NZ PM Key, GCSB, FIVE EYES, etc con't

Six Afghan interpreters who worked alongside Victoria Cross holder Willie Apiata and other New Zealand SAS soldiers will be resettled in New Zealand, but there are still fears for the safety of other workers including one who narrowly escaped execution at

the hands of the Taliban.

lmmigration Minister MichaelWoodhouse has agreed to relocate the six interpreters within three to four months in recognition of their support for the SAS (Special Air Service) between 2009 and 2011.

Ten of their family members wi!! also be resettled, probably in Hamilton or

Palmerston North.

The men are believed to have helped in high-profile missions including the defence of the Afghan Presidential Palace in January 2010 - during which CorporalApiata was famously photographed - and an operation in Kabul a year later in which SAS

soldier Corporal Doug Grant was killed.

Mr Woodhouse said yesterday: "lt's felt that the interpreters who worked side by side with our soldiers and in plain view of the public were exposed to a specia! degree of risk that warranted th'e offer that was made by the New Zealand Government.

"They'll be great New Zealanders … and I think we've done the right thing by them."

ln all, 45 interpreters have been offered resettlement along with 100 family members.

Two more applications are being considered.

There were fears for one of these applicants , a 27-year-old known as Hamid, after it

was revealed yesterday that he had been kidnapped and tortured by insurgents for

three days before escaping in December.

Kabul-based journalist John Stephenson told Radio New Zealand that Hamid had

received threats from Taliban members immediately after New Zealand forces

withdrew last year, and was kidnapped weeks later.

Labour and the Greens demanded that the Government fast-track his application.

Mr Woodhouse said he was seeking more information on Hamid's work with New

Zealand's Provincial Reconstruction Team.

He said the Government had been generous in relocating nearly 150 Afghans, while

rejecting only five applications.

Prime Minister John Key said that those who worked in Afghan communities with

New Zealand troops were "widely recognised" and at greater risk. "Not every person

who was assigned to the New Zealand operation … had that level of profile."

The six SAS interpreters were not originally considered for resettlement because they

fell outside Cabinet criteria. lnterpreters must have worked with the Defence Force

within the last two years and be deemed at-risk because of their association with

foreign forces.

CHINA & NZ PM KEY CON'T:

Land lnformation Minister Maurice Williamson says claims made by New Zealand

First leader Winston Peters today that Huka Lodge, in Taupo, has been sold to

Chinese interests are not true.

"The Overseas lnvestment Office has spoken to Huka Lodge director and

shareholder David McGregor, and he has confirmed no sale has been made or is

being considered.

Huka Lodge was last sold in 2003, following Overseas lnvestment Commission

approval, when a Labour Government was in power..

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray Mcoully today announced New Zealand willopen a Consulate General in Honolulu to

strengthen ties with northern Pacific nations.

d:Xrrjll1l,r;;afl:r'General

in Honolulu will be cross-accredited to Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and

,,With the pacific lslands Forum in the Marshall lslands last year and Palau this year, the region's attention is focused

on the northern Pacific and the unique issues these island nations face," Mr McCully says.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully today welcomed the launch of the United

Nations lnternational Year of Small lsland Developing States (SIDS).

The InternationalYear of SIDS, launched at the UN GeneralAssembly in New York

this morning, aims to focus internationa! attention on the challenges and

opportunities faced by small island developing states.

"Many of our closest neighbours in the Pacific are small island developing states and

New Zealand has a good understanding of the challenges they face," Mr McCully

sols:

"Our international development effort and foreign policy interests have always had a

strong small island states component."

The third UN SIDS conference will be held in Samoa this September.

"This conference is an opportuni(y for small island developing states to work with UN

member states to address development and climate change issues.

"New Zealand stands ready to support Samoa as it prepares to host one of the

biggest conferences on the UN calendar," Mr McCully says

Kim Dotcom has taken High Gourt action to stop his former bodyguard from speaking

publicty about goings-on in the internet entrepreneur's personal life and business

dealings. Dotcom made a successful application for an interim injunction against

Wayne Tempero in the High Court at Auckland yesterday. The action came soon

after the Herald reported that Tempero was set to release "secret revelations" about

Dotcom's "mindset and megalomania". Tempero resigned from Dotcom's staff in

October. Yesterday Justice Sarah Katz granted an interim injunction and ordered that

Mr Tempero - and anyone else on his behalf - was "restrained from using or

disclosing to any person, firm, corporation or entity, any confidential or trade

information acquired whilst working for Kim Dotcom".

