Garda Ombudsman offices bugged

mbur · 13-06-2014 09:03AM

Phoebas wrote: »

Everybody involved in this, from the minister, to the judge, to GSOC themselves accept that they should have informed the minister, so you'll forgive me if I discount your assertion.

When you're in a hole.... Far easier to apologise that to explain to a dude like Shatter what the public interest was. (as allowed for in the act). Discount away my friend.

GSOC still have not found their leak(s). Cooke, setting himself up as an electronic surveillance expert, is not helping them.

Shady Tady · 13-06-2014 09:17AM

GSOC still haven't dealt with the leak in their office that is confined to one of seven people at a senior level as they say themselves. They call in a UK company at great expense as they are parnoid about info getting out. The company come over and it's in their interest to find "threats". The threat to GSOC is from within its own staff and they know it. They released this info to damage AGS and their credibility is now gone. It's no wonder members of ags do not trust them to be fair in investigations. The government cannot allow GSOC to continue in its present form and a clearout at the top is essential. The fact that one of their own senior people is leaking info shows all is not well within GSOC and that person must have serious concerns! What we need is that person to turn whistleblower!

kell1 · 13-06-2014 09:57AM

Shady Teddy,I totally agree with you,GSOC have absolutely no credibility and relations between them and AGS are now beyond repair.Simon O'Brien who is a former Met Police Officer should accept that he got it wrong.

Thank You

joe swanson · 13-06-2014 11:43AM

i think its clearly obvious heads need to roll in gsoc, starting with o'brien.

And i say that as someone with no axe to grind against any party involved. Gsoc conduct in this appears inexcusable.

happyhappy · 13-06-2014 11:54AM

If any other oversight body in this country had behaved as gsoc have in this case the media would be screaming for heads to roll.

Imagine if ags had incorrectly accused gsoc of bugging them and it be found to be untrue. I guarantee there would be a media frenzy at it.

For some reason it is not popular at the moment for the media, apart from 2 prominent journalists, to state the truth and call for changes in gsoc. Maybe it's because the amount of gsoc staff, including a current and former gsoc commissioner, who were/are journalists.

Where has john mooney from the Sunday times disappeared to? When this story broke he was on tv and radio 24/7, now judge Cooke has rubbished his story he is gone!! Why won't he stand over his story!

Because it never happened!

joe swanson · 13-06-2014 12:04PM

happyhappy wrote: »

If any other oversight body in this country had behaved as gsoc have in this case the media would be screaming for heads to roll.

Imagine if ags had incorrectly accused gsoc of bugging them and it be found to be untrue. I guarantee there would be a media frenzy at it.

For some reason it is not popular at the moment for the media, apart from 2 prominent journalists, to state the truth and call for changes in gsoc. Maybe it's because the amount of gsoc staff, including a current and former gsoc commissioner, who were/are journalists.

Where has john mooney from the Sunday times disappeared to? When this story broke he was on tv and radio 24/7, now judge Cooke has rubbished his story he is gone!! Why won't he stand over his story!

Because it never happened!

Agreed. Relations between gsoc and journalists is too cosy. Indeed the former boss of gsoc was also a former editor of a prominent daily newspaper. Its completely wrong. Where are all the leaks coming from and why are journalists not questioning this and the untenable positions of many senior people in gsoc.

hatrickpatrick · 13-06-2014 12:08PM

Phoebas wrote: »

Everybody involved in this, from the minister, to the judge, to GSOC themselves accept that they should have informed the minister, so you'll forgive me if I discount your assertion.

I'm not commenting on whether they should or shouldn't have told him, merely on whether they had a legal obligation to do so. The act states that the can omit such a briefing if it wouldn't be in the public interest to tell them.

joe swanson · 29-06-2014 03:31PM

http://m.rte.ie/news/touch/2014/0629/627280-gsoc/

In the interests of accountability and transparency, why are more details about this resignation not being released? More need to follow after the Cooke report revelations.

Reformed Character · 29-06-2014 03:55PM

joe swanson wrote: »

http://m.rte.ie/news/touch/2014/0629/627280-gsoc/

In the interests of accountability and transparency, why are more details about this resignation not being released? More need to follow after the Cooke report revelations.

Why?
Cooke leaves more questions than answers and certainly does not reflect negatively on the GSOC board.

hatrickpatrick · 29-06-2014 04:32PM

Reformed Character wrote: »

Why?
Cooke leaves more questions than answers and certainly does not reflect negatively on the GSOC board.

