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launched by Dotcom and his three co-accused saw a massive uptake. His fortunes and those of the company were directly linked to the suspicion that data and personal information was no longer safe.

The discovery of the spying was a trigger to build encryption into the new business. "Where the government won't protect your rights and even the law won't protect your rights, innovation has to do it. I'm really proud I created something that can beat mass surveillance on a technological level where it doesn't require the protection of politicians or the law. It means you as a citizen can protect your communications."

WORMALD'S ADMISSION in court he was keeping some things secret must have sent the spies into a spin. Who was the mystery organisation involved in the raid? And what was so secretive about the nature of their work that Wormald's testimony became furtive and less than complete? What followed was a bizarre contortion — not unlike that which the GCSB had already gone through to convince itself the spyng was legal.

Dotcom's lawyer Paul Davison wrote to the Crown Law Office, the government's legal advisers, on 15 August 2012 to ask for any information provided by the GCSB to Ofcanz as part of the inquiry into Megaupload. The GCSB, already armed with advice from the Crown Law Office, arranged a document — with Wolfensohn's involvement — which would have the effect of legally burying the GCSB's involvement. This certificate relied on a 63-year-old section of the law which allows the Prime Minister to order the suppression of issues of national security.

With Prime Minister John Key out of the country, it was left to his deputy, Bill English, to sign the certificate. The document says that the revelation of the GCSB's involvement would create a security threat to New Zealand. More precisely, it would likely affect "the future supply of information and intelligence from law enforcement agencies and the intelligence services of foreign states with which New Zealand has long-established partnership arrangements". It turned out to be the only certificate of its sort signed in the past decade — and there wasn't a record to be found of an earlier incidence.

The order had the effect of suppressing knowledge of the GCSB's involvement — and then Davison raised with the court the illegality of the spying. In just a few weeks, and dealing with legislation with which he was unfamiliar, the QC had identified the legal fallacy on which police and the spies had relied for eight months. The discovery rendered the suppression certificate signed by English invalid.

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