A Phone Call with Paul Neazor - Only God Knows

In an off-the-cuff telephone conversation the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Paul Neazor, explains to a caller why he will not be told if he has been surveilled or not.

In a 'friendly' conversation Neazor explains about the 88 people surveilled and the rationale behind why everyone will get a response of 'neither confirm nor deny' when wanting to know if they are one of the 88.

In the ten minute audio clip Neazor discusses the role of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, talks about security issues in general and goes onto explain the mistake that led to the illegal spying of Dotcom. He asserts that Dotcom got residency in NZ through business connections and compares Dotcom to Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

Towards the end of the ten minute tape, Neazor forgets the name of the Director of the GCSB.

Neazor is arguably a goldmine of information, but it is not the only time he has forgotten 'important' things. In his 2011 annual report on the activities of the GCSB Neazor highlighted three occasions in which the GCSB  operated outside of their legal authority.

Questioned about that report in September 2012 by a TV3 journalist, Neazor could not recall it and quoted a Robert Browning poem.

 "Somebody asked Browning once what he meant by one of his poems and he said, ‘Only God and Browning knew what I meant and now only God knows,"said Neazor.