Chris Trotter on the BFD

I don't want to give pblicity to certain parts of the internet that are better left to fester in their own irrelevance (I know, a bit like this place) but the listing of Chris Trotter as a 'author' on Cameron Slater's spinoff website, the BFD requires some explanation.

Now, I don't know if Trotter is actually providing specific content for The BFD.  I don't know if he is allowing them to recycle stuff from his Bowalley Road blog.  I don't know if he is completely unaware that he has been listed as an 'author' at The BFD and they are simply using him to give their website some heft or the illusion of balance.

(I do know I alerted Chris to his association with The BFD a few weeks ago, via a comment on Bowalley road that he did not deign to publish; and he's still listed as an auther there as of today. Draw what conclusions you will from that.)

I publically exhort Chris to explain how this has come about, and why he is allowing his name to be associated with a cameron Slater linked website.

Hager raid: mis-use of the Evidence Act?

Assuming the police have not been totally incompetent, and are acting under the law when they searched Nicky Hager's home for material identifying Rawshark, it sets a worrying precedent, as Hager himself has stated.

I think the justification used is basically the same concept outlined by Justice Asher with regards Cameron Slater in the Blomfield trial. Asher ruled that while he (Slater) might be a journalist, and thus protected by section 68 of the Evidence Act; but as the material was obtained criminally, the public interest in apprehending the criminal negated Slater's right to not disclose sources, and the exceptions detailed under section 68.2 applied.

High Court Justice Asher’s ruling was that Slater had to cough up names because “This is not a whistleblower case. There are no political issues, or matters of public importance at stake … There is nothing to indicate that the informers have been driven by altruistic motives”  (Paragraph 129.)

(No, I did not read it all - hat tip to LPRENT at The Standard for doing the hard work for me).

That was for Slater; but there is no comparison with the Hager / Rawshark situation.  In Hager's case, there is a political angle and there is a public interest in knowing our political leaders are venal backstabbers.

Further, the exemptions outlined in 68.2 do not seem to apply.

Hager’s reputation and credibility would be seizing of his documents even if it leads to the identification of Rawshark.  Thus, the first article of 68.2, where the public good in apprehending Rawshark outweighs "any likely adverse effect of the disclosure on the informant or any other person", does not apply.  Hager would undoubtedly be harmed more than we would be helped by the violation of his right to protect his sources.

As for the second article, where the public good in apprehending Rawshark outweighs "the public interest in the communication of facts and opinion to the public by the news media and, accordingly also, in the ability of the news media to access sources of facts" does not seem to fit either.  There is an overwhelming public interest in Rawshark's detailing of the sordid goings on in the beehive and on Whaleoil.  That public interest would not be served by compelling Hager to hand over his documents.  As Hager points out, if police are allowed to seize documents and computers over something as comparatively trivial as Cameron Slater's pique, it will make sources and journalists very uncomfortable - and not just those directly associated with the case.  Public interest are not served by making people more nervous of speaking out against abuse of power.

These are very important concepts that are intrisic to journalists being able to hold those in power to account.  It is very #*%$ing doubtful that the disclosure of who hacked into an attack blog is in the same league.

I’d say NEITHER 68.2 a and b apply (and they both must for the first article to be set aside).  It is a massive imbalance of interests. Hager's work as a journalist is far more important to the good of New Zealand society than Slater's desire for revenge.

Police raid on Hager's home

The police raid on Nicky Hager's home, seeking information relating to the identity of the hacker Rawshark, has provoked perfectly predictable reactions from the left and from the right.

From the right comes predictable gloating and strange claims that Hagar is getting his comeuppance for Dirty Politics.  Which overlooks the whole public interest argument around the issue, and suggests a really worrying short-sightedness on their part.  If it is okay for the apparatus of the state to target people who annoy a right wing government, presumably they accept it would be okay for the same apparatus to target people who annoy a left wing government.

El Salvadorian death squads, Pinochet's Chile and Stalinism legitimised in one ill thought through outpouring of right wing partisan gloating!

