Dear Editor, Excellent reporting by 1News over the weekend and coverage by your paper (yesterday) on spy type crypto bill the CIP government is trying to pass in Parliament.

Some disturbing revelations have come out of the reporting so far.

Drumcliffe, the US company behind the Bill, part owns the mining company doing exploration in the Cook Islands. Is our country now at the behest of the mining company and its equity owners?
Why was our own Crown Law office kept out of this Bill? It’s understood Tim Arnold and Karen Harvey of local firm Brown Harvey & Associates were Drumcliffe lawyers who drafted the Bill. If Crown Law had no involvement, who has been advising government on the Bill? Surely it can’t be the Drumcliffe lawyers as that is a huge and clear conflict of interest. And surely the government is not that dumb that it can’t see that.

The 1News reporting said Drumcliffe didn’t want to be named as that could put lives at risk because of security issues. Isn’t anyone else disturbed about this? Whose lives are at risk? Drumcliffe people? Cook Islanders through the link to Drumcliffe? What on earth are we as a country getting ourselves into?

There needs to be full transparency from government on what this whole arrangement with Drumcliffe is about.

A concerned and disturbed Cook Islander

(Name and address supplied)