Comments on: Universities shouldn’t be schools for spies

By: Drakula

Drakula — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:32:08 +0000

Photon; Well it seems that Katies comments are in harmony with mine and regardless of my percieved paranoia certain professors have a certain influence on the administrations of NZ universities to selectively close certain courses.

Isn’t it a strange coincedent that the courses chosen are Film Studies and Islamic studies? I mean why not Painting and Drawing at art school? (which I would hate to see those go)or the study of plantagenate history?

I can’t say that I know the relationship universities have with the America’s desk but when it comes to ‘political cleansing’ some of these proffessors don’t need any encouragement from the SIS, America’s desk, CIA, or Mossad.

Universities have always been a recruiting ground for political covert activities not just for ‘our regimes’remember the case of Philby , Burgess, and McLean from Cambridge. Were these people national traitors or ideological patriots?

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By: Sapient

Sapient — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:57:38 +0000

Translation of Katie on November 22, 2009 at 2:39 PM:
“Cuts to useless course, even more useless course, and totally useless course to increase funds to useful facilities and useful course, slightly less useful course, and unfortunately rather useful course.”

Sapients comment:
Seems a good idea for me. Our student union, MUSA, had a womens office whom was elected through overwhelming vote, on a primarily female campus, because she promised to eliminate the position. lol.

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By: photonz1

photonz1 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:30:36 +0000

Katie – so who is forcing the university to close all these courses at Canterbury? – is it the police or the Americans???

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By: photonz1

photonz1 — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:15:56 +0000

kiora1 – my point is, that no teacher I know is concerned that the SIS are going to become interested in every secondary school potasium experiment. That IS paranoia.

We have background security checks and personal familiy interviews for EVERY person who wants to own a gun, but if people are found trying to make chemical bombs you would just leave them alone?

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By: katie

katie — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:39:18 +0000

Well, that was fairly interesting, if drifting a little off-topic.

Wading in:

Yes, Rakon make missile guidance *timers* which are used in weapons, and they regularly appear at the Defense Industry Association Conferences (Weapons Dealers) in NZ. (answers about 3 of you)

Kiore1;
lol.
and was that you writing in Massey’s Magneto? Kudos, if so.
(total spam for Magneto, go & read the story authored by a ‘Kiore’, sorry it’s not online)

photonz –
the fact that Canterbury still has Film & Theatre courses was used to try to justify closing VUW Film & Theatre school; and yes, Virginia, film students have been known to embarrass the Police by showing up in Court with footage showing Police assaulting protestors, so they have got a beef against film schools in general, and film students in particular.
The lack of an adequate budgeting skills is no excuse….

Also they have tried to cut back School of English, Film & Theatre papers in Medievil English, Shakespeare, sacked about a third of the staff at the School of Education, and aim to cut the whole of the undergrad program at Gender & Women’s Studies, on spurious grounds of budget cuts, when in reality there have been Faculty attacks on some of these schools over a period of years, in favour of prioritising funding for International Student accommodation and improving facilities for the Faculties of Commerce & Administration, and Law, down at the Pipitea campus. (Long-term arguments, going back 5 or so years)

Oh, and those who were arrested in October 2007 were searched with warrants that listed garden fertilisers as precursors to “molotov cocktails” – I won’t endanger you any further by explaining what other ingredients were needed, but I assure you any garage or garden shed in NZ with a lawnmower, a glass recycling bin, and some general veggie-growing N-P-K fertiliser is a suspect under those warrant conditions. Search it yourself on teh internet….

Samuiela –
must try not to do anything but organic gardening!

To Keith:
totally agree with you, although it’s a known cliche that both our spies, and the MI5/6, FBI/CIA routinely use Universities to recruit their next generation of ‘talent’.
GCSB openly hands out application forms, I have at least 3 versions of them in my personal collection.

So keeping spies off-campus is a losing game, but protesting their presence is always worthwhile, and is part of the routine behaviour of students engaged in any form of political activism.

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By: kiore1

kiore1 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:56:01 +0000

quoting Samuela: “The list included things such as seeing people taking photos of important buildings “.

Wow,in that case there must be heaps of terrorists outside the Sydney Opera House. And many of them suspicious looking Asian types. Come to think of it many of my students take photos on field trips. Just shows, you can’t trust anyone nowadays.

