It has been a week since the Smiling Assassin John Key admitted publicly to GCSB illegality, and the shit supernova is still spreading.
Excrement has been layered thickly not only on John Key and his chamberlain Bill English -who blithely signed the suppression notice- but also over so many usually discreet branches of government. Not only did it fly under the radar of some poor bastard in the GCSB, who is likely to end up the scapegoat one way or another; the order got the royal wave by the Queen's Hand of Crown Law and passed through the In Tray of the DPMC, before getting the ministerial John Hancock.
Throw in the suspicion that the police sent the GCSB request knowing full well that it was illegal, hoping the SIGINT wonks would trust the paperwork was in order and unwittingly cut the corner for the cops anyway. I found police mouth Greg O'Connor's comments during the Tuhoe Raids Arms trial illustrative of police ethics. His stance was that if an action is not explicitly illegal, then it is permissable. It is cavalier attitudes like this that permit cops to think they can fly close to the sun and not get burned.
And that's not the half of it. There might also be some top spin from MFAT in the mix, getting some cold revenge on McCully's Folly. Or there might be some shared back-end issues between the GCSB and the SIS, now that they're sharing office space in the shiny new Citadel of Defence and all. Then there's the matter of timings, who knew what and when, that were beyond Neazor's carpal tunnel horizon. So many unanswered questions, conspiracy theories and wild suppositions can run rife.
Hopes aren't high for more light than heat on the matter. There's so many foxes in charge of the henhouse reviews, it makes the related party lending in the finance company collapses look positively non-nepotistic in comparison. Putting even the bravest face on all of this, no-one is walking away smelling of roses. On the contrary, there's more than a hint of Rotorua in the air.
