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He has every right to be pissed and the New Zealand government has egg all over it's face on this. Recently NZ has been updating it's Privacy Act and they yet again left it toothless with no power for the Privacy Commission to enforce compliance. But hey, that's what you get when the MP in charge of the Bill is also in charge of the GCSB. Well that, and a blanket exemption for the GCSB. This was before the Christchurch Shootings and look where we are now. It looks as though the Bill wasn't rewritten to so much to protect peoples privacy as it was to allow our economic compliance with the GDPR and gain more government exemptions. I doubt the Privacy Commissioner is as pissed at Facebook as he is at being left totally impotent by the New Zealand Government.

It is important to keep in mind that NZ is a party to the "Five Eyes" intelligence-sharing partnership (the others being the USA, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia). Why that's important is that the agreement between them specifies that any intelligence developed by any of the parties is made freely available to the others, both in regular summary reports, and in full, upon request.

What that means on a practical level is that any data NZ's Customs folks uncover in their search of arrivals' devices that they decide might be of interest to any one of their three national intelligence-gathering organizations is automagically rendered to them. They, in turn, make that data available to the other four signatories' national spies. As Edward Snowden's massive document dump revealed, a key goal of the alliance is to enable the signatories to thwart the limits their own laws place on surveillance and intelligence-gathering activities directed at their own citizens and legal residents. (Appropriately enough, the NZ Herald ran an in-depth report on the subject in its March 5, 2015 edition. It makes for interesting reading, both because its viewpoint is a non-U.S. one, and because it traces the kind of egregious, systematic overreach that the port-of-entry personal electronics search policy TFS exemplifies specifically to the administration of NZ's National Party leader and (now-former) Prime Minister John Key.)

As an example of how the Five Eyes alliance enables its signatories' end-run around their own citizens' privacy protections, Snowden likes to point to a routine tactic that he, as an IT contractor for the NSA, personally witnessed every day: when an NSA analyst wants to look at the phone record metadata, web browsing history, email, and/or other "signals intercept" intelligence on a citizen of the USA who currently resides within its borders - which it is legally forbidden to do without first obtaining a FISA court warrant - he or she need only inform GCHQ (Britain's version of the NSA) of that desire. One of GCHQ's analysts then uses the spy tech that the NSA shares with GCHQ - often the exact same program the NSA person is running - to look up the requested record in GCHQ's database, and helpfully sends a copy of the results to his or her NSA counterpart.

Employing the narrowest possible interpretation of both countries' legal strictures, the search itself is not technically forbidden by U.S. law, because the actual surveillance and initial data acquisition was performed by GCHQ (albeit on the NSA's request), and that organization is not bound by U.S. statutes or Constitutional prohibitions on searches and seizures conducted without the shield of a judicial warrant. And the fact that GCHQ's analyst shared the results with the one from the NSA is, likewise, not illegal, for the same reason.

That kind of data sharing, which is based on the sketchiest possible interpretation of the respective nations' laws, happens thousands of times per day - and it works both ways.

Or, rather, I should say it works all five ways ...

Not as hard as you think.

Here in NZ Google & Facebook are now booking contracts in the NZ tax jurisdiction rather than via Singapore as was done previously. This has been due to increasing comment by politicians, NZ businesses and consumers of Google, for example, having NZ$12M in revenue and paying NZ$365K in tax.

Also we now pay GST (our local VAT equivalent) on purchases from Steam.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/bus...

Lefties like throwing their weight around.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/...
A far-right group wanted to hire some venues to host some talks in Auckland. The council owned venue refused them because of fears there would be violent left-wing protests their security staff wouldn't be able to cope with.

First you pay them to come. Then you pay them not to leave.

Yup. We played that game in my country, and have paid Hollywood something like $575 million over the last few years.

Everytime anyone makes any noises about no longer paying the Danegeld, the workers protest in the streets, despite being forced to give up all sorts of worker protections just to keep their jobs.

There was a case in New Zealand a few years ago where the evidence of two policeman was contradicted by the video recorded by the camera on a taser gun.

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-new...

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/...

You don't jail the engineers or architects who design a building that fails in an earthquake.

Well actually. In the 2010 Christchurch earthquake, we had a building called the CTV Building that fell over and killed 115 people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The engineer has not been held responsible, because he quit from the professional engineering society before they laid charges against him, and the police (apparently incorrectly) decided that he could not be held culpable for their deaths.

It's a fairly minor scandal here and the families of the victims have appealed to the attorney general to re-review the case

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nation...
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/...

> The second point related to a legal technicality only flagged in the final months of the police investigation. The law says that any death resulting from negligent conduct must occur no more than one year and one day after that conduct ended.

