The GCSB has become a threat to our civil liberties not its guardian

It’s hard to know where to start with John Key and the GCSB.

The revelation from Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Kitteridge’s GCSB report that this state agency has spied on 88 New Zealanders since 2003 despite specific legislation denying authority to do so is scandalous.

When things go badly wrong as they have here then it’s more likely to be a cock-up than a conspiracy. But not this time.

It’s difficult to see this as anything other than a deliberate, premeditated flouting of the law by an out-of-control and unaccountable state agency.

The GCSB agency wields huge power over New Zealand citizens, over our right to privacy, and over our democratic right to hold opinions different from the state and to express these freely and without fear. All of this is put under threat by a secretive agency operating without proper oversight, without democratic controls and without concern for their huge responsibility to the people of New Zealand. The Kitteridge report reveals a massive breach of trust.

The GCSB has become the Big Brother of George Orwell’s 1984. It has wilfully abused its power and trampled on our democratic rights.

It’s pathetic watching the Prime Minister trying to downplay these abuses of power. He says the law isn’t clear and the spies interpreted it wrongly.

Rubbish. After telling the country repeatedly over several decades that they didn’t spy on New Zealanders we now know they regularly did. They are blatant liars – what more proof do we need that they cannot be trusted?

What John Key knew of all this and when is becoming clearer. In August last year Key revealed the agency had spied on Kim Dotcom and said it was a breach of the GCSB legislation. But at the time he made that admission he also knew the agency had been spying on a large number of New Zealanders because he was told so in July 2012 by GCSB head (and personal friend) Ian Fletcher. Key withheld this crucial information.

Did he tell the public? No. Did he tell parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee? No. So what’s his response? Instead of reigning in this out of control agency he intends to extend its powers.

Just as in similar cases where the police have broken the law with impunity – the illegal surveillance in the Urewera case for example – the government has stepped in to extend their powers. So to with the hapless, hopeless spooks at the GCSB.

Throughout this debacle the Prime Minister has made it clear he has little interest in any form of democratic control over our spy agencies and the spy agencies themselves do nothing to keep politicians informed. They are a law unto themselves.

The GCSB’s main spy station is at Waihopai near Blenheim and its construction was approved in the 1980s by then Prime Minister David Lange who was also minister responsible for intelligence and security.

However in the foreword to Nicky Hagar’s 1996 book about the GCSB, Secret Power, Lange confessed “…it was not until I read this book that I had any idea that we had been committed to an international integrated electronic network.”

Is this anything other than outrageous? The Prime Minister deliberately kept in the dark about the role of this spy agency which was supposedly democratically accountable to the country through him.

It’s important also to look more broadly at the role of the GCSB.

Despite recent revelations this agency is effectively a US spybase on New Zealand soil. Most of its work is to supply intelligence to the US National Security Agency which uses it to extend American influence around the globe.

For example one of the GCSB’s tasks was to spy on the members of the United Nations Security Council in 2003 because the US wanted to pressure these countries into agreeing to a resolution allowing an invasion of Iraq. For the record the email making this request was sent by US intelligence Officer Frank Koza to the US international intelligence network (UK, USA, Australia, Canada and New Zealand) on 31 January 2003. It was leaked by UK intelligence analyst Katharine Gun in a desperate attempt to stop the war.

So while our government was opposed to the Iraq invasion and refused to commit troops, our spies were gathering intelligence to help the US clear the path to war.

New Zealand doesn’t need the GCSB. It’s a threat to this country, a threat to our democracy and locks us into US plans for global dominance. It should be closed.