Eliora: Freedom of Speech: Surveillance and Threats

Prior to Covid-19 in 2020 it would rarely cross minds that governments were so deep, dark, suspicious and controlling that they would watch everything you do. Most in New Zealand would never have imagined they might be censored or surveilled by a spying, prying government checking what you wrote in personal emails or said on social media.

Monitoring began in earnest during the Covid years. Surveillance was happening. If those in power do not like your messaging, they begin to watch and scrutinise your life. New intelligence groups were set up and others empowered by keeping an eye on these dissidents. High-level governmental snooping on ordinary people became the norm here and overseas.

Trust in the politicians and the medical profession took a dive because they lied about everything during the Covid pandemic. The real pressure from the government came full blast to get all Kiwis to have the Covid ‘vaccine’. Knowing that an untested jab could not be promoted as safe and effective, thousands refused to submit. That’s when additional censorship took hold. It became nasty, and people found themselves vilified, isolated, cancelled and blocked by various social media.

It hit home how easily leaders of so-called free countries collected personal information, increased their capabilities, intercepted communications and expanded their investigations into anyone who was in direct conflict with the government’s narrative.

Ardern’s regime came down hard on Kiwis, but it’s staggering to realise that surveillance did not stop with a change in government here in NZ and elsewhere.

Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch political commentator and activist, recently revealed personal spying on X.

Click to view

Apple advised her twice that they had located targeted mercenary spyware against her i-Phone. Vlaardingerbroek doesn’t know who put it there: a government or an organisation that does not like her, or perhaps a secret service? It was real; designed to silence and intimidate her. She let them know her feelings, even though they were probably actually watching her on the phone. But she stood up against ‘them’.

It’s not going to work. Eva bravely faced the eavesdroppers.

Auckland University Economics Professor and former NZ Reserve Bank advisor Robert MacCulloch eventually took a different approach to Vlaardingbroek’s when this happened to him.

MacCulloch said after a lengthy period of being ignored, an object of censorship and threatened by both the National and Labour political parties and Big Business, he shut down his Down to Earth Blog. Here is an interview with MacCulloch by Paul Brennan on Reality Check Radio:

PROF ROB MACCULLOCH Economics Professor and Former Reserve Bank Advisor

In a recent article in the Herald, MacCulloch challenged Willis’ media statement of her willingness to engage with him.

She never talked to me about anything; she never looked me up. It’s all just nonsense. There’s no authentic engagement with any of it.

It’s just this whole seedy scene where the Nats were so angry with Ardern and the way she was spinning and all that stuff, but they’re just doing the same. I’ve just lost faith that they are actually sincere.

When asked why, he said, “The truth makes them incensed.” He can’t be bothered with them anymore.

Don’t let the ba****** get you down, Robert advised.

Here is a Good Oil article about MacCulloch closing his blog due to threats:

https://goodoil.news/were-closing-due-to-threats/

During the Covid years, three ordinary New Zealand women headed up the Voices for Freedom movement. One of the women, Alia, released her submission to the second Royal Covid Inquiry. https://x.com/AliaVFF/status/1916309412668707101

The level of censoring, threats and surveillance they each faced was extraordinary and frightening.

An excerpt from Alia’s submission, under the heading surveillance and state targeting:

For daring to speak out, we were surveilled by the NZSIS, government agencies, mainstream media, academic institutions like Auckland University and organisations such as The Disinformation Project. Official Information Act requests confirmed that a government dossier exists on us, alongside hundreds of pages of partially redacted internal emails discussing how to counter the problem we posed to the official Covid-19 narrative. I later received confirmation at the end of 2024 that the new coalition government continued monitoring us, despite the end of Covid restrictions. We knew our phones were tapped: we could hear the interference. We joked about it, but the threat was real. We routinely checked our brakes before driving. Public security and health ‘experts’ spread lies about us in the media, painting three mothers who simply cared about rights and medical choice as domestic terrorists. The experience destroyed any illusion that New Zealand was a country tolerant of respectful dissent.

Further afield, Dries Van Langenhove, a Belgian political activist and former politician, shared memes on X that a messaging app group deemed offensive. See his plea here after being sentenced to a year in prison, heavily fined plus deprived of civil rights for 10 years, during which he is not able to run for public office or stand in elections. Van Langenhove slammed the ruling as an attack on freedom and humour.

https://x.com/i/status/1921918353754542113

This Friday they may send me to prison for years, so this video is my last chance. They are trying to destroy me, but with your help, we will destroy them.

The way many Western countries have been emboldened to believe they can judge whether your speech is unacceptable and pressurise social media companies to censor content, to stifle or outright ban content critical of the likes of vaccines and mandates, is a dangerous development.

And as MacCulloch winds up his blog:

“Good luck and good night.”

Eliora is a fourth-generation Kiwi is a conservative voter and has worked in health. This article was first published HERE