NZ Herald takes Lauda Finem’s lead.

July 2, 2012 2:46 pm •

Kim Dotcom the victim…..abuse of process and party political corruption?

Following on from our post on May 3, 2012  “Kim Dotcom, John Banks, the invisible Ministers and the unraveling of yet another National Party Conspiracy?”  in which we asked the questions;

So just when was it that Prime Minister John Key was advised of the FBI’s interest in Dotcom. After all John Key would have been the first Minister advised. Amongst Mr John Keys portfolios is New Zealand’s “Secret Intelligence Service” (SIS). Part of the SIS’s statutory brief is to “Detect and prevent serious overseas-based crime which could affect this [New Zealand] country.”

It is also worth noting that the man who currently heads up the SIS, Warren Tucker, has spent a great deal of time in Washington.  From 1984 to 1989, he was the GCSB’s liaison officer to the NSA in Washington and then in 1996 became the intelligence coordinator for the office of New Zealand’s Prime Minister.

So we ask again just when was it that Mr Key became aware of the FBI‘s interest in Dotcom? Was it Prime Minister John Key who instructed a junior member of Cabinet, Associate Finance Minister Simon Power, to reverse the more senior Land Information Minister Maurice Williamson’s decision. Was that conversation perhaps had in early September 2011, just before they belatedly pulled the plug on Dotcom?

The New Zealand Herald has only now cottoned on and started asking the right questions. The Journalist involved, Mr David Fisher, is also witnessing first hand how it feels to be on the receiving end of New Zealand’s malevolent and very nasty civil servants. As Fisher reports:

“Crazy man” Manager Communications Services at Department of Labour, Anna Thompson

Two senior public servants have been reprimanded after calling a journalist they didn’t want to deal with “evil”.

The comments came in a release of information showing staff had “ignored five calls” from Herald journalist David Fisher on an issue relating to Kim Dotcom.

The unnamed staff member used the subject line: “Evil jou(r)no”.

Then-communications manager Anna Thomson emailed a colleague, calling Mr Fisher a “crazy man”.

The staff avoided speaking to the journalist, eventually emailing to say no further information would be forthcoming.

Source: PM’s office part of shutdown on Dotcom tip off (NZ Herald)

Of course Mr Fisher has also caused some others in the civil service a few headaches primarily by running stories that helped expose the damage being done to claimants by the Accident Compensation Corporation and its staffs skulduggery in the Bronwyn Pullar affair which also inveigled the Prime Ministers office.

Mr Fishers reporting in both of these cases will have undoubtedly pissed off many in the halls of Government….recalcitrant behaviour such as that now being witnessed by Fisher never occurs in isolation, its almost always systemic.

To call a journalist who is doing nothing more than going after the truth “evil” is in itself a clear indication that the staffers involved are not impartial (as required by law), and that if there is any “evil”  to be found it will be found lurking in the closets of New Zealand’s Government Departments.

In this case the only “crazy man” is Prime Minister John Key, if in fact he truly believes that the truth will not become public just because he and his party have decided to wheel out their antiquated “shit sling” and “spin” machines.

Mr Fisher, however,  is clearly shocked by this govern-mental behaviour, we are not. He also seems to be satisfied with a simple apology:

Department of Labour acting chief executive Nigel Bickle apologised, saying media staff had failed to meet standards of “integrity, respect and excellence”.

Fishers decision to do so is fraught with danger, Mr Fisher should be aware that because these staff were not immediately sacked there is every likelihood that he will now be haunted by these “name-less” nasty bastards, a miscreant hunt funded by the tax payer. This in itself is good reason for Fisher to dig even deeper in his search for the truth and finish the arse-holes off, should he fail to his life may well become a a living hell.

There is no doubt that Prime Minister John Key had knowledge of the unlawful Dotcom raid. The New Zealand parliament is not Capital hill, its not even Canberra, its a small place akin to a gentleman’s club. For Key to have managed to fool the New Zealand public for so long says more about the public’s gullibility, the lack of any genuine parliamentary opposition and the incompetence of New Zealand’s media than it does John Keys abilities as a liar……which of course anyone with half a brain knows he undoubtedly is……why else are they attempting to hide the corpses that are only now beginning to float to the surface?

As Fisher, in his New Zealand Herald piece, notes:

The Prime Minister’s office was involved in shutting down information showing one government department tipping off another over FBI interest in internet magnate Kim Dotcom long before he was arrested.

Emails released under the Official Information Act show staff at the Department of Labour took advice from “the PM’s office” before dodging questions on a leaked email.

It came amid calls for an inquiry into the Government’s handling of the United States request to extradite Dotcom, the founder of file-sharing site Megaupload.

As we suspected it would the High Court last week ruled that the search and seizure during the arrest was totally illegal. Contrary to what the Government would have its citizens believe, this sort of corruption and illegality (in our experience) would have been no accident. Just as with the Gwaze case Crown Law, New Zealand’s Solicitor General and the police have a long and tarnished history when it comes to devious and illegal means being employed to achieve their nefarious objectives.

Clearly the FBI had no prima facie evidence, otherwise they would have known exactly where to look. They did’nt and thats the reason why the Solicitor General (Dr David Collins QC), Crown Law and New Zealand’s very helpful keystone cops assisted with the very broad and unlawful search warrants so as to enable a ” fly in fly out” fishing expedition, courtesy of the New Zealand tax payer and at the expense of justice and due process.

