The thing about liars

The thing about liars is there's always tell-tale signs to show that they're telling a lie. Even the best liars will give themselves away with small body mannerisms or catch phrases, which if you know what to watch out for can easily be spotted.

According to the psychologist Robert Feldman, people lie all the time. However, lying as a profession is mainly only done by politicians.

Politicians are more often than not born gifted with the ability to convincingly lie to the public, and through training often become experts at bending the truth to suit their political goals. One such expert is the Prime Minister, John Key.

John Key is perhaps New Zealand's most accomplished liar, being that despite his numerous and documented untruths, a large group of gullible people still support the National party. Key's lies this election campaign have been exceptional, with barely a hint he's misleading the public about the government's track record or its intentions should it be re-elected.

Key wasn't always an expert liar. You used to be able to tell he was lying because he would look physically uncomfortable or become nervous. This is a typical response by somebody who recalls being punished as a child for lying. It's an involuntary response to the subconscious memory of being physically hurt for being a liar.

These days Key is able to look you straight in the eye and lie. He will however become a bit deadpan. He's obviously been working hard to be able to tell a lie with a straight face. It's only when he's pressed on an issue that his body language starts to give his dishonesty away. The tell-tale sign for Key these days is a slight side-to-side head shake as if to say no. This is a very common body mannerism of liars, and one that is easy to spot.

The other way to catch John Key out lying is to cross-reference what he says about a certain subject to different people on different days. Like most liars, Key will suit his lie to the circumstances he's in. For instance, on September 14, when talking about Glenn Greenwald's claims that New Zealand conducts mass surveillance, John Key stated:

"There's no ambiguity. No middle ground. I'm right. He's wrong," Mr Key told reporters today.

However, on September 17, after Edward Snowden made the same claims concerning New Zealand conducting mass surveillance, John Key changed his story:

"I think the point he was making was in that shared database he said 'I regularly came across information about New Zealanders' - that may well be right".

John Key, like many expert liars before him, needs to somehow justify his lying to himself. He does this by having a theoretical excuse whereby his lying needs to be worded in a specific way for it to really be lying.

In this case Key is lying because it's the NSA undertaking the mass surveillance, which New Zealand spying agencies then have access to. The precise way John Key words his lies is done so that he has an excuse in the form of semantics. Such word trickery doesn't lesson the impact of the lie however, which in some circumstances can be very damaging.

Clearly John Key is a very accomplished and professional liar! Let's hope that enough Kiwis agree that such a dishonest man isn't suited to lead a country like New Zealand, and will choose somebody with a bit more integrity and honesty to be the next Prime Minister. Because without a change in government, Key's lies are likely to become even more outrageous!

Key declassified secret information in error

It was unprecedented to see the Prime Minister, John Key, release sensitive information concerning a spying tool called CORTEX simply to bolster his claim that there was no mass surveillance in New Zealand. At the time, some very experienced commentators exclaimed that Key releasing secret documents in this way was in the very least questionable if not unconstitutional.

However, when the Official Secrets Act was updated to the Official Information Act (PDF), the provision that stated a person committed a crime for releasing state secrets in this way was largely removed. Previously, if an official used classified information for their own benefit, they were in breach of the law.

Here's what the old law (PDF) states:

3 (1) If any person for any purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the State-

(c) Obtains, collects, records, or publishes, or communicates to any other person any secret official code word or password, or any sketch, plan, model, article, or note, or other document or information which is calculated to be or might be or is intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy,-

he commits an offence against this Act and shall be liable on conviction on indictment to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years, or, in the case of a company or corporation, to a fine not exceeding five thousand pounds.

That's what makes the PM's release of sensitive information highly questionable. Unfortunately an oversight means this section of the Official Secrets Act wasn't updated into current law, otherwise Key's actions would have also been illegal as well as unconstitutional. I guess nobody envisioned such a turn of events, whereby a PM would use state secrets for his own political purposes.

By taking advantage of that oversight, Key isn't just ignoring his responsibilities, he's ignoring the GCSB's very own guidelines that state the release of such documents could put at risk New Zealand's security and damage our international standing.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

Secret dangers of released GCSB documents

Secret documents which John Key says he made public to protect his reputation threatened massive damage to New Zealand's wellbeing if made public without permission, according to the GCSB's own threat estimates.

