NZGames.com Forums - Random Politics

But Mr Key dismissed the commission's concerns and criticised the quality of their work.
"I think the Human Rights Commission actually should take a step back and ask themselves the question why they failed to put a submission in on time. They are funded by the Government and they were the only people that couldn't actually make the deadline."
"Actually the bill narrows the GCSB's scope in its current form, it doesn't extend it," he said.
"I actually don't think it was a very good submission at all, and they need to pull their socks up. If they're going to continue to be a government-funded organisation they should meet the deadlines like everyone else did."

Quote:

Commission spokesman Gilbert Wong said Mr Rutherford's report was not a submission, but the Prime Minister's comments pointed to another misgiving the commission had about the legislation.
The commission could have made a submission, "but there was quite a short period for people to prepare their submissions ... we did seek an extension but that wasn't granted."
"Our position is that the details of how to do so and when this was to occur were not readily available, and the time for making submissions on such important and technical legislation was unreasonably short."
The commission was exercising its statutory ability to directly report to the Prime Minister for only the fourth time since 1993, "because of the seriousness of the proposed bills and to allow for more time to consider the bill's impact."
"It's not something we use lightly but we feel this is something important."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/ar...ectid=10897315

fidgit

12th July 2013 22:37

Look, the GCSB legislation is a foregone conclusion. It's exactly like the Skynet piracy law - the Government wanted that to be the law, so it will be. It's a pretty awful situation, but we need to stop pretending like anyone can do anything to stop it at this point (and really, at any point). The submissions process was clearly designed to tick the boxes to make the process legal.
Rather, we need to move on to the "how do we protect ourselves" phase, just like we did with Skynet, exploring proxies etc.

Lightspeed

12th July 2013 23:23

Miss you Lange. :(

I think it's really hard to overestimate the power that these collections of data hold. It's not just a privacy issue, this shit would have been Stalin's wet dream. With careful modelling you could identify and disrupt the formation of grass roots political movements, just say it leads to terrorism and maintain the status quo.

Lightspeed

13th July 2013 13:33

There were quite a number of ultra-smart coders who used to post here, I often wonder what trouble they're getting up to. Getting their spy on seems like something that would appeal to a few of them. Maybe that was the point of NZG in the first place, honeypot to snag/snuff local talent. What's left are the dregs and a few sleepers. Mmm, paranoia.

Ab	13th July 2013 16:55

http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/06/tools-for-treason/

Quote:

Our rights are extended and limited by the tools we use. The Internet has magnified our capability for free speech, but has pared down the reasonable expectation of privacy. And we, of course, have volunteered our data unreservedly at every turn. Even when we got burned, we kept coming back to give more. I suppose we did it because we trusted those to whom we were giving it, though they have almost without exception lost that trust now. And any trust they do regain must always be provisional, apparently, so why bother with it at all?

It seems that if we are to start over again, the founding principle of our tools for communication cannot be the establishment of trust, but the impossibility of trust.

It’s a cynical place to start, but clearly a necessary one. If it is possible at any point for trust to enter the equation, that trust can and likely will be taken advantage of. If there exists, anywhere from your end to the other in the long chain of servers, switches, cables, interpreters, loggers, drivers, protocols, interfaces, and displays, any single place where you are not one hundred percent in control of your data, your data is compromised and the system fails.

The trick is to treat every communication as a potential act of terrorism. After all, isn’t that how the NSA does it? For them, it’s an excuse; For us, it should be a method. Start there, and you can build a system that works. Start there, and you will be told that you are building tools for treason. You are.

Great. If it isn’t illegal, it isn’t strong enough. If the government doesn’t denounce it, it isn’t good enough. Tools for treason are the only tools that will suffice for our protection from now on.

But let’s be clear: They will be used for evil, both petty and monstrous: for trading child pornography, for selling meth, for planning assassinations, for mass murder. You will be told you are arming the enemy. You are. But your tools are neither necessary nor sufficient for such atrocities. Every kitchen knife is sharp enough to cut your fellow man; every hammer is hard enough to split skulls; every car is fast enough to mow down pedestrians. They have to be to fulfill their purposes, and it’s the same here.

And remember, we’re not just talking about Facebook chats and Google searches. What seems like overkill for protecting personal email may be totally insufficient for a guerrilla fighter coordinating across borders. Many people may not care about their privacy when it comes to a spare email address leaked by Facebook or the metadata from their Gmail account. They may come around later or not, but someone’s got to make sure that if they do come around, privacy is even an option.

