Comment Re:Majority Rules (Score 4, Interesting) 92
You don't know much about NZ government, then. So much for those assumptions of yours.
The TICS legislation was introduced as an exercise in ass-covering along with another bill which made illegal electronic surveillance performed by the GCSB "lawful" ex post facto. Both bills were overwhelmingly unpopular and submissions from the public and interest groups were practically unanimous against.
Several opinion polls have indicated that the majority of the NZ population disagree (many vehemently) with their government on these laws, and when they passed it was only with a one-vote majority in the Parliament courtesy of an MP who is the sole representative of his minor party (who himself only got into office because of a pre-election backroom deal with the National party). The best part of all this is that this deciding MP was himself under suspicion of leaking internal documents about illegal conduct by the GCSB, and that his email and that of the journalist he was corresponding with were snooped on in the process.
For a tiny little island nation we sure do have more than our fair share of idiot politicians and inept law enforcement. Not to mention a system of government whose relationship with democracy grows more tenuous by the year and which resembles a bunch of nice ideas thrown together without any guarantees, such as an immutable and entrenched Bill of Rights. The GCSB and TICS legislation have done considerable harm to the notion of privacy as a basic human right in this country with dragnet surveillance and full feed-through to the NSA of whatever gets picked up.