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By: greenfly

greenfly — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:54:28 +0000

photonz1 said
Every garden shed has feritliser in it. Perhaps what should draw suspicion is someone carting a trailer load of fertiliser into their tenth floor apartment.

Organic gardeners don’t have fertilizers in their sheds, so we’re in the clear – that’s a relief, but now I’m mighty suspicious of those who garden conventionally! Could Maggie Barry be masterminding some appalling act (other than her awful Radio Live Drive slot)?
I’d be very suspicious of someone ‘carting a trailer load of fertilizer into their tenth floor apartment’ – I’d want to know,
‘What are they growing up there???

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By: kiore1

kiore1 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:23:25 +0000

Victoria University also bullied me when I published a letter to the paper critical of AgResearch GM experiments that are extremely inhumane to sheep. Victoria had recently signed up some deal with AgResearch, and the Dean made threats about suing me and another staff member if it damaged AgResearch’s contract with them, etc, etc. Obviously academic freedom is not at all important to them when money is involved. I have found management of tertiary education institutes generally to be frightened and conservative. The managers make fine speeches at graduation about innovation and challenging established practices, but when one of their staff or students does so, they invariably back the establishment.

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By: kiore1

kiore1 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:18:04 +0000

photonz1: Actually it was you who were paranoid enough to believe that interest in explosives – something most kids (and some adults who study chemistry) have an interest in means they need to be investigated. And no, I don’t claim to be a teacher, I am a teacher. What exactly is your point?

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By: photonz1

photonz1 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:58:33 +0000

Drakula – so you think Canterbury Uni closed down courses like Theatre studies bacuase they were presured by America?

And you claim that you’re NOT paranoid??

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By: photonz1

photonz1 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:35:55 +0000

kiore1 – talk about paranoia – you really think the SIS will be looking at the potasium experiment all school kids do? What a massive leap you make to think they’d put the potasium experiment in the same category as chemical weapons.

And you claim you used to be a teacher?

samiuela – people with fertilizer in their garden sheds are regarded as potential terrorists????? Who by???

Every garden shed has feritliser in it. Perhaps what should draw suspicion is someone carting a trailer load of fertiliser into their tenth floor apartment.

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By: Drakula

Drakula — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 09:47:28 +0000

Photonz 1; Your really getting it tonight

I must reassure you that I am not in the least bit paranoid. I think that the essence of what Kieth locke is getting at is;-
(1) The disregard for the United Nations Charter of Human Rights
(2) That is the infringement of students civil liberties and rights to privacy.

It is not just about about ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or suspects looking too ’semetic’, the concern here is is about most minority (or collectively the majority) groups who happen to disagree with the government of the day.

I will site that the above abuses of power that is carried on at Victoria University and it is specifically aimed at left wing groups.

The students who were expelled had the ‘audacity’ of promoting dangerous ideas such as free education from kindergarden to Phd.
In the seventies New Zealand very nearly had such a society but it is all to evident that the regime at victoria University believe in the antithesis of privatisation and to achieve their ends they consider it necessary to ruthelessly suppress all opposition.

As for Canterbury University cutting those courses because they need to budget is a load of patant bunkum and is only a pretext and a smoke screen for the real reasons as to why they don’t think that those courses (Islamic studies)should be the core subjects.

As for 1984 that cliche is bandied a lot today it would have been a prophesy had the extreme left got the upper hand. But that is not the case
The opposite is happening our society is going to the other extreme of Heyak’s philosophy of market liberalisation, that will eventually end up being a corporate dictatorship or an oligarchy of monopolies.

If one needs to look for a doomsday prophet ‘A Brave New World’ by Aldous huxley is much more in keeping with today’s zeitgiest.

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By: kiore1

kiore1 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:57:48 +0000

Replying to photonz1: “If you were seen to be taking an abnormal and detailed interest in chemical weapons or the like, then yes – you should be looked at.”

When I taught school science, one fun trick that the kids always liked was dropping potassium into a bowl of water and watching it explode. this experiment is illegal but every chemistry teacher did it. So does the SIS need to monitor the students and teachers because they are taking an abnormal interest in chemical weapons or explosives. It is just normal adolescent fixation with bangy things. Similarly most intelligent students wanted to know more about nuclear power and how it could be used to make a bomb. This does not mean that they have a fixation with death, merely normal curiosity about science and machinery.