If your algorithm doesn’t allow a pedophile to irreversibly scramble his drive and avoid prosecution, it can’t be used by freethinkers under ideological oppression to hide state-banned books.

pxpx	13th July 2013 21:46

The internet doesn't kill people, people kill people!

Lightspeed

23rd July 2013 09:55

Dunne Turnaround on Spy Bill

If the measures Dunne insisted on for his vote were so significant and sensible, why weren't they included in the first place? Oooh, guess they needed to make it look like a compromise or some shit, so important stuff was omitted to be added later.

chubby

23rd July 2013 18:46

that approach has been shown to work very well for them so far.

chubby

23rd July 2013 19:27

nice opinion piece.
cant say i was experiencing the positivity this chap professes to,but nuance has always eluded me.
http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/07/23...were-for-real/

Quote:

Never before has a government had all three biggies: the ability, intention, and the sheer audacity to dig through your electronic communications free of restraint. (Not just the communications of criminals, or suspected criminals: yours.)

This bill was introduced because the GCSB broke the law, lied, and showed flippant disregard for both New Zealand law and the human right to privacy.

Yet just two people are supposed to be the safeguard once it has passed. Two people. We don’t even know how they will be chosen. Appointed by Judith Collins? Elected by the prime minister and his best friends over dinner?
- See more at: http://thedailyblog.co.nz/2013/07/23....d75fJW7Y.dpuf

aR Que

24th July 2013 20:40

so yea, about stopping people from borrowing millions of dollars to buy a property half a mil over the valuation price.
idgi, i mean, they want to buy a house to what? get out of paying rent. So borrow a ludicrous amount and get fucked by the mortgage payments? I mean, it's stupid right, but i think it's wrong for the govt to step in, cause fuck me, i love a good mortgagee auction.

Lightspeed

24th July 2013 21:20

Is that what's happening? I thought it was the Reserve Bank putting in place rules for long term stability, etc., etc. and the government wants to try and leave a back door for first home buyers? Or is that something else?

Golden Teapot

24th July 2013 21:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by aR Que

but i think it's wrong for the govt to step in, cause fuck me, i love a good mortgagee auction.

We bought our current house for $400k less than the previous owners; for a long time afterwards we got mail that hinted at financial difficulties they were experiencing.

We didn't shaft them; in fact we offered them the amount they asked for. Of course this was an amount they selected after being unable to sell for a long time.

fidgit

24th July 2013 22:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Golden Teapot

It's really hard to feel bad about people that got screwed over by trying to flip houses in the 2008 bubble. Yeah? It's your 3rd property and you're taking out a mortgage you can only pay if you double the buy price on the house? Fuck you for assisting in escalating the prices of all desirable housing out of a reasonable range. I'm *glad* someone was able to buy that house at an awesome price.

(edit - of course, I'm only assuming that's the scenario you happened upon, but there were an awful lot of stories in the paper etc around the time by poor downtrodden souls who tried to play the game and were burned)

Golden Teapot

25th July 2013 08:03

Yep they bought at the peak and sold in the trough.

chubby

25th July 2013 16:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by fidgit

fuck yeah.
the problem is not an under supply- it's ownership concentrated in the wrong people.

fixed_truth

26th July 2013 21:09

Labour would repeal GCSB law - Shearer

Quote:

Labour leader David Shearer says the proposed GCSB bill is "bad law" and would be repealed if the party was successful at next year's election.

However, he said the law would not be rolled back until an independent inquiry into New Zealand's intelligence services was carried out.

The comments follow a public meeting last night at which prominent academics and lawyers called for the GCSB bill to be canned.

Lightspeed

26th July 2013 22:14

I think it's going to be ugly when Key eventually gets rumbled. He's so much ego which I think is why the 'muricans are taking their opportunity. But I think he'll survive this, thanks to our stunningly weak opposition. Labour won't be repealing nothing next term.

It begins to make one wonder if they're paranoid enough? Have any important NZers died of an exceedingly rare disease lately?

Ab	1st August 2013 13:33

Latest Roy Morgan poll:

National up 4% to 51%
Labour down 2% to 29%
Greens down 1.5% to 10%
Winston First down 0.5% to 4%
All other Parties in Parliament within the margin of error

Labour below 30% for what I think is the first time ever in a RM poll.

