Dear New Zealand Defence Force,

Today Fairfax reported on the case of Gregory Hussey, a new Zealand man working in Afghanistan who the NZDF demanded delete a tweet in 2012 ("Defence quick to notice tweet", Stuff, 5/8/2013). I would like to request the following information under the OIA:

* How did NZDF learn of Mr Hussey's tweet? (e.g. were you contacted by a concerned member of the public, by another government agency, by a foreign government, or does NZDF monitor twitter?) I would like all documents and reports into the incident.
* More generally: does NZDF monitor twitter and other public forums on the internet (e.g. Trademe, blogs, public Google groups, public bboards)? If so, how, and for what?

I would prefer to receive an electronic response. Queries about this request will be automatically forwarded to me by the fyi.org.nz website.

With regards to s12 of the OIA, I am an NZ citizen and in NZ.

Yours faithfully,

Alex Harris

Dear ministerial services,

Thanks for your response and explanation. If you read my request, you may notice that I asked for "all documents and reports into the incident". Is it really NZDF's position that there was no paper trail of this at all - no emails or communications from the public to the media monitoring unit, or from the media monitoring unit to Afghanistan, no written orders or documents relating to the ban, and no acknowledgement from Afghanistan to NZ that the problem had been dealt with?

Yours sincerely,

Alex Harris