Posts by Michael Meyers
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Hard News: Dirty Politics, in reply to William Leander,
All that is required is that the access was done ‘knowing that he or she is not authorised’.
I expect it is more complicated than that. Showing access won't be enough. You would also need to show the mens rea, the guilty mind. This would be a lot more difficult than just showing some server logs. And how do you show that someone knows they are not authorised to view something.
I'm pretty much of the opinion that I'm authorised to see anything easily accessible on the internet. I think you'd struggle to convince a court otherwise.
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I was at the Party Party in Wellington where something similar happened. I was a little disappointed by speech that Dotcom made but mostly because there was no substance to it. Basically it was just as shown in the video: let's have a revolution, let's get rid of John Key, I want to give everyone here a hug and have a good night. Only about 30 seconds all up. And there was the chanting. No idea where it started.
There's a lot of dislike for John Key around the country, especially amongst the youth as far as I can tell. The cronyism and the lies leave a bad taste. Despite that, I wasn't particularly impressed by the chanting but I'm sure it's not the first time it has happened. It would probably happen if Key turned up at any concert outside of a Young Nats convention.
I'm finding the comparison to the Nazis worrying too. I'm guessing it's simple racism: if Dotcom wasn't German, the comparison wouldn't have been made.
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Considering John Key's usual behaviour in the house, I'd be surprised if he doesn't try to get himself thrown out of the meeting. It would probably amuse him greatly and is unlikely to hurt his chances of getting elected.
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One thing that concerns me a little about the privilege argument is that it could easily be the start of a further erosion of privileges that we take for granted.
Unemployment benefit is a bit of a privilege that only a few people get. As is health care and the DPB. And then what about legal aid? What's to stop the ACT party from trying to get rid of these as they are all a privilege for some.
Support for those in need has become the hallmark of a civilized western society. Cutting any of these could easily happen if Mr Whyte were to see the need as the are simple a privilege that only a few benefit from. "One law for all!"
Also, I've just watched the Native Affairs interview that Russell linked to above. Was interesting to watch and full credit to him for showing up on Maori Television. It's amazing how tone-deaf he is and continues to show how the ACT favors ideology over pragmatism and reality.
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I think Jamie Whyte is right to a degree in that in a ideal world these policies shouldn't exist. But the important part he fails to see is that we don't live in an ideal world.
We live in a world where the market isn't always right and the privileged take advantage of the disadvantaged.
Mr Whyte also fails to understand the meaning of privilege in his own speech. He says that Maori have legal privilege but this is privilege that has been given by those in power. Any other examples of privilege he talks about seem to be privilege taken by those in power. Yet he sees no difference.
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I'm unsure whether this is piece from john Campbell was rehashing an old topic in a election year or actually bringing new information. I think the real story is somewhere between John Key's "nothing to see here" and John Campbell's "the end of the world as we know it-gate"
Looking critically at the new information, it was all circumstantial. Mr Fletcher may have taken a day off work to meet Mr Key for breakfast but are we sure he wasn't in NZ for another reason too? And if their meeting was so secret, why would they meet in a hotel?
The James Clapper visit and the Vicki Treadell thing both smell a little dodgy when put together with the other stuff but I think it's stretching the facts a little far to cover the narrative to tie everything together in this way.
To me, the "misleading statements" from Key are the real issue and the Kim Dotcom stuff is very circumstantial. Charitably I would forgive a misremembering or two from John Key since his memory appears to be pretty poor but I'm not sure that any of his statements around the hiring process were true. Why lie so much and so obviously?
National security is always a contentious issue and there is going to be a lot of secrecy around the process. But secrecy is different from outright "untruths".
Overall, last night's story felt like a Winston Peters-style smoking gun rather than an actual conspiracy.