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Implausible deniability?

The GCSB has denied claims that NZers are being spied on en masse, either by the agency itself or by its overseas equivalents.

Director of the GCSB has told the media that it's simply impossible for his agency to read every email and listen to every phone call made by Kiwis.

According to this RNZ report the GCSB claims "it would take 130,000 to listen to people's phone calls and read their text messages, without even doing anything about them.

Disingenuous much?

I think so, as anyone with even the slightest understanding of technology will already be very much aware.

The USA has admitted logging and monitoring the communications of huge swathes of the planet's population -- do you think they do it by having operatives pressing earphones to their ears or laboriously reading through SMS messages and emails as they pass through the NSA's computers?

Of course not!

The reality is that there is plenty of technology out there that can scan emails, SMSs and even voice conversations searching for key trigger words and phrases. This software can process huge volumes of such communications in the blink of an eye and only when a trigger is detected is any form of human interaction required.

I would have to ask Mr Fletcher how the GCSB goes about spying on the communications of non-residents when required to do so.

Can GCSB operatives be seen, crouched in bushes outside a target's house -- with an upended glass pressed to the wall and against their ear perhaps?

Of course not.

If the GCSB knows what it's doing (which one must admit, is questionable), they will have access to the technology required to perform surveillance and monitoring in a very automated manner.

Also, Mr Fletcher's assurance that " Kiwis' metadata was not being collected by either the bureau or foreign agencies" seems a little hollow, in light of the revelations by Ed Snowden about the scope of the the NSA's MYSTIC program.

To be believable, the statements of the GCSB ought not treat the people at who they are directed as gullible idiots. I fear that the assurances that have been given, when compared to the evidence presented by other credible sources and the poor track record of compliance to date, do not have that essential "ring of truth" to them.

How sad.

Do you believe the GCSB and the NZ government is being honest with respect to the levels of surveillance being conducted on Kiwi's by NZ security agencies and those of other nations?

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