Gravity Computing has taken a strong stand against the controversial GCSB bill. Eric (our managing director) has taken to social media in earnest over the last few weeks; Roger has turned up in person at protests and rallies; and Ross took an evening a couple weeks ago to travel to Auckland with the team to represent our company and our clients against this bill.

Last night Eric and Roger attended an urgent “Stop the GCSB Bill” public meeting at the Auckland Town Hall to show support for the movement. The turnout was nothing short of amazing with over 1600 people attending in person, and a whopping 140,000 viewing the coverage online.

Eric and Seeby Woodhouse posing for a photo outside of the Auckland Town Hall after the recent “Stop the GCSB Bill” meeting (Apologies for photo quality).

A star panel of speakers were assembled, varied in their backgrounds and fields of expertise: two of New Zealand’s most illustrious investigative journalists; internet entrepreneur powerhouses Kim Dotcom and Seeby Woodhouse; legal experts; human rights advocates, and leaders of almost all opposition parties. Each took a different approach to commenting on the bill and the damage it could cause (from silencing ISPs for fear of prosecution, the chilling effects of a surveillance state, to covering up unethical actions of the military, to exposing the information of beneficiaries), and all emphasising the same point:

This bill is bad news for New Zealand and will strike a huge blow for human rights if it is to come into force.

On a more positive note, there were some familiar faces lingering outside the hall afterwards. Eric (@RhyvenNZ) met fellow Twitter user @endarken in person for the first time, with both of them being active anti-GCSB campaigners on Twitter. Eric got a few photos with some of the speakers, and we even chatted with Seeby Woodhouse for quite a while on some technical aspects of the GCSB and TICS bills.

If you would like to watch the meeting in it’s entirety, take a look at the video embedded below.