF top brass have for the concepts of transparency and democracy.
I had a funny conversation a couple of years ago. I was issued, let’s say, a “company computer,” it wasn’t a for-profit corporation but it was for work, so you get the idea. Anyway, I was having real difficulty with my email password and username. So I called tech support at this organization and as soon as I identified myself, the guy on the other end began spouting off how he loved writing short stories, etc… Eh…, you mean, just like me. What a coincidence. Odd, I thought, and why would he even bring that up—oh, of course he’s been reading my hard-drive for years. And to tell you the truth he was kind of gushing—I think he really liked my stuff. That’s a good thing, right? 🙂
Kinda creepy, huh?
That said, over the years I’ve worked for a handful of mainstream news media organisations. As part of the job, similar to you, I’ve been set up with a ‘log-in’ into the computer systems, including company emails, shared contact lists, news archives, and areas where I could store and retrieve info for stories in development …
I always worked on the basis that the system administrators (and by extension, management) had FULL ACCESS to everything I used the company-provided IT gear for — my communications and data, websites I visited etc. (I’m pretty sure the company IT policies I signed up to permitted that.)
But that’s work.
For my private stuff (or my own companies – training & publishing) I assume my right to privacy as a citizen remains legally intact.
I haven’t and don’t give the government (or any govt agency) permission to snoop on my cell-phone location data, my email, my internet browsing ‘trail’ without reasonable cause.
For the avoidance of doubt: Expressing criticism of the government-of-the-day’s policies, or its apparently dubious public servant appointments processes, doesn’t provide reasonable cause.
– P
Geeks and techno types dont respect boundaries. In a weird sort of way hollywood mimics reality in its many movies that depict amoral techno-geek types.
Its all a bit “i was only following orders …” thing …
Note that in a brief (and no doubt carefully-worded) statement the NZ Defence Force emphatically denies the suggestion that they ‘authorised any Defence Force personnel to undertake unlawful interception of private communications’ … and that ‘This includes asking foreign organisations to do this on our behalf.’
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1307/S00363/defence-force-says-no-monitoring-took-place.htm
These denials have been … er … questioned by Nicky Hager, who stands by his story, and the ‘target’, journalist Jon Stephenson.
Radio NZ’s Morning Report covers the controversy well, with coverage of Defence Minister Jonathan Coleman, Nicky Hager, former Minister Phil Goff …
… and spoke to Jon Stephenson:
There’s yet more to come out about this matter, I’m sure.
– P
Here are the source URLs for those clips:
Morning Report web page: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2563817/hager-maintains-defence-force-monitored-stephenson-calls
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2563819/jon-stephenson-says-nzdf-asked-for-help-to-obtain-metadata
Sounds a bit of confusing.
I have a question. Was this journalist, Jon Stephenson, a “guest” of the NZ Military while in Afghanistan, or was he there on his own volition? Knowing that would make things a bit clearer.
Jon Stephenson is an independent freelancer who, on that instance, was also working for US agency McClatchy — by contrast to those who are ’embedded’ or whose coverage is coordinated by NZ DF.
Here’s the McClatchy news agency’s strongly-worded response to the idea that Jon Stephenson (or any reporter) would be ‘monitored’ for the benefit of an ‘unhappy’ New Zealand Defence Force:
http://www.cpj.org/blog/McClatchy_Letter_to_Clapper.pdf
Text (via OCR, please excuse any typos)
THE MCCLATCHY COMPANY
Since 1857
July 30, 2013
Hon. J ames R. Clapper
Director, Office of the Director ofNational Intelligence
Washington, DC 20511
Re: Collection and Use of Telephone Data of a McClatchy Newspapers Reporter
Dear Mr. Clapper:
As you may be aware, over the past weekend, newspapers in New Zealand published troubling reports that U.S. intelligence agencies helped the New Zealand military collect “metadata” of cellular telephone calls made by Jon R. Stephenson while he worked as a correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers in Afghanistan between January and September of last year. Those reports indicated that the metadata that the U.S. agencies helped collect covered not just calls made by Mr. Stephenson, but also calls by his “associates,” raising further the question of whether the collection also included metadata from calls made by McClatchy journalists and editors in Washington, D.C. with whom Stephenson spoke regularly by telephone while working for McClatchy.