This part of the law is being repealed by the government.

Thiel still wanted citizenship here.

Yes, in very dubious circumstances.

How much did he "donate" to the National party to be granted citizenship in New Zealand despite having been here for a total of 12 whole days, then never returning or investing the money he said he would.
I imagine there was a payoff to the Labour party as well, because I can't imagine why there has never been an inquiry about the whole matter.
Not that it's an isolated incident, no-one is really sure what this criminal is called, but the minister of immigration gave him citizenship as well, against the advice of officials.

Yes, he owns property in New Zealand and was granted citizenship under controversial circumstances.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/...

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/busi...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/medi...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nation...

Yes, he owns property in New Zealand and was granted citizenship under controversial circumstances.

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/...

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/busi...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/medi...

https://www.stuff.co.nz/nation...

How about people that care for the health of their youth and know they can't delete their accounts so just want to fix facebook http://www.slate.com/articles/... Amid skyrocketing youth suicide? Yeah top Marks Mark if you enjoy killing people! Its your company and your New Years Resolution to fix Facebook. Try a subscription model and don't sell out the youth. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

Sigh, you really missed the point of my comment there.
I'll spell it out: anon says bullshit it's hotter in general because it's cold where they are right now. I respond by pointing out that elsewhere in the world, it's not as cold as in the US.
Out of interest, Sydney just hit 47.3 degrees C: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/worl...
Pretty toasty, despite how cold it is in the US.

Or a New Zealand Poltician http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

Another added bonus, make friends with the right people, and you can be a citizen.

Nothing suspicious about that though, oh no.

In the US, we don't even make you know the right people. Invest $1 million in a new business (or $500K if it is in "targetted employment area") and you get an EB-5 visa. Of course, if you also "know" Jared Kushner, that helps too.

Corrupt Chinese businessmen already have a great money laundering scheme for getting money out of the country.
Have a look at property prices in Australia and New Zealand, (there are probably other places too).
Added bonus (in NZ anyway), no capital gains tax.
Another added bonus, make friends with the right people, and you can be a citizen.
Nothing suspicious about that though, oh no.

Except the Herald, Stuff, and Scoop. And those were the first three I tried. RNZ does too.

Your first link is a reprint of a Washington Post story. Second one starts with a middle-endian date format - must be a foreigner.
Third one is a press-release by an illiterate wanker with numerous spelling/punctuation/grammar errors including the humourous "bold-face liar". He prints lies in a heavy font?

Except the Herald, Stuff, and Scoop. And those were the first three I tried. RNZ does too.

Spent 2 minutes on google..
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...
https://www.irishtimes.com/new...
http://www.sheknows.com/home-a...

Heck, there are tons of articles about people dying from fire extinguishers and people actually killing others with them too.

I do the same, and also: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/ Maybe because New Zealand is isolated from the rest of the world a bit, their view on the news often seems less biased.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/worl...

this demands investigation to see who dropped the ball and why (incompetence? proft?).

Some countries at least seem to be getting it right. Here's coverage of this from New Zealand in which the meter vendors point out that they use mostly current transformers and shunt resistors, a tiny fraction use Hall effect sensors, and none use Rogowski coils.

In New Zealand, police Taser guns are fitted with a camera that starts recording video as soon as the Taser is switched on. Footage of some incidents has led to police being criticised for their excessive and illegal use of Tasers.

Weapon of choice: Are Tasers being abused? http://www.stuff.co.nz/good-re...

Police Taser use against man ruled excessive http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

Do you get ACC coverage if the cops tase you?

In New Zealand, police Taser guns are fitted with a camera that starts recording video as soon as the Taser is switched on. Footage of some incidents has led to police being criticised for their excessive and illegal use of Tasers.

Weapon of choice: Are Tasers being abused? http://www.stuff.co.nz/good-re...

Police Taser use against man ruled excessive http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

The New Zealand Herald has the full text of the judgment with its article here

Paragraph 77 onwards of the judgment are an absolutely crushing demolition of the Dotcom team's arguments that facilitating copyright infringement on an industrial scale should not be considered "conspiracy to defraud".

"Conspiracy to defraud" is extradictable to the USA; Dotcom & co are likely to be going away for a long time.

There's a graphic that attempts to explain why there are lots of whale strandings at Farewell Spit and while it's fair to say that we don't know why it happens, the explaination sounds likely to me.

This has been pretty big news here in New Zealand for the last few days, and I heard the Department of Conservation guy on the radio this morning say that the whales that swam off the beach had been moved by volunteers during the previous high tide, so I don't think it's such a mystery.

Looks like he has been misquoted.

This caught my eye from which I gather the drivers pay the fines, so it costs Uber nothing.

