The GCSB: Big Bro Is Watching You

In a direct follow-up to my previous post, my latest print design is out now on CafePress:

And what better way to kill two birds with one stone? Both the reality TV series The GC, and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) are right now prime objects of scorn. The former, because it's a Jersey Shore rip-off at heart. And the latter, because the New Zealand Government is extending the powers of the cyber-snooping agency onto its own citizens.

The revelation that investigative journos have been placed on a Defence Force list of subversives can only pour petrol on an already burning issue - the issue of mass surveillance, which seems to be getting to the point where it's breaking out of the beltway and into the public consciousness. With enough momentum, it could even become the No Nukes of the Smartphone Age.

There are genuine terrorist threats to chase after - but the beefing up of the GCSB's powers is less about countering terrorism, and more about senior political figures trying to save both their arses and their faces at once. The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior by French secret agents - the first and only international terrorist attack in NZ - was quickly solved with good old-fashioned police detective work. Some degree of beefed-up security agencies was a given in the wake of 9/11, but there comes a turning point where temporary states of emergency become permanent ones, and that's where the misuse and abuse starts.

Nothing to hide, nothing to fear. Yeah right.

With the NSA contractor Ed Snowden turning rogue and spilling the beans on the PRISM network he was once party to, things are certainly ramping up in our own backyard as well.

The Government's embarrassment over the Kim Dotcom affair and Operation 8 have led it to change electronic spying law to effectively legitimise illegal actions by intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

And just to rub it in, Silicon Valley's most powerful companies would be forced to open their data to the GCSB under the proposed Telecommunications Interception Capability and Security (TICS) Bill. Prime Minister Key has already played the 'soft on terrorism' card, which doesn't seem to wash with many.

There's a school of thought that there was a full-on dossier on the 9/11 plot before it happened, but that it was not acted on by President Bush Jr despite the necessary intelligence apparatus being in place. And there were claims that Russia did actually have some good old-fashioned intelligence on the Tsarnaev brothers who pulled off the Boston Marathon bombings, but that the FBI, CIA and Homeland Security didn't take them seriously. If true, all this can only stoke suspicions that we're in a perpetual war with Eastasia.

 

In the words of American founding father Benjamin Franklin, "those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

To finish off, here are some real adverts that go to show that life has imitated art.