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First Confirmed Prism Surveillance Target Was Democracy Activist (fortune.com)
A new report by Television New Zealand in collaboration with The Intercept, based on leaks of former U.S. National Security Agency worker Edward Snowden has for the first time named a target of the NSA's controversial Prism program. The target was a middle-aged civil servant and pro-democracy activist named Tony Fullman. Fullman, who is originally from Fiji but has lived in New Zealand for decades, is an advocate for democracy in Fiji and a critic of Fijian prime minister Frank Bainimarama, who took power in a 2006 coup. From a Fortune report: According to The Intercept, the NSA in 2012 monitored Fullman's communications through the Prism program and passed on information to the New Zealand intelligence services. Around the same time, the New Zealand authorities raided Fullman's home and revoked his passport. The New Zealand intelligence services were not themselves allowed to spy on Fullman, who was a New Zealand citizen. However, as Snowden has repeatedly described, the agencies of many Anglophone countries spy on each other's behalf, in order to bypass their national legal restrictions. Fullman suggested in the article that people in the group may well have said violent things about Bainimarama, but this was just venting, not a plot. According to the report, they never suspected someone was listening into their communications. The NSA was said to be helping by analyzing Fullman's Facebook and Gmail activities. The 190 pages of intercepted documentation seen by The Intercept apparently didn't reveal evidence of a plot.
And this is exactly why the general public needs encryption and why various TLA outfits and buddies like to use the "think of the children" garbage to denounce it.
You might wonder why a pro-democracy country is spying on a pro-democracy campaigner. It's not because of any 'terrorist' BS, that's just the excuse. They monitored him, so that when they negotiate with Fiji in future, they can offer him up as a bargaining chip.
From the article: "Fullman reckons the timing of the raids was connected with the New Zealand foreign minister’s visit to Fiji for trade talks, just days later."
And this is why NSA and GCHQ spying on their own countrymen's communications is a bad thing (it is NOT harmless). Because the data they capture is used in political deals against the rights of the target and against the interests of the country as a whole.
New Zealand would have pulled his passport to secure a trade deal if necessary, so that they could tout a trade deal as a political win. All hidden from legal and democratic observation by the veil of 'security'.
I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for how helping protect Fiji's military government from possible plots connects with the goal of protecting the US from terrorism, right?
Was the NSA trying to protect the TSA from dehydration by ensuring that American air travelers would continue to have that Fiji bottled water to confiscate?
Simple. He is an activist that promotes Democracy. He believes in things like freedom, liberty and in the rights of the individual.
What could be a bigger crime in the west today than promoting Democracy?