ZoSo	1st August 2013 15:04

Gutted Ab. Banned again over at The Circlejerk I see. Bad timing.

Still have hope the chan ban bump kicks in for the september polls and the gutless wonders stick with Shearer. Cause let's face it, they can still sleepwalk into this one.

Ab	1st August 2013 15:38

They're not big on differing opinions over there :)

fixed_truth

1st August 2013 17:03

PM justifies spy bill: Kiwis trained by al-Qaeda

I'ts not even a story from The Civilian.

Ab	1st August 2013 17:25

Fucking Snowball, always fucking with our windmills

CCS	4th August 2013 13:05

'More confident' Shearer rises in preferred PM stakes

Quote:

...the Prime Minister is down 1% to 41% and Mr Shearer is up 1% to 13% support as preferred prime minister.

Whoa, stop the presses! ONE PERCENT MOVEMENT! David Shearer riding high on 13%!

StN	4th August 2013 17:10

Remember in the olden days when they used to include the margin of error too..?

CCS	4th August 2013 17:19

lawl

fixed_truth

4th August 2013 18:19

I'm guessing 39% of people prefer no one or a bunch of randoms?

plaz0r

4th August 2013 19:41

Wait David Shearer only has three times as much support as Winston?

fidgit

5th August 2013 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by fixed_truth

I'm guessing 39% of people prefer no one or a bunch of randoms?

The rest of us are so disheartened by politicians from every angle we just hang up on the interviewer :/

chubby

5th August 2013 09:50

pretty funny talk on national radio news,regarding the NZTA updating its evaluation parameters to a more internationally accepted standard.
steven joyce always good for some po-faced shutdowns.

Ab	5th August 2013 09:58

I see the NZ news media are losing their minds over Parliamentary Services handing over a reporter's phone records to an inquiry, apparently blissfully unaware that the NZ public does not give a shit what happens to reporters' phone records.

CCS	5th August 2013 10:57

Watch as Labour spends the next month fuming and trying to link it to GCSB and 'Big Brother is watching you' etc etc. They're bound to experience a meteoric rise in the polls as a result :rolleyes:

Ab	5th August 2013 13:19

The thing that amazes me most is not the fact that reporters' communications are logged while they're at Parliament and communicating with MPs, but that anyone could be so fucking clueless as to assume they aren't.

ZoSo	5th August 2013 14:02

http://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2013/08/re...ot_spying.html

Check out this loller.

fixed_truth

10th August 2013 17:31

More slimy snake bullshit

Quote:

Key told a Newstalk ZB talkshow this morning that "the person that ran the case . . . one of the people involved" was "Zaoui's lawyer", a reference to Harrison who was lead counsel for Algerian refugee politician Ahmed Zaoui in 2002. Zaoui spent time in Auckland prisons after he was branded a national security threat when he applied for refugee status in New Zealand.
"There's lots of different agendas out there - I'm not going to second guess them," Key added.
Harrison today said Key's remarks were "a bit of a desperate jibe, really".
"I think he hoped to achieve a similar response from ill-informed listeners as he hoped to achieve by his reference to al Qaeda networks operating in New Zealand," he said.
"It's just trying to scare people into thinking there's a problem.
"And, personally, I do find it a bit offensive to be judged by reference to the clients I've had.
"That said, I am proud to have represented Ahmed Zaoui ... but the idea that I should be judged in some way for doing so is very bizarre

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/poli...CSB-law-stance

Ab	10th August 2013 18:25

Yeah, dirty pool.

Evoke

11th August 2013 06:02

people go Key this and Key that, yes whatever is happening is crazy, but do you really think Labour would have done it differently? people seem to have short memories.

fixed_truth

11th August 2013 09:16

^
The article is not so much about the Bill itself; it's more about our prime minister intentionally smearing a top Lawyer because he criticized legislation on behalf of the Law Society.

Golden Teapot

11th August 2013 11:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evoke

people go Key this and Key that, yes whatever is happening is crazy, but do you really think Labour would have done it differently?

Yes I think things would have been different. National has generally done things pretty well whereas labour tended to cock-up almost everything; I sincerely believe that had labour been at the reins through this we'd be much worse off than we are.

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