The SIS directive is a bit of a joke. It is rather like the directive that teachers spy for the immigration department by monitoring whether overseas students are attending class. As far as I am concerned I am not being paid to be a government spy, so why should I do it.

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By: samiuela

samiuela — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:17:55 +0000

Photonz1,

I used to have a fridge magnet issued by the Australian government alerting me to what suspicious activity I should report to authorities. The list included things such as seeing people taking photos of important buildings and neighbors in their sheds late at night. People with fertiliser in their sheds are also potential terrorists, supposedly the main use of fertiliser is for making bombs.

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By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:14:58 +0000

Furthermore, one Must look at the Abuse of pseudo-legal power in NZ.
Though I have lived in 4 different countries (including a ‘third world’ nation), I have never seen the successfull use of a spurious and malicious allegation causing such damage anywhere.
A common Criminal Tactic here is to maliciously accuse (better done as an emergency) a Target of some kind, of a Deadly Offense/Situation.
Knowing that Law Enforcement here will enthusiastically load up for Bear, go and destroy the persons and property so accused and sort out the truth later.
If their ass needs covering, why, spurious Depositions/Allegations are quite Normal here – false convictions easily obtained – everyday business.
Our ‘News’ Services have abrogated their role – people hold their TV – their Newspaper, the Local gossip above any independent truth.
The UN Human Rights Commission has so many complaints of this in NZ, they are reduced to keeping a count until a Commissioned Inspector can be sent.
However, veracity becomes elusive once the majority of players are divorced from the truth.
All one can ascertain for sure – is that lies are abundant.
Is Big SISter part of the Problem, or part of the answer?

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By: John Carter

John Carter — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:29:31 +0000

Replying to photonz1: “If you were seen to be taking an abnormal and detailed interest in chemical weapons or the like, then yes – you should be looked at.”

So you are going to stick your head in the sand and never understand the issues? You are going to rely on “Securocrats” to “explain” them to you? Like the American Ostriches relied on Bushes Securocrats to explain to them how dangerous Saddam’s bio-weapons of Mass Destruction were?

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By: Graham Howell

Graham Howell — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:10:03 +0000

I have two related concerns. Firstly the whole nature of having New Zealanders “spying” on other New Zealanders, rather like Stalin or the Gestapo; and secondly, the extension of state surveillance as is planned in the Seahch and Surveillance Bill which will add further to the powers of the SIS and other state agencies involved in law enforcement.
We do not need to be encouraged to spy and inform on our susters. Should real terrioist activities be taking place I guess most of us would show concern simply because we do not want to be closde to the suicide bomber but outside this I am do not believe we are at risk or in ned of such misguided diligence.
As for the Search and Surveillance Bill. The progress has been stalled essentially because both the Privacy and Human Rights Commission raised concrns. Once they are satisifed the Bill will proceed as Labour supports itsintent. That is, extend and widen the ability of the state to search, seize and observe any activity likely to break any law. This could include marching without a permit.

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By: Mark

Mark — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:51:17 +0000

Our SIS has but one basic problem. No one but Kiwi’s to spy on – well what a waste of money…..most of the dangerous elements in our society are keen to label badge and patch themselves. There would be very few absolute secrets in NZ.
Another stack of Public Servants with no Real Mission.
Out with the Lawnmower I say!
Spying on 11 year old kids and Politicians would cause Riots in any civilized country.
Teachers on Pupils?
Why that is pure Mao-Tse Tung!

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By: Trevor29

Trevor29 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:07:17 +0000

Just don’t forget that the same technology that allows a guided missile to know where it is and able to fly through an enemy barrage is also useful for allowing the pilot of a civil aircraft to know where he is when flying through a thunderstorm.

Essentially Rakon make parts for clocks.

Trevor.

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By: photonz1

photonz1 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:05:13 +0000

Samiuela – If you were seen to be taking an abnormal and detailed interest in chemical weapons or the like, then yes – you should be looked at.

Every day in all sorts of situations police check out people acting suspiciously, even if they’re not necessarily breaking the law.

It’s just part of any standard prevention programme. But for bombs or chemicals it’s more of a job for the SIS rather than the police.

Better to make discrete inquiries about a few people and have nothing happen than miss an opportunity to stop a Madrid/Bali/London/NY bomber.

The chanceas of a bomber being here are not high, but they’re not zero either.

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