Monday, November 25, 2013



On spying, refusal to deny is an admission of guilt

Last week, we learned that the NSA was spying on innocent UK citizens, with the full cooperation of GCHQ. Which raised the obvious question: were they also spying on New Zealanders? On Friday, 3News asked John Key about it. His response was unhelpful:

The Prime Minister refused to give an assurance today that New Zealanders have not been the subject of mass surveillance by the United States - saying he doesn't talk about such matters.

[...]

So, the question for Mr Key is, can he give an assurance that the NSA isn't doing that in New Zealand too?

But when asked, Mr Key again refused to comment.

"I'm not going to talk about that specific issue because I don't comment on security or intelligence issues," he said.


This is absolutely damning. Given the nature of the allegations, if Key was in a position to deny them, he would. The fact that he has refused to can therefore only be seen as an admission of guilt, that our "allies" the US are spying on kiwis, with the full knowledge and collusion of the New Zealand government.

If we want this to stop, we need to vote out the spies. Since they don't actually run for election, this means voting out the government which cooperates them and instead voting for parties which will shut down the GCSB, pull us out of Five Eyes, and protect our privacy from the US. Fortunately, we'll have a chance to do that next year.