Thiel info wrongly withheld
a little-used “exceptional circumstances” clause of the Citizenship Act, citing Thiel’s philanthropy and venture-capital investments here.
An Official Information Act request by the Herald into the handling of the botched redaction revealed emails showing lawyers acting for Thiel were behind the blacking-out of the short time he lived in the country.
The level of redactions received in documents by the Herald — including the entirety of correspondence from Thiel’s lawyers at Bell Gully — has resulted in another complaint to the Ombudsman.
Labour’s immigration spokesman, MP Iain LeesGalloway, said the redactions at Thiel’s behest — later found by the Ombudsman to be outweighed by public interest — were concerning: “We have a Government prepared to put the interest of a wealthy individual ahead of the public interest. It also continues to demonstrate that Mr Thiel has not made good on his promise to loudly . . . tell the world about his NZ citizenship — he tried to cover up every detail.”
A spokesman for Internal Affairs said: “As part of the assessment process, we consulted with Mr Thiel through his representatives, considered his views, and sought to balance personal privacy with public interest considerations.”
Current Minister for In- ternal Affairs Peter Dunne said while he agreed with the Ombudsman’s decision in the Thiel case, he was “satisfied generally” with the way his department handled requests for official information.
The Ombudsman’s full ruling concluded there was a “very strong public interest in the public knowing that the Minister’s broad discretion ... was exercised in a fair and reasonable way, on a proper basis, and without inappropriate factors or considerations being taken into account. In Mr Thiel’s case, there has been and continued to be, some public disquiet that the Minister granted him citizenship in circumstances where his connection to New Zealand was not publicly known, and even in hindsight, was not obvious”.
Appeals to Thiel’s privacy were largely dismissed by the Ombudsman, who also consulted Privacy Commissioner John Edwards, who said in the report: “Mr Thiel should have been aware that obtaining citizenship in such circumstances would attract public attention.”
The case has attracted considerable attention, with Official Information Act requests for the citizenship file received from every national news organisation in New Zealand, while the New York Times, Forbes, NBC and CNN also made contact with Internal Affairs.
Representatives of Thiel again failed to respond to questions from the Herald.