You're right, it's an excellent comment, worth re-posting for posterity. Here it is... 'Martel wrote: 'In New Zealand the actions of the government’s domestic

You're right, it's an excellent comment, worth re-posting for posterity. Here it is... 'Martel wrote: 'In New Zealand the actions of the government’s domestic spy agency (the GCSB) is governed by law. Clearly there are very good reasons why the powers of such a government agency should be limited by the law. There are certain things that government agency cannot do. Actually it is more properly said that the GCSB must not do certain things, because for them to do so would be illegal, in other words those actions would be criminal, in other words those actions would constitute a crime. Sorry to be so pedantic but some seem to have a real problem with the idea that the rule of law pertains to all, including government agencies. 'When the GCSB spied on Kim Dotcom their actions in doing that were against the law. Yet, the author(s) of this Washington Post article attempts to sanitise and trivialise the illegal actions of the GCSB by calling them a “misstep”, quote unquote. Is that the euphemism you use to describe all crimes? A misstep? 'Let me make it clear to you that the GCSB knew what they were doing was illegal. Further more it is known that the Prime Minister was at a meeting where the question of its legality was raised. They knew that what they were doing was against the law and you choose to characterise it as a kind of OOPS. It was not an oops, it was a premeditated crime committed against a New Zealand resident by a government agency. Why do you seem to have such a problem calling it what it actually is? A crime. A crime has been committed and a New Zealand resident has had his whole life and that of his family practically destroyed and you call the criminal actions that brought about this egregious situation a “misstep”. Your characterisation of this is simply defies belief. To whoever wrote this article, if this is the best you can do with this and if you honestly cannot see the gravity and greater significance of what has happened in this important case then you have no right to call yourself a journalist? 'All around us right now so many of we, the people, are increasingly alarmed at the outrageous and unlawful intrusion of governments into our lives and the compromising of our freedoms by them and yet you seem to want to characterise this as a trivial matter. A crime has been committed by precisely those who should have known better and yet the government tries arrogantly to simply set it aside, to ignore their complicity or (with the assistance of articles like this one) to restyle it as in, it was all just a “misstep”. Can you even begin to justify your position here? A “misstep”? Give us a break.'