Blog Link: The unspoken election issue.
Given that foreign policy has rarely been addressed in this year’s election campaign, and then only briefly in the form of PR releases and sound bites rather than genuine debate, I used this month’s...
View ArticleExaggeration as a prosecution strategy.
Judging from the media coverage of the Urewera 4 trial, including video and audio evidence given by the Crown to the press, the prosecutorial strategy is quite clear. It consists of three interwoven...
View ArticleUrewera Terror: epic fail
Whatever your opinion regarding the Urewera Terror raids, you have to admit that the Police and Crown Law have failed. The so-called “Urewera 4″ were convicted on about half of the least-serious...
View ArticleLabour’s new Tui Ad.
Former Police Minister Annette King says that she and her cabinet colleagues were not informed about Operation 8 until the night before the dawn raids. She says this after stating that the Solicitor...
View ArticleWhich Way, Huawei? (With postscript).
All internet architecture has the potential for use as a Signals Intelligence Intercept platform (SIGINT). Data mining already occurs at the mid-range of IT frameworks, such as when Facebook collects...
View ArticleLeaving Bamiyan.
It looks like the NZDF will pull out of Afghanistan next year, one year earlier than originally planned. According to the government the situation is so good in Bamiyan Province that responsibility for...
View ArticleAgainst “courageous corruption” as Crown policy
It should come as no surprise that I disagree with Chris Trotter’s latest piece about the Urewera raids. Don’t get me wrong — I think his assessment of the operational capability New Zealand police and...
View ArticlePartners not Allies: New Zealand and the US sign the Washington Declaration.
On June 20 New Zealand Defense Minister Jonathan Coleman and US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta signed the Washington Declaration, which specifies priority areas of cooperation between the militaries...
View ArticleSome questions about the ambush.
It may seem insensitive to ask questions about the ambush that killed two and wounded six NZDF troops in Bamiyan, but I do not trust the government or NZDF brass to come clean on what really happened....
View ArticleMy kid is more important than your kid.
John Key will not attend the funerals of the NZDF troopers killed in action in Bamiyan because he has a prior commitment to attend his high school aged son’s baseball tournament in the US. He says that...
View ArticleOn the need for intelligence accountability and oversight reform.
One thing has become clear after the revelations of multiple New Zealand intelligence agency failures, malfeasance and incompetence over the past few years. That is what happens when there is no...
View ArticleMedia Link: More on Huawei and the GCSB.
It must be the season for espionage scandals and potential threats. The NZ media has taken an interest so I get to play talking head.
View ArticleDrones in our future.
Although I have no technical expertise in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), I have discussed in various fora the military, intelligence, domestic security and political implications of...
View ArticleWho to Believe?
Journalist John Stephenson is a person of high integrity and a strong memory. He does not report anything until he is exactly certain he has the facts correct. Prime Minister John Key has a difficult...
View ArticleFamiliarity becomes Contempt.
Johns Key’s answers to the “mystery” of the US Air Force executive jet parked at Wellington during Hobbit mania gives us a good indication of his attitude towards the public and the press. Although the...
View ArticleMedia Link: More GCSB weirdness.
I was interviewed on Radio NZ about the controversy surrounding the appointment of Ian Fletcher as GCSB director. I had to leave out a number of important points like the need for objectivity and...
View ArticleTrust in spies.
A recent TVNZ Colmar Brunton poll showed that 32 percent of those surveyed had little or no trust in New Zealand’s intelligence agencies, 32 percent had much or complete trust in those agencies, and 33...
View ArticleCRIB 19
Phil Goff is in the spotlight for supposedly leaking the results of a suppressed NZDF inquiry into the suicide of a soldier in Bamiyan Province, Afghanistan, on April 3, 2012. From what I can tell,...
View ArticleImproving intelligence oversight.
Now that the Kitteridge and Neazor reports have been tabled, discussion can more fully proceed to the issue of intelligence oversight. The government has proposed bolstering resources for the Inspector...
View ArticleWithdrawal from Echelon: a realistic watershed moment in intelligence reform...
In light of the attention brought to matters of intelligence collection and analysis in recent months, it is entirely reasonable for the Greens and Labour to demand a fill inquiry into the...
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