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Evening Report episode 1 (March 9, 2015): EveningReport.nz launches tonight with an extended one-on-one interview with investigative journalist Nicky Hager on the Snowden Revelations. We invite you to participate and debate the issues raised in this interview, and trust the discussion will empower discussions on other mediums. Thanks for stopping by. BACKGROUNDER TO THE DEBATE: As you will all no doubt be aware, a team of investigative journalists began last week to reveal how the New Zealand Government has been spying on a massive scale on a host of Pacific nations. The spying has been a part of the United States-led Five Eyes alliance that includes the U.S., Canada, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The investigation is a collaborative effort between the New Zealand Herald, investigative journalist Nicky Hager, the Sunday Star Times, and the U.S. news site The Intercept. The reports are based on a cache of official documents released by US whistleblower Edward Snowden – and are being referred to as the Snowden Revelations. The documents reveal New Zealand has been intercepting all communications taking place in the South/West Pacific and parts of Melanesia. Since 2009, New Zealand’s signals surveillance spy agency the GCSB, or Government a communications Security Bureau, has been operating a Full-Take collection protocol, the technology provided by the United States. Once New Zealand’s spy agency acquires the communications, the data is transferred to the United States’ National Security Agency – the NSA. The information is then able to be accessed by US, British, Canadian, Australian, and New Zealand intelligence analysts. The data acquired goes further than just meta-data, but includes all email correspondence, all telephone and cellphone calls, all texts or SMS, all social media comments and chats. Specifically, the information feeds into the NSA’s X-Keyscore system and provides the five Eyes spies with analytics on everything communicated within the targeted Pacific nations including: Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Nauru, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, and French Polynesia. It is understood that while all communications taking place within the countries is acquired, the operation also targets prime ministers, government officials, opinion shapers, and non government organisations. Meanwhile New Zealand’s Prime Minister John Key said yesterday (Thursday): “Some of the information was incorrect, some of the information was out of date, some of the assumptions made were just plain wrong.” –]]>

24 COMMENTS

  1. A couple of things in Hager’s interview that offered a slightly new angle for me (kind of knew it, but Hager was more specific and put it well):
    that John Key actually doesn’t know a lot about what goes on at the GCSB
    and that he isn’t really that interested in it or any foreign affairs – he’s more interested in meeting powerful people.
    Also, I will be interested to ear the followup about what Snowden was thinking of when he said the NSA had bases, or listening capabilites in NZ – Snowden apparently got his geography wrong.

  2. A couple of things in Hager’s interview that offered a slightly new angle for me (kind of knew it, but Hager was more specific and put it well):
    that John Key actually doesn’t know a lot about what goes on at the GCSB
    and that he isn’t really that interested in it or any foreign affairs – he’s more interested in meeting powerful people.
    Also, I will be interested to ear the followup about what Snowden was thinking of when he said the NSA had bases, or listening capabilites in NZ – Snowden apparently got his geography wrong.

  3. A couple of things in Hager’s interview that offered a slightly new angle for me (kind of knew it, but Hager was more specific and put it well):
    that John Key actually doesn’t know a lot about what goes on at the GCSB
    and that he isn’t really that interested in it or any foreign affairs – he’s more interested in meeting powerful people.
    Also, I will be interested to ear the followup about what Snowden was thinking of when he said the NSA had bases, or listening capabilites in NZ – Snowden apparently got his geography wrong.

  4. A couple of things in Hager’s interview that offered a slightly new angle for me (kind of knew it, but Hager was more specific and put it well):
    that John Key actually doesn’t know a lot about what goes on at the GCSB
    and that he isn’t really that interested in it or any foreign affairs – he’s more interested in meeting powerful people.
    Also, I will be interested to ear the followup about what Snowden was thinking of when he said the NSA had bases, or listening capabilites in NZ – Snowden apparently got his geography wrong.

  5. is it just me or is this deja vu ? i am old enough to remember when this spying on our neighbors was exposed a few times in the past – nothing was done then when people cried shock horror – what will be done this time ?
    i feel as if i am watching history stuck in a sort of groundhog day – cos something vital has been missed – any one know what it is ?
    an also this spying doesn’t arise in isolation it has a context and its the context that is the big story – expose that

  6. is it just me or is this deja vu ? i am old enough to remember when this spying on our neighbors was exposed a few times in the past – nothing was done then when people cried shock horror – what will be done this time ?
    i feel as if i am watching history stuck in a sort of groundhog day – cos something vital has been missed – any one know what it is ?
    an also this spying doesn’t arise in isolation it has a context and its the context that is the big story – expose that

  7. is it just me or is this deja vu ? i am old enough to remember when this spying on our neighbors was exposed a few times in the past – nothing was done then when people cried shock horror – what will be done this time ?
    i feel as if i am watching history stuck in a sort of groundhog day – cos something vital has been missed – any one know what it is ?
    an also this spying doesn’t arise in isolation it has a context and its the context that is the big story – expose that

  8. is it just me or is this deja vu ? i am old enough to remember when this spying on our neighbors was exposed a few times in the past – nothing was done then when people cried shock horror – what will be done this time ?
    i feel as if i am watching history stuck in a sort of groundhog day – cos something vital has been missed – any one know what it is ?
    an also this spying doesn’t arise in isolation it has a context and its the context that is the big story – expose that

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