Or, to put it another way:

And that's okay if you're on the unprincipled, tribalist right.  As long as the police are stamping on lefties, its okay.  And it could never be any other way, could it?

From the left comes the wild assertion that this is the action of a police state and an attempt by the Powers That Be to suppress dissent and opposition.  This is, on current evidence, a paranoid over-reaction.

The police were not targeting Hagar himself.  They were looking for evidence identifying Rawshark.

Hagar is not being targeted for publishing Dirty Politics.  He is being investigated as the recipient of stolen information.  Stolen in the public interest, but still stolen. That's a crime. The police are seeking evidence relating to a crime and Hager has already acknowledged they are quite right to do so. He just thinks the police are being more than necessarily stupid thinking he would leave Rawshark’s name on a post it note stuck to his computer screen.

Hager has already said the police had warrants and were empowered under law to search his property for evidence. The law may be draconian, but the actions of the police appear to be covered by it.

Rawshark committed a crime. No-one denies that. It was (probably) in the public interest but it is still a breach of the law. A complaint appears to have been made and the police are investigating it.

That is not controversial.

What may be controversial is the enthusiasm with which they have gone about the job. A bit like Slater's OIA requests, this one seems to have been suspiciously expedited.

RIP The Career of Judith Collins

Before every election, I like to re-read Nick Hager's The Hollow Men, just to remind myself of the sort of behaviours the neo-right is capable of.  This year's reading has been delayed a bit because I've been busy reading another Hager tome, Dirty Politics.  Reading them simultaneously creates a rather jarring effect, as characters that loom large in one have (Matthew Hooton) virtually disappeared in the other; or minor players in one (Judith Collins and Jason Ede) emerge on a gargantuan scale in the sequel; or have changed from noble to ignoble, in the manner of Kathrine Rich.

It is worth noting that it was Brash's sacking of Rich in January 2005, that ushered in the Crusher.  Rich had failed to voice adequate support to the Dear Leader's psychotic views on beneficiaries, and so she lost her portfolios and front bench positions.  As Hagar notes, ""He gave the job to an MP called Judith Collins, whose views on welfare would have fitted comfortably into the ACT party."

Perhaps there was something of a portend there, if we had but known!  Collins would continue to prosper under Key, and this should have served as a warning to all that Key's sweet nothings about being a different sort of politician and rejecting the negativity and nastiness of Brash's tenure were worthless words of the hollowest of men.

But we didn't know, and we let the cheesy grin and gurning and the vague sense of likeable charm and h-doesn't-wear-shoes-as-he-pads-about-his-million-dollar-pad padding that passes as journalism bamboozle us.  And, it seems, will still let it work its sickly spell in a couple of week's time, since it seems no amount of dirt can quite besmirch Key's smug smile.

But, back to Judith Collins.  She plays only a very small part in The Hollow Men, rating just two entries in the index.  The first is the announcement of her promotion, above.  The second is a couple of pages later, when Bill English is so moved by her incompetence to send an email to Brash to express concern:

The email began by discussing two presentations that MP Judith Collins had made to the caucus, one on health policy and one on family.  'I thought the health presentation on caucus was awful,' he wrote, 'and I am told Judith's family presentation was worse.   I am not one the caucus complains to, except for today, so it must have been pretty bad.'

'There are a few lessons here,' he said.  Brash's strategy team had been 'pushing Judith [Collins] as a star' but she was a second year MP 'pushed beyond her capacity' into a hard portfolio and 'with an unfortunately high estimation of her own competence.'  Collins, 'with apparent backing from the top,' had 'spent too much time cultivating the media herself and believing the resulting publicity.  She will find it hard to recover her credibility in caucus where she has been a tough critic of her colleagues behind the scenes and they know it.'

It is spookily prescient.  A political bully who was backed from the top who mistook her bluster for brilliance and who pushed her further than her limited talent justified.  An rogue MP who clumsily attempted to manipulate the media to suit her own agenda.  An arrogant ideologue who seemed convinced of her own unerring power and righteousness - who cares about the means because the ends must be good, because they are my ends?