This. The issue here is that people are taking the media and government selective spinning of the Cooke report rather than reading the raw report for themselves. It reads very differently to the narrative presented by the establishment - to be honest, after reading the Cooke report I'm more convinced that something was going on than I was before I read it.

That anyone could dismiss the very clear evidence that Verrimus themselves were subjected to harassment during their visit is laughable. That anyone could claim that this could be somehow ok or justified is also laughable.

Little CuChulainn · 29-06-2014 04:50PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

This. The issue here is that people are taking the media and government selective spinning of the Cooke report rather than reading the raw report for themselves. It reads very differently to the narrative presented by the establishment - to be honest, after reading the Cooke report I'm more convinced that something was going on than I was before I read it.

That anyone could dismiss the very clear evidence that Verrimus themselves were subjected to harassment during their visit is laughable. That anyone could claim that this could be somehow ok or justified is also laughable.

There is zero evidence to support any of their claims of harassment. Most people probably think it strange that a high tech spy company at the top of the industry couldn't even get a photo of any of their many stalkers. The evidence of bugging is pretty circumstantial too. At the end of the day people will see what they want to see. That's why these inquiries are generally pointless. The more likely explanation for the original suspicion is that there was a leak, which is why any resignations should interest people.

tayto lover · 29-06-2014 04:54PM

I suspected all along that there was someone in the GSOC office selling information to the media.
After this latest development I suspect I am right. They have found the mole.

Phoebas · 30-06-2014 10:09PM

joe swanson wrote: »

http://m.rte.ie/news/touch/2014/0629/627280-gsoc/

In the interests of accountability and transparency, why are more details about this resignation not being released? More need to follow after the Cooke report revelations.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/news/gsoc-director-who-led-bugging-inquiry-resigns-30393797.html

It was the GSOC officer who led the Public Interest Investigation prompted by the 'bugging' (that turned out not to be a bugging) who resigned.

I don't know how their investigation into who was leaking from their office is going, or if they're bothered about catching that leaker at all.

dxhound2005 · 10-09-2014 07:10PM

So nobody knows which of the 7 top brass in GSOC was leaking top secret information to the Sunday Times.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/gsoc-unable-to-find-source-of-leak-to-newspaper-1.1924267

And Mooney is not going to say. Time for some other of our ace journalists to get a scoop. That confidential report should be on the market soon, I'd imagine.

hatrickpatrick · 10-09-2014 07:20PM

dxhound2005 wrote: »

So nobody knows which of the 7 top brass in GSOC was leaking top secret information to the Sunday Times.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/gsoc-unable-to-find-source-of-leak-to-newspaper-1.1924267

And Mooney is not going to say. Time for some other of our ace journalists to get a scoop. That confidential report should be on the market soon, I'd imagine.

Nobody ever said that 7 people could have leaked the story, the idea was that 7 people had access to the Verrimus report IIRC.
Given how dramatically some of Mooney's original explanations of the alleged bugging differ from how Verrimus described them as per the Cooke report (a British wi fi IP address as opposed to a British 3G network country code for instance, and the shadow wi-fi network as opposed to the behavior of a wi-fi enabled device) I would suspect that whoever leaked the story did not have access to the original Verrimus report itself and was repeating hearsay from the office. If one of the people with access to the report was leaking the story, why wouldn't they leak it accurately?

tayto lover · 10-09-2014 07:51PM

I'd imagine they know well who the mole is/was but are trying to keep it "in house" to maintain the credibility of the office.
I wonder if anyone left or if a new job has come on the market?
Be nice to know who left ..... suddenly.

dxhound2005 · 10-09-2014 07:59PM

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Nobody ever said that 7 people could have leaked the story, the idea was that 7 people had access to the Verrimus report IIRC.
Given how dramatically some of Mooney's original explanations of the alleged bugging differ from how Verrimus described them as per the Cooke report (a British wi fi IP address as opposed to a British 3G network country code for instance, and the shadow wi-fi network as opposed to the behavior of a wi-fi enabled device) I would suspect that whoever leaked the story did not have access to the original Verrimus report itself and was repeating hearsay from the office. If one of the people with access to the report was leaking the story, why wouldn't they leak it accurately?

I could believe the heresay theory if strange men from Verrimus were wandering around with anti bugging devices. That would tend to generate speculation. But Mooney's story revealed the existence of the top secret confidential report which as we now know was only known to 7 of the top brass. How could someone outside of that 7 be able to tell Mooney about the report.

I wouldn't worry too much about inaccuracies in Mooney's reporting, it's par for the course.

Garda Ombudsman offices bugged

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