The information included, but was not limited to, any information acquired by Mr

Tempero "about Kim Dotcom, his role with Kim Dotcom, any information to do with

providing services to Kim Dotcom and any other information whatsoever concerning

Kim Dotcom, his businesses, his politica! party, his music, his family and friends, and

all images of Kim Dotcom, his family and friends at any time". The order also

prohibits Mr Tempero from disclosing computer software. Mr Tempero was also

ordered not to disclose any information about Dotcom's wife Mona's business or his

other companies including Megaupload and Megastuff.

lnternet mogul Kim Dotcom has eonfirmed he willtake yesterday's ruling on the 2012

raid on his home to the country's highest court. The Court of Appeal ruled in a

decision released yesterday that the raid was !ega!, overturning High Court ruling it

unlawful. The raid was related to efforts to extradite the Megaupload founder to the

United States to face charges including breaching copyright. "We will seek leave to

appeal yesterdays 'defectueux' Court of Appeal decision to the NZ Supreme Court..

#PardonMyFrench" he tweeted this afternoon. Dotcom was clearly frustrated with the

judgement - the latest in an ongoing series of conflicting decisions in his extradition

case.

"Ping Pong Ping Pong . . . AKLWLG AKLWLG . . . Live Die Live Die . . ., " Dotcom

tweeted. "That's why a political case needs to be fought politically. Not just in the

courts." The decision about the search of Dotcom's Coatesville home in Auckland's

rural north, also said that while the search was lav,rful, the decision to provide copies

of data taken in the raid to the FBI was unauthorised. The finding about the raid may

eventually affect Dotcom's extradition hearing, due in April but likely also to be

delayed, as he previously wanted to argue the evidence against him was

inadmissible because it was taken illegally. Police executed search warrants on the

properties of Dotcom and computer programmer Bram van der Kolk on January 20,

2012, seizing 135 electronic items including laptops, computers, portable hard drives,

flash storage devices and servers.

The High Court ruled tast June the search warrants were invalid because they were

not sufficiently specific. However, in its judgment released yesterday, the Court of

Appeal said that while the warrants were defective in some respects, the deficiencies

were not sufficient to mean they should be nullified. The case wi!! be the second he

has taken to the Supreme Court. A decision on "disclosure" - how much information

he should be allowed to have about the case against him in the US - is awaiting a

decision.

New Zeatand spies are used to saying sorry. Sometimes it looks as though they go

out of their way to make a hash of things. lt is frankly amazing that the Government

Communications Security Bureau has had to apologise to Prime Minister John Key

for botching its annual report.

It seems that the GCSB can't even do a proper count of the folks it is spying on. First

it told the world that last year it had 7 interception warrants in force. Then - er, make

that 11. How many warrants issued Iast year? Four - or no, actually five. The actual

number of "accesi authorisations" nearly doubled from the original 14 to 26. And so

on. Let's be charitable and not make too much of the fact that the amended figures

were higher than the original ones. But charity will extend only so far. !t won't go as

far as forgiving all this as mere typos. After all, it wasn't just one mistake, but

mistakesln alithe important categories of bugging and snooping. And the GCSB

should have taken extra care to get these right. After all, it doesn't say much to the

world at large. lts usual attitude is a brick-faced "no comment." But once a year it

does have to tell us what it is doing with the large cache of taxpayers' money that it

spends. It's the one day of the year when it has to speak. Yet on this day it made a

series of elementary arithmetical errors. This does not increase public confidence in

the service.

It is doubly embarrassing for Mr Key, who said he was "unhappy" qnd had received

an apology from spy boss lan Ftetcher. But it was Mr Key who in 2011 had rung Mr

Fletcher,in old friend of his family, and invited him to apply for the job as head of the

GCSB. Mr Key went out of his way to praise Mr Fletcher, who rose to senior positions

in the British bureaucracy. Now it looks as though Mr Fletcher and his agency can't

_

do the most basic task required of the agency. lt can't give an accurate statement of

what it has done. He wasn't the one who actually totted up the figures, of course, but

the buck stops at the top. Part of accountability is giving accurate information the first

time around, not after re-doing your sums and finding they were wrong. The GCSB

can't count the number of spying operations it is doing, and it doesn't always know

who it can spy on either. lt spied on Kim Dotcom and it had no legal right to do so. lt

didn't understand the law, and it had to apologise then too.

