The view of the world from Assoc Prof Hank Wolfe's 11th floor corner office is beautiful. The one inside his head is somewhat darker.
Beyond the large glass windows, the lofty 180deg panorama encourages big-picture thinking. Here one gets the sense the only worthwhile questions are big questions.
It is a fitting environment for the former United States Central Intelligence Agency employee turned New Zealand university lecturer who regularly addresses international audiences on computer security and forensics.
And within these office walls are the communication tools: tall shelves of books and deep piles of folders to provide answers. Big, potentially disturbing answers.
Next week, Prof Wolfe will be in Singapore speaking about the use of mobile phones as surveillance devices. But right now he is fielding questions about increasing state surveillance and its implications.
There is a lot we know and a lot more we have no clue about, he says.
''The intelligence services are, by their nature, secretive,'' he says.
''Much of it has to be kept secret. And nobody's suggesting it shouldn't be.''
But when you ask for honour or honesty, I'm sorry, when their business is deception you have to suspect what they say.
''It doesn't mean they are bad people, it's just the way it is, that's the way the system works.''
The government here wants changes to the GCSB Act of 2003 and the Telecommunications Interception Capability Act of 2004.
The purpose, Prime Minister John Key says, is simply to ''clarify legislation so it is clear what the GCSB can and cannot do''. But Mr Key has also said the changes are needed to prevent terror attacks like the Boston marathon bombing from occuring in New Zealand.
Opponents of the amendments, including the New Zealand Law Society and telecommunications companies, say the changes would mean a significant expansion of the spy agency's powers and would enable it to spy on New Zealanders.
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Prof Wolfe says the case of Prism whistleblower Edward Snowden provides an excellent illustration of how the intelligence community operates.
''They have a three-pronged attack.
''The first attack is going to be discredit ... You can already see that. They are doing that right now.
''Second, extradite and prosecute, if they can. That shuts him up forever.
''If they can't get anywhere with the first two, the third one I will leave to your imagination.''
Mr Snowden is the subject of this attention because he blew the lid on US Government efforts to hoard information on its own people.
New Zealand's Government may or may not be collecting huge amounts of data on its citizens. But it turns out that the US Government is well down that track and all other governments Prof Wolfe is aware of appear keen to make as much use of surveillance technology as possible.
''So, they can build profiles on anybody, they can drill down.
''They keep it forever. If for some reason in five years from now things have changed and all of a sudden this [certain point of view] is now `wrong', they can go backwards over those five years and find all the people who have made public statements, and maybe not-so-public statements, that disagree with the new agenda. And now they are dissidents.
''It's a hugely powerful thing.''
Prof Wolfe is concerned about what effect the mere knowledge of mass surveillance, let alone the use of it, will have on the public.
When people know they are under surveillance it ''changes everything about them'', he says.''
It alters their speech, it alters their behaviour, it alters their association. It alters their plans. Because they are always frightened that at any one of those levels they will be singled out because they have become one of those people the Government doesn't like.
''So it chills individual thinking. It's a behavioural modification tool that most people don't understand or realise.
''That's what's going on over there. That's what seems to be the norm. That's where governments want to go because they have the power and authority to capture whatever information they want about individual citizens, and from that they can control people.''
Wherever mass surveillance is introduced it is usually ''disguised'' as being for the common good, Prof Wolfe says.
''No matter how oppressive it is, it's always for the good of the nation.
''And part of that good is your safety. We're protecting you from all those bad, nasty terrorists that are out there, who want to sink New Zealand.
''Have we had one here yet? No. Do we have a building tall enough to fly an aeroplane into? No. Are the people in the Middle East p***ed off at us? No. So what are we being protected against?''
He says the argument commonly used to defend mass surveillance - If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear - is designed to intimidate and mislead.
''What it is, is a nonsense. It has no basis in reality. It implies that hiding, privacy, secrecy is illegal, criminal or bad. And it's none of those things.
''And so when they put it in those terms ... your answer is of course I have nothing to hide, I'm not a bad person. So it intimidates individuals into accepting something that is wrong.''
Privacy is not a privilege, but a human right, Prof Wolfe argues.
On December 10, 1948, the United Nations promulgated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New Zealand was among the dozens of original signatory states.
Article 12 of the declaration includes the statement ''No-one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence''.
Our correspondence includes what we do on the internet, Prof Wolfe says.
''It's a declaration that many countries signed up to and supposedly agreed to honour.
''But ... if your personal papers are being surveilled without a warrant or without probable cause - remember a warrant requires probable cause; that's the protection we have for our privacy - if they do it in a blanket way then they have stolen our privacy, they have abrogated it, which I believe is morally and ethically and in every way wrong. That is my opinion.''
Not everyone with insight into the world of surveillance agrees with Prof Wolfe, including his long-term acquaintance Dunedin private investigator and security consultant Wayne Idour.
Mr Idour says most people do not need to worry about surveillance because ''the bulk of the people have nothing to hide''.
Mass data collection by the State does not worry Mr Idour as long as ''it is there for the wellbeing of our citizens'' and those doing the surveillance ''have just cause''.
''I guess you would say it is a necessary evil.
''When you look at what is happening globally with terrorism, you haven't got a country to go to war with, you've just got people who pop up anywhere in the world and do nasty things.''
A law allowing the Government to monitor all citizens does not necessarily mean the Government will use that power, Mr Idour says.
''They just want to do it when the need arises.''
So how concerned should we be?
Prof Wolfe pauses and looks out the wide windows on a cold but seemingly tranquil world.
''I'm concerned, but I don't have any specific knowledge to base it on,'' he says.
''I just feel the world is what it is, and people are collecting a lot more information on us than we realise.
''They will claim it is for your protection, for the good of the nation.
''Prove it. That's my answer to that.
''Or give me the option to opt out. Because I don't want to be protected by them.''
Digging for data
Electronic surveillance in New Zealand: Some figures
• Microsoft says it received 64 law enforcement data requests in New Zealand in 2012. This compares with 2238 requests in Australia, 11,073 in the United States and 326 in Sweden. The 64 requests related to 128 users. Of the 64 requests, content was disclosed for one request, subscriber and transactional non-content data was disclosed for 46 requests, no data was found for 15 requests and data requests were rejected in two cases. Microsoft also received one law enforcement request for Skype user data in New Zealand in 2012.
• Google received 21,389 requests from governments around the world for it to hand over user data in the six months to the end of 2012. Its transparency report lists countries if more than 30 data requests were received during those six months. A Google spokesman told the Otago Daily Times New Zealand has never appeared on the list.
• The Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) 2012 annual report acknowledges there were interception warrants and computer access authorisations in the preceding year but does not quantify them. The last time GCSB annual reports gave figures was in 2003 when it listed two foreign interception warrants and no computer access authorisations in the previous year.
• The Secret Intelligence Service 2012 annual report states that in 2011 it executed 23 domestic interception warrants and an undefined number of foreign interception warrants.