The four documents were made public yesterday by the Prime Minister after Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald published claims the public were subjected to mass surveillance.

They all show they were previously marked at the "Secret" level of classification.
The GCSB guide to security classifications says the "compromise" of "Secret" information could "damage the security, defence or international relations of New Zealand and/or friendly governments".

Here's the actual guideline (PDF) as it relates to the declassified CORTEX documents:

GUIDELINES FOR PROTECTION OF OFFICIAL INFORMATION

RESTRICTED and SENSITIVE

The Official Information Act allows information to be protected to the extent consistent with the public interest and the preservation of personal privacy. Classifications are used to grade information on the basis of the damage that would result from unauthorised disclosure and to specify the protective measures to be applied. In themselves, classifications do not allow official information to be withheld; rather, the information must be considered on its merits using the criteria in the Act.

NATIONAL SECURITY

Compromise would damage the security, defence or international relations of New Zealand and/or friendly governments

TOP SECRET — Damage national interests in an exceptionally grave manner
· Directly threaten the internal stability of NZ or friendly countries
· Lead directly to widespread loss of life
· Cause exceptional damage to the security of NZ forces or allies
· Cause exceptional damage to the operational effectiveness of NZ forces or friendly forces
· Cause exceptional damage to the continuing effectiveness of extremely valuable security or intelligence operations
· Cause exceptional damage to relations with other governments
· Cause severe long term damage to significant national infrastructure
Services Commission 2001-05-28

SECRET — Damage national interests in a serious manner
· Raise international tension
· Seriously damage relations with friendly governments
· Seriously damage the security of NZ forces or friendly forces
· Seriously damage the operational effectiveness of NZ forces or friendly forces
· Seriously damage the effectiveness of valuable security or intelligence operations
· Seriously damage the internal stability of NZ or friendly countries
· Shut down or substantially disrupt significant national infrastructure.

The GCSB's rules spell out the specific risks based on the classification of the CORTEX documents, and clearly show that Key releasing such information poses a serious risk to New Zealand's security.

Keep in mind that nobody was actually asking questions about the anti-malware system CORTEX, they were asking questions about mass surveillance. There was in fact very little public interest in the CORTEX documents, certainly not enough to justify their public release.

Therefore Key has put at risk New Zealand's security simply for his own benefit. In so doing, there's no question that the Prime Minister has acted in error and against the nations interests. He has in fact ignored the GCSB's guidelines and the law as it would be judged, which is just another good reason for him to resign!

You can sign the petition to that effect here.

A conspiracy theory too far

Just over a month ago, the Prime Minister of New Zealand claimed that an award-winning writer was nothing more than a "screaming left-wing conspiracy theorist" and in so doing hoped to dismiss all his exceptional work that documents the National parties repugnant and unconstitutional behaviour. The writer is of course Nicky Hager.

This seemed like a rather silly claim for John Key to make, especially once some verifying emails were released to corroborate the information contained within Hager's exceptional and groundbreaking book, Dirty Politics. Unfortunately for the National party, John Key's argument hasn't progressed much since his initial reaction.

At the time, John Key also implied that the book was somehow linked to opposition parties and should therefore be dismissed out of hand. This was picked up by a number of his fans, such as Cameron Slater, who penned perhaps the best conspiracy theory so far in this election:

We can assume that Labour deliberately chose “Vote Positive” as their election slogan in full knowledge that Hager manufactured Dotcom fed book would confirm everything for them.

It doesn't seem to matter to Slater that there's a complete lack of any evidence linking Labour's 'Vote Positive' campaign message with a book they likely had no idea was being written, or the fact that the author of that book has been very specific about the source not being Kim Dotcom. Cameron Slater, like so many other psychopaths before him, is simply judging other people by his and his affiliates very low standards.

Instead of basing his opinions on reality, the ever-deluded blogger runs with a conspiracy theory that should in the very least have him become an honorary member of the Conservative Party. You'll recall that their leader, Colin Craig, has had a number of interesting conspiracy theories, including but not limited to there being no manned landing on the moon.

