Newsflash - bears shit in the woods

Maybe it's my age and natural cynicism but the most surprising thing about Edward Snowden's leak of documents showing that agents from New Zealand's GCSB were 'trained' to use 'sex, misinformation and psychological tactics to control the internet', is that anyone should be surprised.
 
That's what spies do, and have always done; there's mountains of evidence that shows this, including in New Zealand itself. If you have a spy agency, they will spy, spread disinformation, distrust and disruption and do other nasty things.

Spies have been opening people's post ever since the letter was invented; indeed they probably came up with the idea of the letter in the first place to have something to interfere with.

It reminded me of when I was joint organiser of an international anti-fascist conference in London in the late 1990s. For about three months before the event, I only got post once a week on a Saturday morning, all opened and in a clear plastic bag with an official note on it saying, 'opened in error'. The opening of the mail was probably more about letting us know we were being watched, rather than anyone thinking they would find evidence of some nefarious plot.

They found other ways to disrupt the conference as well, such as persuading the venue to cancel the six month old booking, a few days before it began. We found alternative venues which, of course, had odd looking people sitting outside for no apparent reason for hours on end.

The other surprising thing is that the GCSB agents actually needed training. I suspect it was more of a case of, 'look at all these nifty ways we've been able to disrupt the bad guys. You could be doing this too.'

Incidentally, there's more to the Snowden leaks than meets the eye. This is a link to Jon Rappoport's blog where he asks some very pertinent questions about what is really going on in this story.