Uber loses $2 billion per year at the moment, and can't live with competition, so will only exist as long as the investors continue to plough money in.

when all your tradesmen expect cash under the table I do feel that we (as tax payers) are being ripped off...

Yes, of course I have privacy concerns WRT the cashless economy but it's a balancing act.

Australia is considering dropping the $100 note for a similar reason:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/busi...

We really need to level the playing field from the top end (Apple/Google) to the bottom end (Plumber Paul/Builder Bob).

The Land Transport Safety Authority are having none of it though, and Uber drivers are being fined if they are caught operating without the right license.

Uber will be gone in a couple of years (here at least), as in most major markets there is an over supply of taxis, so Uber has no edge.

According to this Uber can't live with competition, so when the investors get sick of pouring money in with no chance of a return it's all over.

The barriers to entry in the taxi business are pretty low, so there will always be competition.

Also skimming still goes on

The article says that they were arrested after bank staff saw unusual transactions, which might be true, but I would be willing to bet a whole dollar that the police were onto them as soon as they arrived.

Four Romanians in New Zealand for a holiday? Yeah, right.

I read an article that was admittedly about Spam scams, but I'd imagine the same would apply here. They're intentionally designed to be off-the-wall and unbelievable. That way, they know anyone they rope in is likely to be gullible enough to go all the way and fall for it without much problem. They don't want to try to make something super-believable that will cause smart or smart-enough people to question it and spend a bunch of time researching, because it wastes their time when they drop out.

Unfortunately, this often means elderly folks get the worst of it, though apparently college kids are getting hit too.

In fact, here it is

Whenever a Hollywood studio wants to make a movie, they tell our government how much the taxpayers need to shell out to keep the jobs here. The last big deal cost us at least $75 million.

The threats are always that jobs will go overseas, but no thought about whether they are jobs worth keeping.

Our government is desperate to shut down any talk of the two being linked, but everyone knows they are. China is a huge buyer of our exports, and have no problem using that power.

The Queen's Chain is largely a myth. There was never any full "peoples right" to the beaches and rivers.

Ownership of beaches has been around since the original colonisation and Land Wars. It's by no mens a recent phenomenon, nor anything to do with foreign companies.

You might find this article about the Queen's Chain interesting as well. Note:

As a whole the Queen's Chain is expanding as private coastal land is subdivided, and the Government has indicated it wants to expand public access to the coast further.

Yeah but then they put in votes for House Party, Techno Party, Dress-up Party, and After Party

Forcing people to 'vote' is pointless. If they're that disenfranchised that they wouldn't be arsed to turn up to the polling booth without threat of a fine, then they're going to express their frustration on the ballot.

100% agree. I cannot comprehend this idiocy. If you don't want to vote, then you are voting Republication.

Yeah but then they put in votes for House Party, Techno Party, Dress-up Party, and After Party

Forcing people to 'vote' is pointless. If they're that disenfranchised that they wouldn't be arsed to turn up to the polling booth without threat of a fine, then they're going to express their frustration on the ballot.

Dunno about warehouse, but it seems they did purchase 3000 of them: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

Also seems the tanks they used were on loan until the end of the year when there were to be sold to Libya..

I moved to the EU a few years ago, so now I just pay for a VPN service. Most are very affordable, and I don't have to put up with those invisible internet boarders anymore.

Thanks, but it seems likely that this is illegal in New Zealand. ISPs used to offer access to geo-blocked content, but this was challenged by the television companies, and ruled to be illegal (violating copyright law by importing without distribution rights, I think). Global Mode goes dark - broadcasters win legal fight

This probably wouldn't be an issue for VPN in practice, but I'd rather adhere to the law anyway, even if I don't agree with it.

There have been histrionic predictions about disappearing glaciers, extinct polar bears, 50cm+ rising seas, 50 million climate refugees, catastrophic hurricane seasons, ice-free arctic, all which should have come to pass by now.

I agree, 'crying wolf' is a near-perfect way to ruin one's credibility.

Hyperbole sells movies, not science. However, there's precious little hyperbole coming from the scientists themselves.

The predictions you mention really are coming to pass. Jellies have hit their stride, they're filling the oceans. Polar bears really are dying out. Local weather systems really are making landfall with more energy than they used to. Arctic ice really is disappearing very quickly.

I live in New Zealand. Like many tourists to our little country, I to have naughtily stood upon the tongue of the Franz Josef glacier. I did this in 2000 and it looks quite different only fifteen years later, judging by this Herald article.

This is reality. That fact that it is not happening nearly as fast as we were led to believe by our hyperbolous media and silly disaster movies like '2012' should come as a surprise to absolutely no-one.

