It’s a long-held truism in journalism that some stories will just run and run. And there’s definitely no hiding from this story – to be continued.
For the avoidance of doubt, for which there is great reason in this debacle, corruption as per http://wiki.lessig.org/Corruption
Dr Russel Norman: How can he be confident in the Minister’s oversight of the Government Communications Security Bureau when the inspector-general of Intelligence and Security, in his annual report of 2011, raised concerns about the operation of Government Communications Security Bureau authorisations to intercept communications, and, so far as we are aware, the Minister has never taken any action to follow up with the bureau why the Inspector-General has raised these concerns in his last report and what the Minister has done about it?
A few isolated incidents or part of an alarming pattern? It’s time we found out. In the Dotcom case, not only have our law enforcement agencies cut corners – or worse – in their excitement at being part of Uncle Sam’s world police team, in so doing they have broken New Zealand laws designed to protect the rights of the people they’ve sworn to uphold.
They’ve also broken our trust. That’s earned them medals from the FBI. We can’t leave it at that.
FBI, also bowing to demands, from US film studios.
Rt Hon JOHN KEY: No. It is important to understand what the ministerial certificate is. The ministerial certificate is essentially a suppression order that was on the basis of an application by Kim Dotcom’s legal team to release the name of the Government Communications Security Bureau’s activity. It is not normal practice for us to do that. So, because the bureau believed it had acted lawfully, it asked the Acting Prime Minister to sign the ministerial certificate, which avoided it having to make that public statement.
Hamish MacEwan 