Government surveillance is the hot topic on everyone’s minds these days and it seems Snowden’s actions in revealing the PRISM program in the USA have set off a chain of investigations in other countries into government surveillance. The latest government to take fire is the New Zealand government and Kim Dotcom is the man leading the charge.
Kim Dotcom intends to become involved in the next general election of New Zealand in an effort to lobby against new legislation that would grant New Zealand’s spy agencies more powers in retrieving personal information of internet users. Kim Dotcom was speaking with the New Zealand Herald and had the following to say:
“I’m going to get engaged. I’m going to help as much as I can during the next election to make sure there is a government that takes the Internet more seriously”
There is currently a new bill being discussed in New Zealand that would give its Government Communications Security Bureau more powers to spy on citizens on behalf of other agencies providing there is a warrant. Kim Dotcom is unhappy about this and no doubt is influenced by his own personal experience of being illegally spied on before his house was illegally raided by an invalid warrant.
Image courtesy of Kim Dotcom
If there is sufficient evidence to suspect international terrorism and the like then issuing a warrant to spy on the individual/group/affiliation is justified.
Imagine the internet existing in the days of the Gestapo…
True but sufficient evidence to validate a warrant doesn’t necessarily make a warrant justified where do you draw the line on what warrant should justify spying?
If only we knew the the answer to that question Ryan. We’ll have to leave that to the powers that be.