Monday 28 August 2017

On the surveillance of New Zealanders

The Rawshark Investigation & secret Police mass surveillance program against 100 000 NZ'ers

Martyn Bradbury


28 August, 2017

Here is what we know about the Rawshark Investigation:


 It was originally just Nicky Hager, but it also included myself and possibly several other left wing activists and senior figures within the political left including the Labour Party.

With Jacinda likely to become the next Prime Minister, the NZ Police need to be upfront with the Labour Party over how extensive their Operation Rawshark surveillance really was.
The entire case collapsed once Nicky Hager challenged it in court and all evidence and information had to be destroyed.
Here is what we know about the secret Police mass mass surveillance program against 100 000 NZers:

The loophole which the NZ Police have exploited to gain personal information was part of a far wider secret mass surveillance program that we estimate has impacted anywhere between 100 000 – 200 000 NZers. This information has been taken and saved in the Police Intelligence computer and all that information is open to the SIS, GCSB and half a dozen other security agencies.
Remember:
No one outed in Nicky’s book ‘Dirty Politics‘ was investigated…
but the Police  did illegally investigate Nicky and conduct illegal searches against him. They breached my privacy and civil rights and I believe they did the same thing to other leading figures of the NZ Political left.
I believe this case cuts to the very heart of political neutrality within the NZ Police force.
What needs to happen?

The Police must be honest about how far their illegal surveillance into the political Left over Operation Rawshark went and there must be an inquiry into the manner in which the Police sought, took and stored the information of tens of thousands of NZers which they had no right to gain that in the first place.
What happens next?

The Privacy Commission has investigated my complaint and have found the Police breached my privacy and my civil rights. I have taken a formal complaint to the Human Rights Review Tribunal over the Police actions.
I will keep everyone up to date with how that progresses.



My case against a secret NZ Police investigation that breached my privacy and my civil rights
Martyn Bradbury


28 August, 2017

Let me start by categorically stating, I never hacked Cameron Slater’s computer and have no idea who hacked Cameron Slater’s computer for the information that appeared in Nicky Hager’s book, ‘Dirty Politics’.In 2015/2016 I began to get suspicious.

I was applying to extend credit to keep the blog afloat and I kept getting declined.
The extensions of credit weren’t extravagant and the manner in which the declines occurred just seemed odd.
I had followed the Nicky Hager case closely where Police had sent out warrantless requests for information and had obtained that information illegally and had even written a blog myself at the time of how the process of obtaining that information by Police could damage peoples credit rating and had even hypothesised that the Police could abuse this by targeting activists they didn’t like out of spite.
I don’t know why, but I felt suspicious and so wrote to the Banking Ombudsman and asked for access to my banking files to see if there was any 3rd person interaction.
The Banking Ombudsman replied early this year, and to my shock, I found out that the Police had, as part of their 2014 investigation into Nicky Hager, sent every bank in NZ a request for information claiming ‘Computer Fraud’.
The material released showed that before I was declined on my credit applications, each one had been referred in the first instance to the Banks computer fraud unit because the Police request red flagged my account.
Once I had discovered this, I requested information from the NZ Police into why they had secretly included me in the Nicky Hager investigation. They responded that while that had sent the requests, they wouldn’t tell me why.
Let me categorically state again. I never hacked Cameron Slater’s computer and have no idea who hacked Cameron Slater’s computer.
I sent all the material I had from the Banking Ombudsman including the Police request and response to the Privacy Commission and lodged a compliant regarding the Police actions.
The Privacy Commission have just finished their investigation and found that not only did the Police breach my privacy, they also breached my civil rights by effectively conducting an illegal search.
The harm that I have faced by this gross invasion into my privacy by the Police has been significant to me in terms of loss, detriment, damage and injury.
At the age of 18, I had a car accident that left me with a serious brain injury. The legacy of that has been severe depression. Over the last 5 years that depression has become very difficult to manage and the financial stress of not extending  credit all combined in late 2016 in two suicidal episodes.
I’m in a better headspace now and far from those two moments in part because finding out what had actually happened behind the scenes has given me an anger that has fuelled me to demand to know what the bloody hell the Police were up to, and hold someone to account.
I am taking the Privacy Commission Certificate of Investigation to the Human Rights Review Tribunal and they will process my complaint against the Police for breaching my privacy and civil rights through unlawful search.
It’s not important to like or dislike my work, but I think we can all agree that allowing the Police to conduct secret investigations into activists and political bloggers that then damage their reputation negatively based on spurious grounds isn’t acceptable in a liberal democracy.




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