Rob O’Neill reports that the hacking of blogger Cameron Slater’s Whale Oil email account, and the exposure of those emails (and other materials apparently not from his email account) in a book and to the media is disrupting national elections in New Zealand:
New Zealand cabinet minister Judith Collins resigned yesterday in what appears to be a direct response to the hacking of a controversial blogger’s email.
The resignation is a blow to the ruling National Party which, while well ahead in the polls, has seen its campign plan torn apart by a series of unexpected and unwelcome disclosures.
[…]
Ironically, the email that forced Collins to resign does not appear to have been part of that cache. It was received some time last week by the Prime Minister’s office from a source the office agreed to keep confidential.
Prime Minister John Key released the email when announcing Collins’ resignation yesterday, attracting one of a flurry of complaints to the Privacy Commissioner following the hacking, Whale Oil complained that in releasing it, Key himself breached New Zealand’s privacy laws.
Read more on ZDNet.