On Spying, Fonterra’s 1080 Scare And How Information Can Be Used To Manipulate Perception

On the 26th of January I attended a hui at a Marae. The hui was about the TPPA (My subject) and the controversial use of 1080 in important Kai Whenua areas amongst others.

The people who did the presentation on 1080 and the effects of its use where Clyde Graf and Kathy White. Who, while stressing they spoke from their personal perspective only, are or where holding Councillor positions in the Waikato regional council. I tell you  this to show you that we are not talking eco-terrorist loonies here but people who have done the research and are willing to get into the existing political paradigm to fight for their cause through legal ways.

In fact Clyde Graf made a documentary about the use and effects of 1080 which you can watch here.

The emphasis of the presentation was on the use of 1080 in areas which are important to local hunters which are predominantly Maori.

I am telling you this in order to illustrate the following.

This week Nicky Hager published an article on the Intercept site and all major National papers about the invasive data collection taking place around 20 countries around the Pacific with the help of New Zealand. Nicky Hager did not think that New Zealand and its population where being spied on apart form the odd 80 people but here is something you might want to consider.

Data collection is not just collecting data and storing it somewhere. To spend a lot of money of just collecting data just in case is just not very productive and if anything, unproductive money  is not something our overlords like to spend. So what could they do to make it productive?

One form of making data useful is the following: Use it for scientific research!  Another is for data mining. Not necessarily connected to personal data but for example what kinds of words are trending.

This is not an outlandish presumption. Twitter has made it one of its main attractions already and here is the Global language monitor site with some of the highest trending words!

So you see this is something we already know and think of as quite interesting. In fact in this Max Keiser interview with anthropologist David Graeber he talks about a scientific application of how these trending words indicate societal change. The title of his new book by the way is: The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy.

But as with so many of these tools there is a darker side to this too.

Here is how that might work (and this is not a post to prove anything like this is actually happening but merely a demonstration of how data collected might be put to use) as I will demonstrate with the latest scare in the NZ MSM, that of the alleged blackmail attempt with 1080 contamination of Fonterra products.

First of all you need some back ground information.

• The 1080 factory is a NZ government owned company.
• Anger under many Maori and hunters is growing about the use of 1080 in areas where people hunt and gather food.
• The “scientific” testing and monitoring talked about by the government leaves a lot to be desired.
• It is very possible that 1080 contamination of dairy cows is happening merely due to downstream pollution of waterways.
• While the threats were made to Fonterra and Federated farmers the government had been notified but said it had wanted to wait until sometime next week to notify the media but that they had.
• The black mail attempt had been made 4 months ago so why make a big deal out of it now.

Secondly we have to establish who might have an interest in scaring people about 1080. Those people would be:

• Mad bad eco-terrorists who have nothing better to do than write threatening letters, contaminating Fonterra products, making stupid blackmailing attempts inviting the entire police force to start trying to find them and get arrested and spend many years behind bars. All of this for publicity about 1080 they could predict would 100% back fire against them. But… nut cases exist and that could happen.
• Politicians who need a local distraction from scandals and what better than a deranged eco- “terrorist” greenie especially with some of them climbing Kauri trees to protect them from rich pricks wanting a deck right where a 500 year old trees is.For example John Key has a little problem with the complete data collection New Zealand is engaged in. He also has a problem with the possible loss of a Northland electorate as a result of a corrupt and criminal politician having to leave his electorate triggering an election which could loose him the majority vote. He also has a problem with the TPPA and the Iraq war he wants to send NZ troops to die in.Having to deal with a mad bad blackmailing eco “terrorist” might make him look strong and decisive and maybe get the lagging polls back up again.
• The producers of 1080 (i.e. the government) could have a sharp interest in making eco “terrorists” threatening to use 1080 to poison innocent little babies more scary than the actual product about which more and more awareness is being spread by people such as Clyde Graf and Kathy White. Making everybody who so much as dares to speak out against 1080 a possible eco “terrorist” even while people who are against 1080 are so BECAUSE they want to protect animals and humans, especially babies from 1080.

 

If we assume that a mad bad eco “terrorist” is actually writing letters and threatening to poison babies unless the government stops the use of 1080 the next is void but…..

If it was a high ranking politician with ministerial access to say GCSB/NSA data or if it was that same person approached by say the producers of 1080 about the amount of push back they were getting for using 1080 all they would have to do to is to call their PR team and their mates at GCSB/NSA and say: We need something to distract the population and hype a bit of “terrorism” here and there so find us a something trending we can use to make up a story to insert into the MSM.

No individual data would have been used so that makes it quite legal (After all, as I said, Twitter does it and so does the global language monitor site) to do and it cuts of legitimate concerns through the use of fear tactics and it would also achieve the goals of distraction, manipulation and the steering of the human herd away from anger and towards fear.