While the evidence clearly shows us there's a vast right wing conspiracy to undermine our democracy, it was somewhat concerning to see John Key trying to dismiss the topic of the National party passing sensitive information on to their attack bloggers by claiming that opposition parties do the same thing.

As far as I'm aware, there isn't an ounce of truth to such claims, which would put them firmly in the crazy conspiracy basket.

After all of that, it was hard to imagine the election getting any stranger. Then the Moment of Truth happened, which once again had the right wing going out of their minds attempting to clasp imaginary straws in the hope of formulating a coherent countermeasure.

John Key, in his utter contempt for journalism as a profession, claimed that a Pulitzer prize-winning US journalist had a vested interest in stealing the election off of National. He's doing it for money, Key had accused, while Glenn Greenwald had already arranged for his speaking fee to be donated to charity.

'Kim Dotcom's bombshell failed to go off' the mainstream media hollered, so nothing else revealed is true some of them claimed. 'Let's all just focus on Kim Dotcom getting angry about us not doing our jobs' a number of National party lackeys reported, while not doing their jobs. 'The Edward Snowdan segment was pre-recorded' some right wing idiots claimed, which completely ignores the fact that he interacted with and talked directly to other participants at the live Auckland Town Hall event.

So desperate was the Prime Minister to find some wriggle-room, just hours before the Moment of Truth event took place, John Key threw a straw man diversion at the media in the form of some largely unrelated information. Clearly Key specifically declassified sensitive documents outlining the malware system CORETEX in the hope that the impending revelations about the Southern Cross Cable tap initiative called SPEARGUN would be sidetracked or not believed. But perhaps an even bigger PR disaster for the PM happened the next day, when he wouldn't answer questions about the existence of another spying tool called XKEYSCORE. At the same time a former GCSB director, Sir Bruce Fergusson, seemed to confirm XKEYSCORE's existence and use in New Zealand. Whoops!

However, the latest bad news for the National party, and their reaction to it, has had the right wing badly in need of a super-sized reality check...or perhaps some horse tranquilizers.

Yesterday, the NZ Herald reported:

National Party sued over Eminem copyright infringement

The National Party could be in legal trouble over its use of a song by US rap star Eminem despite its attempts to do everything by the book, a copyright lawyer says.

It was revealed today that Eminem intended to sue the party for allegedly breaching copyright by using his song Lose Yourself in its campaign advertisements.

The Detroit-based publishers of Eminem's copyrights filed proceedings in the High Court at Wellington today.

Eight Mile Style, LLC and Martin Affiliated, LLC are seeking damages for copyright infringement against the New Zealand National Party.

It didn't take long for the conspiracy theorists to start trying to link Eminem's court action over the National parties copyright infringement of his song 'Lose Yourself' with opposition parties. They seem to be so desperate to dismiss any negative press that they'll make totally unfounded and highly ludicrous claims without a shred of evidence to back them up.

Veritably foaming at the mouth, the National party, their propagandists and deluded supporters are looking decidedly stupid by promoting a bunch of conspiracy theories that are easily disproven. John Key's only defence seems to be to throw unfounded claims at the media in the hope that the facts will be lost in the ensuing unbalanced spin-fest, which I might add is highly embarrassing for New Zealand.

In my opinion, such diversions and masquerades do not an election campaign make. I also wonder, that after Nicky Hager's August 13 book release, has Nationals campaign ever really got back on track? Because by all appearances, John Key, like many of his parties policies, looks decidedly unhinged!

Wendyl Nissen leaves NewstalkZB

Despite the Prime Minister attempting to downplay the serious issues raised by Dirty Politics, a month on from Nicky Hager's book release and we're still learning more about those who were adversely effected by the numerous Whale Oil smear campaigns that have badly undermined our democracy.

Not only did the ground-breaking book blow the lid off the inner workings of an unethically administered National led government, it also exposed the underhanded ways private business interests try to influence public opinion in order to promote their unhealthy and socially destructive products.

One of the main Dirty Politics players employing people like Cameron Slater, Carrick Graham and Cathy Odger's to smear academics and journalists on behalf of big business interests is Food & Grocery Council chief executive Katherine Rich.

