As we’ve shown in previous posts in this series, the New Zealand government’s most efficient – and secretive – response to Covid was not lockdowns or vaccination, but the establishment of a panopticon apparatus of spying and information control. This Orwellian Ministry of Truth starts at the PM’s office and works its tentacles through a slew of ministries – and into a wide array of NZ’s civil society structure.
Bureaucracy, NGOs, media, even schools and universities, have been co-opted into this Stasi-like surveillance and propaganda effort.
“There are some universities and think tanks that have the capacity to [monitor and report on the social media environment] for us” […]
Again, is this a reference to The Disinformation Project? Which other think tanks?
How does it work in practice?
Within the Ministry of Health the Disinformation Assessment and Response Team (DART) was established as part of its immunisation programme. DART produced regular, even daily ‘Disinformation Landscape Reports’ and in May 2022 a ‘Disinformation Harms Report’ for the DPMC.
With an efficiency and rigor not seen in any other Labor government initiative, DART runs a triage system and “disinformation dashboard”, snitching on New Zealanders who’ve broken no laws, almost daily. As with other aspects of the program, outside organisations like Netsafe, and a shadowy, unnamed NGO suspected to be The Disinformation Project, are used to provide a facade of distance from the government. The idea is, as a DART email put it, “in most cases Netsafe would be the first port of call for such, and that is something which is of value to DARTs work (we do not want to be seen as some form of internet police).”
Even though internet police is exactly what they are, as some case studies serve to show.
Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) was established in 2016 to join an international network of CERTs that receive cyber incident reports and track cyber security incidents. CERT worked with DART by routinely passing on any information of public reporting on ‘disinformation’ to DART, in the form of a spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet (download it here) makes for interesting reading. By far the bulk (more than half) of its thousands of reports concern Voices for Freedom. Not just its website, but reported instances of VFF flyers appearing, with location and date listed. NZDSOS are reported, as well as minor political parties, as well as individuals like Sue Grey and Billy Te Kahika. Facebook pages, Telegram posts, emails, even newspaper classifieds. All noted and filed away.
In true Stasi style, even conversations are snitched on and added to the government files: “Report of trainer at Piritahi upskill training sharing view trhta [sic] vaccine is unsafe and casues [sic] death”. “Science teachers advising students not to get vaccinated” is also reported. Dozens of small businesses also come under the government’s spying eye.
Listed on the spreadsheet are Voices For Freedom flyers such as “Are you being mask winked?”, and an email sent to Oromahoe School by a member of the public containing links to published studies showing that masks harm children, among other items. CERT did not assess these items to classify them as disinformation, but passed them on to DART for assessment.
It should be no surprise to BFD readers to find this:
An OIA request also established that DART was monitoring BFD journalist Cam Slater.
The reports on Cam and the BFD were compiled in August and September 2021. This was right at the same time that OIA requests unveiled that Police Intelligence were actively monitoring Cam, and asking if his “anti govt” views and “denigration of Labour Party policies and individuals linked to them” (namely, the bombshell video of Siouxsie Wiles at the beach, maskless, during lockdown) “warrant a visit”.
So we now know, not only that, as Cam wrote, “The BFD, our editor and me are being actively surveilled, including comments and commenters”, but that the surveillance went well beyond Police intelligence and up to the government itself, namely, the Ministry of Health’s Disinformation Assessment and Response Team.
Finally, in fitting proof that those who turn loose the dogs of snitch end up getting mauled themselves, the spreadsheet also cites the NZ Herald and Stuff for “spreading misinformation”.
As The Looking Glass asks, where has this sudden obsession with “misinformation and disinformation” come from? For the same reason the Reichstag burned down.
[Propaganda and crisis communications expert] Greg Simons’ analysis is that by claiming there is a terrible threat that can potentially destroy our values and society, the government can then “act urgently”, with a strict and comprehensive regime of censorship, to ‘protect’ us. This is an element used in crisis communication, in which a predetermined political solution or remedy is offered to a frightened public.
“In another words, any information that does not adhere to the ‘officially approved’ government narrative will be squashed in the name of protecting democracy and the public. The result shall be an attempt at information domain dominance as a means to shape public consensus through the strict conformity of speech and expression” […]
And if the public are both the target of its influence, and the potential scapegoats (anyone can now be flagged as a security threat, a domestic extremist, by falling foul of the security state’s acceptable information parameters) what kind of dangerous power dynamic is being put in place? Has already been put in place?
The Looking Glass
Take a look around your country over the last three years and ask yourself: has it already happened?