Last month, the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security reported back on the appalling case of the SIS looking the other way on child abuse. They excused the SIS, in part because of a convenient lack of records, and in part because "it did not perceive the full scale and nature of the crimes of which the offender was later convicted... it did not recognise the full gravity of the situationor the particular crimes being committed". But it turns out that was wrong: the SIS burgled this man's house specifically to obtain evidence of sexual abuse:
The spies who broke into the suburban house in West Auckland had their target under surveillance so they knew he wouldn't be home. They knew how to defeat the locks and where the burglar alarm was.Which raises the obvious question: why were they looking for this, if not to report it to the police? For leverage? But then, that's the very problem complained of: an agency with absolutely no sense of morality.They knew what their spymasters wanted and they delivered it: photographic evidence that the man they were targeting was inflicting horrific sexual abuse on his own daughter.
Meanwhile, the IGIS's characterization of events looks decidedly misleading in light of this. Which raises another question: did the SIS bullshit them, or did they bullshit us? And either way, what is the point of the office, if their reports are just an exercise in deceiving the public to minimise SIS crimes?