The upside of all this is to remove any lingering notion that the spies'word can be

taken at face value. For a long time the GCSB traded on their professional mystique.

"We Can't tell yOu what we're doing," they said, "but yOU Can trUst US." Cabinet

Secretary Rebecca Kitteridge's damning 2013 report on the GCSB showed this was

nonsense. Far from being a razor-toothed watchdog of our secrets, the GCSB was a

sleepy old mutt. The Government has since moved to increase its oversight. Mr Key

would no doubt like us to believe that everything inside the secret kingdom has now

changed. The botchup over the GCSB's annual report raises a few doubts on that

score.

I want to emphasize this before continuing into the CIA HACKING TOOLS called RAINMAKER (Make it Rain) MORE CRUMBS TIED TO THIS & WITHIN THIIS!!

A secret unit of British spies trained Kiwis how to be "cyber magicians," using sex,

misinformation and psychologicaltactics to control the internet.

Documents leaked by journalist Glen Greenwald, through US whistleblower Edward Snowden, show Government Communications Security Bureau agents were briefed by counterparts from the ultra-secret Joint Threat Research lntelligence Group.

Slide show presentations from a top secret "Five Eyes" 2012 intelligence conference reveal tactics including setting "honey traps" and dirty tricks cyber operations. As well being successful in Afghanistan and lran, the undercover ploys were used on "hackivists" (online political activists) and private companies.Prime Minister John Key yesterday refused to confirm or deny if the tactics were used by the GCSB. He stressed the foreign spy agency, which has been found to have

illegally spied on Kiwis for a decade, must act within the law.

The Government is braced for further revelations on the Five Eyes network from the Snowden archive. But Key was nonchalant. "l don't know what Snowden has …They are of no great consequence, I don't think."

Many of the tactics involved personal attacks, discrediting targets online by using sex,writing false blogs and contacting friends and colleagues. Leaked and negative

information posted online and disrupting business links was designed to ruin the

reputation of private companies.

The hacktivist collective Anonymous was targeted with cyber attacks. The

presentation also detailed how agents could get another country to "believe a secret" by placing information on a compromised computer or making it visible on networks

under surveillance.

Greenwald, writing for The lntercept website, said the agencies were "attempting to control, infiltrate, manipulate and warp online discourse, and in doing So are

compromising the integrity of the internet itself."

He called the tactics "extremist" and "dangerous", pointing out they did not only target hostile nations or spy agencies, terrorists or nation security threats, but also "people suspected (but not charged or convicted) of ordinary crimes or … those who use online protest activity for political ends."

Labour said the Government had to ask questions to ascertain if the GCSB used the tactics. "lt goes beyond surveillance. Some of it sounds barely legal," associate intelligence spokesman Grant Robertson said.

"!t sounds extreme. lf they are using it, it is another blow to the public's confidence in our intelligence agencies."

Feeding information to a company's rivals was a "bizarre" way for security agencies to behave. "John Key does need to find out if this is what our agencies were involved in."

It is the second set of leaks that shows GCSB agents were swapping tips with their FIVE EYES counterparts. Last year Fairfax Media revealed a secret memo from an April2008 intelligence conference at Britain's GCHQ.

It showed intelligence agencies from New Zealand, United States, Australia, Canada and Britain canvassed if they could pool medica!, religious or legal information harvested during the bulk-collection of metadata. Canadian spies raised concerns.

TACTICS

JTRIG, a unit of the British signals intelligence agency GCHQ, focused on cyber forensics, espionage and covert operations. Its purpose was "using online

techniques to make something happen in the real or cyber world", including

"information ops (influence or disruption)". Tactics, which follow the

"4 Ds": deny,

disrupt, degrade and deceive, included:

• Honey traps: A "great option" and "very successfulwhen it works"

• A JTRIG tool called ambassadors reception. It involved sending a virus which would

delete emails, encrypt files, make the screen shake, deny service or stop logins

• Methods to "stop someone communicating" by bombarding their phone with text messages and calls - in some cases every 10 seconds, deleting their online presence and blocking up their fax machines

Changing a profile photo on socia! networking sites "can take paranoia to a whole

new level"

• "false flag operations" - posting material online that is falsely attributed to a target

• psychological manipulation, using "leaders, trust, obedience and compliance", to'

influence online discourse and sow discord

https:// wikileaks.org/bnd-inquiry/docs/AA/MAT_A_AA-1/MAT%20A%20AA-1-1w.pdf

>>675946

Screw it