Really? I watched the talk, I didn't see any evidence or concrete claim that it was actually implemented. I'm 100% against surveillance, BTW.

I don't think what Snowden and the PM were saying were so incompatible - it's a word game. Sir Bruce Ferguson (ex head of the GCSB) said on RNZ that surveillance is an agent actively looking at data, so "mass surveillance" would be agents actively looking at 4.4M peoples' data. Clearly that's not happening, so John Key can claim that there's no mass surveillance here with no conflict. Snowden said he routinely saw New Zealanders' data, but the Americans can collect all that data with impunity since we're all filthy foreigners to them - there was no evidence presented that it's the GCSB actually collecting it.

This is why surveillance, like tax, needs international laws these days - domestic law is mostly irrelevant unless you're the US. In our case the US can collect our data with no issues since basically all our internet goes through there, and we can just ask them for it if we want it. Everyone can say they're not doing any wrong with no fear of contradiction, and everyone is happy.

Except us, of course, because, you know, we're being constantly monitored.

"Project SPEARGUN in progress"

"Key Activities in Progress: Access ... New Zealand: Partner cable access program achieves phase 1"

"New Zealand: GCSB's cable access program SPEARGUN phase 1; awaiting new GCSB Act expected July 2013; first metadata probe mid 2013."

Yeah if you play word games the NSA isn't 'collecting' everything either. Since 'collecting' means a human inspecting the content.

Mass collection and permanent storage, automated reasoning and algorithmic processing for keywords/content/intentionality IS surveillance or at least that's a useful definition, anyway.

Surveillance aside, You do realize computers can aggregate data? It doesn't take 4 million agents to look at 4 million citizens (or 2 million, or 1 million...). The data can sit there and be deciphered any number of ways.

The word game is two sides of a coin.

Of course I realise that - I'm just pointing out how John Key can probably say what he's saying and not be technically lying. Whether he's telling the whole truth is doubtful, of course.

But of course, it's another example of how the law lags way behind on tech matters - within 5 or 10 years an agent having to actually look at the data will be totally anachronistic. Algorithms can already find patterns more readily than humans can in many cases.