Reaction to claims about spying and mass surveillance on New Zealanders will unsurprisingly fall along political lines unless something more concrete can be found to support or refute those claims.
No matter how excited National Party opponents may be at the prospect of the Prime Minister being caught out over allegations made by prominent whistleblower Edward Snowden and journalist Glenn Greenwald, an electorate still punchdrunk thanks to the Dirty Politics affair will need more than smoke and mirrors.
Mr Snowden claimed this week that New Zealanders' metadata was included in a data harvesting programme used by the US and that there were two NSA bases in New Zealand.
Mr Key says the claims are unsubstantiated, though his explanation that he checked overnight with the head of the GCSB Ian Fletcher and former head of the GCSB Bruce Ferguson and both had told him there were no NSA bases in New Zealand is worrying.
Surely the Prime Minister and SIS Minister shouldn't need to double check such things?