The allegations ofU.S. intelligence agencies helping to target a journalist working for a U.S. news organization contained in the reports are of course disturbing. The metadata that intelligence agencies have routinely been collecting to fight terrorism can be used to learn a great deal about a person, including their habits, their preferences and, in the case of journalists, their sources. Absent a well-founded, good faith belief that a journalist is engaged in terrorist activity, compiling and analyzing a journalist’s metadata would violate core First Amendment principles and U.S. law.
The reports out of New Zealand are thus particularly alarming in disclosing that the apparent purpose for monitoring Mr. Stephenson was the unhappiness of the New Zealand military over his reporting about possible war crimes committed by New Zealand special forces . If the reports are accurate, the U.S. Government’s facilitation of such retaliatory monitoring of a reporter would be a serious breach of both the constitutional protection ofnewsgathering and the statutory limits imposed on the collection and use of communications information by intelligence agenctes.
President Obama has reassured the American public- repeatedly-that the data collection programs conducted by the intelligence community to search for terrorists are carefully circumscribed and not allowed to “run amok.” We, along with other members of the media, repeatedly have been assured that no queries are made against the communic’ation information databases compiled by U.S. intelligence agencies unless there is a good reason to suspect terrorist actiVIty. These assurances cannot be squared with the allegations made in the reports this past weekend.
We regard any targeted collection of the metadata of our journalists as a serious interference with McClatchy’s constitutional rights to gather and report the news. We therefore request clarification about whether any U.S. intelligence agencies helped in the collection, use and/or analysis of any metadata from the cellphone ofMcClatchy journalist Jon Stephenson, including,
• the phone numbers, email, or other accounts for which his metadata was compiled;
• the time period covered by the metadata;
• whether the metadata included locational information;
• whether metadata was separately compiled for the communications of the individuals who spoke with Mr. Stephenson, including any journalists and editors at McClatchy in the United States; and
• whether the actual content of any email or other communications was obtained.
We urgently seek to know the scope of any information relating to Mr. Stephenson that may have been compiled, and, if that information was gathered, the justification for doing so.
Given the importance of this situation, we look forward to your prompt response.
Very truly yours,
Anders Gyllenhaal
Vice President, News
Karole Morgan-Prager
Vice President, Corporate Development and General Counsel
COPIES TO:
Gen. Keith B. Alexander, Director, National Security Agency
John C. lnglis, Deputy Director, National Security Agency
Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, Director, Defense Intelligence Agency
[…] my post ‘With respect, Mr Key, you misjudge me.‘ I had a trifling interaction with another government politician under siege this […]
[…] It’s not just that I think the thought-free, indiscriminate use of labels like ‘Right wing’ and ‘Left wing’ to divide people and arguments is too broad-brushed or coarse to be useful, and most use of it tribal or sectarian. The problem also arises that assuming a position of ‘I don’t have to think about this any more because I’ve labelled you political opposition‘ creates democratic ‘hearing problems’ and hard-heartedness. (e.g. Remember when John Key described those marching against his Bill extending the GCSB’s surveillance powers as ‘either politically aligned or misinformed’ see: With respect, Mr Key, you misjudge me.) […]
[…] Reading about the state-sponsored surveillance of such ‘dissidents’ and ‘left-leaners’ put me in mind of the way the NZ prime minister last year dissed New Zealanders who rallied and marched against his proposed extension of powers of the government spy agencies he controls (GCSB & SIS — both apparently routinely seconded to assist other agencies such as NZ Police) as ‘either politically aligned or misinformed’. (See; With respect, Mr Key, you misjudge me.) […]