Such was The Crusher, a strange phenomenon that blighted New Zealand politics for a few years, her rise and fall neatly marked by the publication of Hager's two books.

If political careers had headstones, 'Pushed beyond her capacity' would probably do nicely for hers.

Judith! Judith! Judith! Go! Go! Go!

I've not bee posting on the Dirt Politics fiasco simpl because it has been moving too fast for me to keep up up with.

(Unlike John Key, I have read the book.)

But now we have reached a somewhat odd pass where when things should be happening, but they aren't.  I refer, of course, to the sacking or resignation of Judith Collins, who claimed she didn't leak Simon Pleasant's identity to Cameron Slater, and who also claims she didn't leak Browyn Pullar's identity either.

One of these claims we now know is massively untrue, as we've seen the emails where she tells Slater who Simon Pleasants is and what he does for a living.

The other?  Well, she SAYS she didn't tell Slater who Pullar was.  And we'd take her word for it, wouldn't we?  I men, it isn't like she has a history of lying about what she has said or done.  We trust you, Judith.  Totally.  It isn't like you've been exposed as a frequent liar about your influence peddling and abuses of power, or anything.

It is quite strange watching this car crash in slow motion.  And the hapless defences offered by the supposedly media savvy and unfazeable John Key provide no end of amusement.  But the uselessness of the journalists interrogating him is annoying.  They need to challenge him on specifics, shoot down every airy generality he tries to foist on us.  It isn't good enough to hear him getting away with waffle when we're talking about the rank corruption in New Zealand's democracy.  He's in charge of it, and he needs to be held to account by our representatives in the media.

Every time I hear Key bleat, “The left do this too,” I really wish the journalists would challenge him on it:

 “When, Mr Key, have ‘the left’ abused their ministerial position to leak the identity of a public servant to an attack blog, so they can be held up to public abuse and threats? When have ‘the left’ abused the OIA process by alerting people to when information is being released and expediting the process?”

Anyway, Collins has utterly, obviously lied, as she told Key she didn’t leak the name, just the job title (which is a bit like Slater’s attempts to get round name suppression). But it is right there in the email.  While she claims she didn't do it.

Yesterday, Mr Key said he’d asked Ms Collins about the release of the civil servant’s name, identified as Simon Pleasants, and she told him she’d only passed on the job title to the blogger.

Surely, she’s got to go after this? Key can’t let her carry on making him look really stupid.

Come on, Judith.  If Pleasants' name was already linked to the leaking of Bill English's expenses claim, it shouldn't be hard for you to prove that.  Your failure to face up to very credible charges of misconduct makes you look, well, just a bit guilty.  Follow the lead of Britain's Joanthan Aitken!  Take up the trusty sword of truth and the trusty shield of fair play!  Smite the liars and smearers!

Just don't ask what happened to Aitken ...

How the Right treats people

Has to be said, when it comes to playing dirty, no-one does it like the right.  They don't stop at dirty tricks, smears and manipulation of their opponents.  That would be expected.  They do it to their own, with out qualm.

Consider: Kim Dotcom tried to buy his way into influence, with generous donations to John Banks.  In reply, the right set the police on him, froze his assets and destroyed his business, at the behest of the US.   He discovered that the right only owes loyalty to the most powerful.

Bevan Chuang fought to represent the right in Auckland; when they failled, they switched to Plan B and used her affair with Len Brown as a means to attack him, in the meantime destroying Chuang's credibility and budding political career. She discovered that if you can't be useful to the right, you can still be used.

And now Jock Anderson has been wolved by the NBR for daring to suggest that Len Brown should get on with his job.  Apparently, that's not neutral and unbiased.  One has to assume, the NBR employed Anderson to be stupid, and on this occasion he was not stupid enough.  Nothing else makes sense.  He discovered that the only liberty the right tolerates is the liberty to toe the line, or be trounced.

Friends like these, and all that ...