Unfortunately this despicable individual appears to have avoided any repercussions for her deviousness, presumably because those who are meant to hold her to account are also corrupt!

Thankfully some of the people targeted by Katherine Rich's smears have come forward to tell their stories. This is a great way to heal the personal hurt and professional damage that has been caused, by exposing it to the unyielding light of public opinion.

Today, the courageous and levelheaded Wendyl Nissen wrote in the NZ Herald:

Tuning out: Dirty Politics and the blogs

Earlier this year I was on the receiving end of a concerted effort, including legal letters, to get me discredited through my bosses at the Herald.

The person behind it was Katherine Rich, the chief executive of the Food & Grocery Council, which represents companies who produce soft drinks and processed foods, some of which I have written about.

[…]

Last week I resigned from my regular Friday morning slot on NewstalkZB, which I have been doing for 15 years, because I didn't want to be on the same platform as Cameron Slater, another commentator on the station, while there are allegations that his views involve cash for comment.

I'm all for free speech when there are genuinely held views, but I believe that if you are paid to express them by big industry or politicians with an agenda, that is not fair.

To claim that all the opinion pieces on Whale Oil Beef Hooked were his own work when most of the time Cameron Slater was simply being used as a front for the National parties negative campaigning and big business interests is about as pathetic as it gets. At the very least Slater et al should go back through all those disgusting articles and update them with the author's real names.

Over the years I have been writing Wendyl Wants to Know for the Herald, I have been offered many incentives to write nice things about processed foods for food producers. I have turned them all down because my readers have to trust me. Objectivity is the first rule of journalism.

At least some journalists have the moral aptitude to do the right thing. Let's hope that more people come forward with their stories and reasoned thoughts on Dirty Politics especially in terms of how best to clean up what is assuredly the biggest mess in New Zealand's political history.

The Moment of Truth

Key left holding the SPEARGUN

What was by far the most important revelation to come out of the Moment of Truth was Edward Snowden's information about SPEARGUN, which was a project completed in mid 2013 to tap the Southern Cross cable. There is no doubt this new evidence has laid waste to John Key's claims that there is no mass surveillance in New Zealand.

Clearly the GCSB has and still is spying on all of our communications. In that regard, Snowden’s information was more like a nuclear bomb blast of new information highlighting New Zealand's involvement in the Five Eyes network.

To your right is the relevant info-graphic showing SPEARGUN wasn’t just a proposal the PM dismissed, it was a functioning tool used by the spying agencies to keep tabs on all of our Internet activities.

Anybody who now doubts that Key was lying about mass surveillance is either an uninformed idiot or has a vested interest in people losing their right to privacy.

Key’s subsequent failure to properly address the serious issues that were raised during the Moment of Truth was compounded by his earlier attempt at a pathetic diversion.

The Prime Minister, just hours before the capacity event took place at the Auckland town hall, released documents about a GCSB project called CORTEX, which appears to be another system entirely to SPEARGUN. The CORTEX project was apparently meant to protect New Zealand from malware attacks, and in my opinion has been proven to be an ineffective use of taxpayer's money if the recent Spark malware attack is anything to go by.

Key claimed the previously classified information proved there was no mass surveillance on New Zealanders, when all it did was show the Prime Minister was willing to declassify secret documents that provide sensitive information about New Zealand’s anti-hacker capabilities. It also showed Key was willing to ignore proper process and release sensitive material in order to support his weakened political position.

But what is perhaps the worst example of deceit to come to light during the Moment of Truth was the fact that while John Key was claiming in public the GCSB law change wouldn't mean mass surveillance, those who were implementing SPEARGUN were awaiting that very same law change so they could start collecting people's data.

Not only did the SPEARGUN project get funding and built while such activity was illegal under New Zealand law, John Key specifically changed the law so that mass surveillance became legal and blatantly lied about what the law change was for.

Clearly the untruthful Prime Minister should do the right thing for once and resign! I simply cannot see how he could bullshit his way out of this one.

At the very least he should release all the documentation concerning SPEARGUN. He won't because John Key is a pathetic con-artist...a politician who clearly doesn't deserve to be in power.