Key 'not in position to comment' on Dotcom breach

  • Breaking
  • 24/09/2012

Prime Minister John Key remained tight-lipped over what exactly happened when the Government’s spy agency illegally spied on people during the case against Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom.

He announced earlier today that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) acted unlawfully while assisting police on the case by eavesdropping without authorisation.

Mr Key was hounded with questions at his post-Cabinet press conference but for most of them, he “wasn’t in a position to comment”.

“I am very limited in what I can say because this matter is before the courts,” he says.

“All I can say is that in the four years that I’ve been the Minister of the GCSB and SIS, I’ve found them to act thoroughly and professionally and always within the law, which is why I was quite shocked when I found out last Monday that there was an error,” he says.

“The cause of that error, I can’t offer you an opinion on at this point, I simply don’t know… We’ve self-identified the error and we’ve bought that into the public domain.

“I want to understand how and why the error occurred and I want to understand what actions can be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again," says Mr Key. 

He stands by his earlier statements that he didn’t know about the Dotcom raids until the night before.

3 News

source: newshub archive