> Why did you lie under oath in court to try and get John Banks put in jail?

Have you got a link? I did a quick search and found:

"Kim Dotcom challenges John Banks to sit-down interview"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

And an article with plenty of details, but it boils down to each saying the other's lying:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nationa...

Had. For dubious values of "had."

In this article about the lost supply craft, there's a picture of the inside of the ISS. In the article's picture, look at all of the exposed cables! I guess that's why the astronauts are sort of locking their arms in front of themselves - so they don't accidentally pull out a cable.

In the movie The Reluctant Astronaut, Don Knotts accidentally kicked a computer tape, as he was floating around in the capsule. Then he got peanut butter all over the tape, as he was putting it back onto its reel. Heh.

Here's a question though: how many people actually know what an engineer is or does? If you ask the average high school student, you will probably find that most really don't have any idea. I knew quite a few (female) classmates who really enjoyed engineering, but almost all of them had some "Aha" moment (that could easily have been missed) where they found out what engineering actually was. I know someone now who wishes she had done engineering, but didn't know what it was when she was choosing what to study.

Engineering is extremely diverse and has so many possible applications, but the general understanding of what an engineer does is really narrow, and I can understand why someone (female or not) would find that narrow idea really boring and unattractive. It wasn't until I (through a relative) realised what engineering can do for the world that I developed any interest in it - and now, I find myself wishing I had known all this earlier.

Engineering has been a pretty poorly-advertised discipline. This is starting to change (here in New Zealand, we have a bit of an advantage with the Christchurch earthquakes bringing the importance of civil engineering to the fore, but also the work of excellent people like Michelle Dickinson, aka "Nanogirl", who are working to change that). If more people knew what you could do with it, they'd be more interested. Engineering has had a very "uncool" and "boy's drinking club" look, and that needs to change.

Btw, the NZ Herald Articles:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

The key point also:

But the Snowden papers show that counter-terrorism is at most a minor part of the GCSB's operations. Most projects are assisting the US and allies to gather political and economic intelligence country-by-country around the world.

Btw, the NZ Herald Articles:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

The key point also:

But the Snowden papers show that counter-terrorism is at most a minor part of the GCSB's operations. Most projects are assisting the US and allies to gather political and economic intelligence country-by-country around the world.

I don't disagree with you - I'd never get away with downing half a litre of Vodka without purging till my eyeballs bled - but there certainly have been some sad examples of this happening to kids who haven't learned their tolerances yet.

A study by researchers from the University of Georgia and Columbia University, which evaluated 5,800 elementary school children, came to the opposite conclusion as these Israeli researchers. Researchers analyzed data from 5,800 elementary school students and found that boys performed better on standardized exams in math, reading and science than their course grades reflected.

From the above-referenced study:

The gender differences in grades emerge early in all subject areas and favor girls in every subject. Because boys out perform girls on math and science test scores, it is surprising that girls out perform boys on teacher grades in math and science by nearly 0.15 standard deviations. Even more surprising is that the girl boy gap in reading grades is over 300 percent larger than the white black reading gap and the girl boy gaps in math and science teacher grades are about 40 percent larger than the corresponding white black grade gaps.

and

the inconsistency between test scores and grades is largely accounted for by non-cognitive skills. White boys who perform as well as white girls on these subject-area tests and exhibit the same attitude towards learning as white girls in the classroom are graded similarly.

So, in short, if a boy acts and has a similar learning style as girls, he will get the same grades as girls. Women dominate the teaching profession - 84% of teachers are women. In Kindergarten it's even worse - 98% of teachers are women. Therefore, women apparently value students whose learning style is similar to their own.

In another study, boys were awarded lower grades by women teachers than by external examiners. Whereas male teachers gave girls the same marks as external examiners.

On the political side, in 1972 there were 17% fewer women graduates of college programs than men and this was considered something of a crisis and Title IX was passed to ensure equal opportunities for education regardless of gender. Today, 25% few men than women graduate from college and President Obama calls this a "great accomplishment."

hell, don't be too shocked if your own legal team files the petition against you - it's been known to happen:

http://www.yorkshireridingsmag...

Even solicitors can be declared bankrupt without judgement:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/36...

(not that that stops them from practising):

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/busi...

They probably went to the Donald Trump School of Hiding Wealth:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cl...

(which was kinda handy for Ivana, who took half his assets - and none of the joint liabilities - in the divorce settlement)

In New Zealand, police tasers are equipped with cameras that start recording black and white video when they are turned on. Recently, using the taser video recording of an incident, it was established that two police officers had used excessive force and had given false evidence in court.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/nationa...
http://www.stuff.co.nz/good-re...