I’m Australian, so naturally I enjoy making fun of New Zealand. It’s a national pastime. To me, New Zealand is a sleepy backwater where sheep are routinely rogered and the sparse traffic is made up of cars that still sport bench seats and cassette players. Say the words “New Zealand bureaucracy” and I immediately picture wood veneer panelling, a DOS computer, and Murray from Flight of the Conchords pencilling minutes into his ledger. Sweet, boring, slightly retro.

And do I sometimes subtly mock their accent? Well I’m not proud of it but yis. Yis I do.

Hardly the kind of place that comes to mind when you think of places one might have to seek asylum from, but that’s exactly the situation Kiwi activist and citizen journalist Suzie Dawson found herself in. After years of being targeted as a person of interest escalated to an actual assassination attempt, Suzie finally had to move to Berlin where the persecution continued, until she sought asylum in Russia where, thankfully, she is no longer harassed.

She has committed no crimes other than to try and make the world a better place, but apparently that’s the bar now. And it’s all legal. Breaking into your home, installing cameras and tracking your car is par for the course, but so are other more unusual methods of gaslighting, such as leaving loose screws around your house and messing with your underwear. Little things that you can’t exactly go to the police about but creepy enough to let you know that your private spaces are being routinely violated.

Rather than go quietly nuts and let it confuse and scare her into silence, Suzie did exactly the opposite – she went public. She blogged about the weird things that were happening to her and made this epic documentary which summarized her experiences. People who were also being targeted came out of the woodwork and said “Hey, that happened to me too!”

Spying has become big business, and as governments contract out more and more, pretty much anyone can be targeted. And it’s all legal. 1984 is here and Suzie Dawson has been living it, which is why I reached out and asked for an interview. These vile tactics can only work if people of interest are too intimidated to speak out about them publicly and make other victims aware that yes, this is indeed something that the power establishment is doing, and no, they are not going crazy.

We talk about the events leading up to her eventual exile from New Zealand, to Germany, and then seeking asylum in Moscow where she resides now, and the upcoming election in New Zealand where she is heading up the Internet Party. Have a listen.

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