View from a darkened room (iii)

I spy...

Spook balls

My first thought about the whole NSA/GCSB internet spying business it was that I would have been more surprised if they weren't spying on people. That the GCSB in both the Urewa 8 and Dotcom cases had either eavesdropped on its own citizens or received copies of material collected by another country made perfect sense. After all, what's the point in having all this luvverly technology if you don't use it. However, there's a difference in the two cases; New Zealand had no interest in the Dotcom affair apart from its role as an ally of the USA and conversely, no one without access to the fevered imagination of New Zealand's secret cops, or who weren't lawyers, could have had any purpose in paying the remotest attention to a small group of people with zero influence who were no threat to anything.

As is often the case, when something becomes a PROPER NZ media issue, Bryce Edwards' column in the Herald gives good links. I found it interesting that he describes 'state cyber spying' as an 'ephemeral issue', as while most NZ people wouldn't of course be that bothered by it, they should be. As should he. The fault line of course with normal bourgeois politics as seen by the media, is that only matters of concern to people as voters are seen as important.

John Key thinks it is important which is why he made an ambiguous non-denial that NZ hasn't received information from international networks while at the same time admitting they swap data on New Zealanders of interest. However, he also thinks that the majority of people aren't bothered by this and he's probably right. Key actually thinks most of his voters aren't bothered by pretty much anything he does as shown by the way he shrugs everything off when questioned. Meetings with Sky City; doesn't matter; friends with Peter Thiel; doesn't matter; leaks by Peter Dunne; doesn't matter.

Last year, I was talking to an excitable ex pat NZer friend who lives in Britain. He was particularly taken by John Key's stint as a member of the US Foreign Exchange Committee prior to entering Parliament in 2002. My friend's point was that no-one who wasn't seen as 100% reliable (i.e. on board with US interests) would end up in such a position. From this he came to the conclusion that Key was, at the very least, an 'agent of influence' for the US. When pressed for him to explain what he meant, his reply was, 'on THEIR side in everything'. The capital letters were there in his speech. What he meant, of course, was that Key was some sort of spy for the US; a preposterous idea as why would they want THEIR man to be Prime Minister of such a small country?

That said, I've always thought it strange that an incredibly rich man like John Key should want to go into politics, especially as he doesn't seem particularly passionate about anything but then again he probably enjoys being Minister of Tourism.

Dunedin
I've started my quest into what makes Dunedin the place it is by reading some accounts by and about early European settlement in Otago and Dunedin. The 2 books I'm ploughing through so far are: Waikouati and Dunedin in 1850 by John McLay; Behold the moon: The European occupation of the Dunedin district 1770-1848 by Peter Entwhistle.


Scab law
A consequence of taking so long to write this VFADR is that I no longer need to do anything on the proposed law to allow legal scabbing as it has been done so much better than I could by Don Franks over at Redline. The only thing I would add is that this is the logical next step for anti-union legislation but as with all of these things the law only works if it is obeyed.