Under New Zealand Law, in order to obtain a search warrant, affidavits in support need to be filed yet these have been kept under wraps, why, has the file been sealed? What may have been claimed or alluded to in those affidavits is important as it goes to the reasons the warrants were authorised in the first place…….and very likely contributed to Winkelmann J’s reasoning when deciding to rule them unlawful.

Last weeks high court declaration by Justice Helen Winkelmann is but the latest setback for the Crown in a long history of abuse of process and has become a serious embarrassment for the Government in its handling of the Dotcom affair.

There will undoubtedly be more skullduggery that the Government and the “sly as shit house rats” partisan civil servants will be attempting to conceal in this fast unraveling case. As we here at Lauda Finem have always believed and David Fisher has established and only just reported:

In May, the Herald obtained a leaked email showing the Department of Labour’s Immigration NZ officials passed information to the Overseas Investment Office about FBI interest in Dotcom shortly before his application to buy a mansion was rejected.

The email said: “Immigration NZ did not disclose whether or not the person who made the claim was from the FBI or whether or not that person had first-hand knowledge of the alleged FBI interest.”

The information was passed from the OIO to then-Justice Minister Simon Power who blocked Dotcom’s application to purchase his mansion in Coatesville. He did so within days of Land Minister Maurice Williamson reversing an approval to buy the property. They were told there was the “possibility” the FBI “may be interested in investigating Mr Dotcom because of his ownership” of file-sharing companies.

Fisher attempted to find out the basis on which the Department of Labour shared information with the Overseas Investment Office. he also asked departmental staff how they had learned of the FBI’s interest in Dotcom before the raid on his home and his arrest in February this year.

The Department of Labour claimed it made decisions case by case under the Privacy Act and Overseas Investment Act. A spokesperson said it had learned that Dotcom was of interest to the Americans because he owned Megaupload, then despite a further request from Fisher the department refused to supply any further information.

Fisher claims that the email trail, eventually released by the department under the Official Information Act, showed its media team intentionally “ignored” his calls and deliberately delayed responding. This sort of corrupt behaviour is not unusual within New Zealand’s Civil Service.

Yet another Civil Servant, Mr Keith Manch, who now heads up Maritime New Zealand has employed this tactic on many occasions, first when he was at the Department of Internal affairs and then again when he headed up New Zealand’s Real Estate Agents Authority.

According to Fisher the documents returned by the department revealed it had consulted “the PM’s office” on the issue. Marc Piercey, External Communications Manager at New Zealand’s Department of Labour, a former journalist of 27 years experience, wrote he was “still waiting on OK from 9th floor” (the Behive’s Prime Ministerial suite) before sending a response.

Then Fisher, based on the evidence he had obtained, claims that Piercey, about an hour later, writes and notes that the department’s acting chief executive Nigel Bickle had approved the response and “told PM’s office”.

According to Fisher:

Spin aficionado Mr Nigel Bickle, Chief Executive Department of Labour. Past; Deputy CE at Immigration NZ, Deputy CE at Department of Building and Housing.

Mr Bickle said Mr Piercey’s comments in his emails at the time were “inaccurate”. He said the communications manager had mistaken the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, rather than the “PM’s office”.

He said the information had been passed on as part of the “no surprises policy” and was appropriate in issues of “significant public interest”.

Labour justice spokesman Charles Chauvel said the emails showed a level of “concern” at the highest levels of government which extended beyond an extradition request. He said the “no surprises policy” applied to informing ministers in charge of departments, not the PM’s office or Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

“No surprises”, “concern” and “significant public interest”, well the Department of Labours Mr Bickle (right) should heed all three counts. We however believe that,  in the absence of transparency and the “further information” that Fisher requested and Bickle et al refused to release, Mr Bickle and his fellow civil service cronies might just be trying to spin the Prime Minister, John Key, out of a proverbial corner; a very tight spot in which he has now become firmly wedged.

John Key, just a little to close to the septic’s FBI, the so called “foreign power” and the other yanks that wrote this particular script, the US Democrats favorite donation cash cow; HOLLYWOOD?

Bickle apparently, one whole month after his staff refused to provide any reason for dodging questions, stood by the department’s decision not to release information which had been passed in confidence to the government by an “unnamed foreign power”; these are indeed an interesting choice of words used to describe the FBI, nothing more than an American domestic policing agency!

Our advice to David Fisher and the New Zealand Herald, it would serve the public of New Zealand and the interests of justice for those accused (probably falsely) for the New Zealand herald (APN) to fund and mount court action seeking the immediate release of all documents held by the departments inculpated in this scandal, inclusive of crown law and the affidavits annexed to the application for the Dotcom warrants. Where there is smoke (and mirrors) there is almost always a fucking FIRE that must be extinguished!

This fiasco is only going to get more interesting as the Governments skulduggery is unearthed, we suspect at the end of the day the New Zealand tax-paying public may well be left footing the bill for a massive class action bought by Kim Dotcom, his accused employees and the millions of Magaupload’s disenfranchised customers who are undoubtedly suffering financial loss and anger……If successful it could well bankrupt this south pacific banana state, a fact that the National Party in Government would be well aware of!

Update 5:38pm NZT, Monday Jul 2, 2012:

If we were Prime Minister John key we would not be so worried about the price of alcohol backfiring, it might sound like a fart John but with the Dotcom affair there is far more at risk; its called shitting yourself!

As for just who it was that Mr  Marc Piercey worked for as a Journalist, trust us, we will eventually find out!!!!!!!!!!

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July 2, 2012 2:46 pm •

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