Latest secret TPPA leak reveals mass surveillance plans

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world TPPA

When the GCSB debate was in full flight I warned that a seemingly innocuous e-commerce chapter in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) could become a stalking horse for the NSA to get its hands on our personal data, as well as sweeping away privacy protections and controls on internet commerce.

The leak of a US proposal for the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) this week confirms the US game plan. (Reminder: TISA is one of the three mega-agreements being negotiated in secret to set new rules for global governance in the guise of ‘trade’.)

The US wants New Zealand and other countries to guarantee that firms which hold personal information and Internet moguls like Google can move data in and out of the country, and process and store it anywhere in the world.

Our information would become concentrated in countries that have weak privacy and consumer protection laws, and strong intrusions on personal data in the name of national security.

The public rationale is commercial, driven by the US on behalf of the global tech industry. In November 2014 the European lobby DigitalEurope, which includes Google and Intel, urged the new European Union Trade Commissioner to use TISA and negotiations for the US-EU agreement TTIP to knock down protectionist rules’, including restrictions on moving data across borders and rules requiring domestic data centers or data hosting.

The privacy concerns are obvious. But the US isn’t just silent on privacy. It strips down the (already weak) general exception in these kinds of treaties to the point of being meaningless – and then says it doesn’t apply to the movement of data. There is nothing to suggest any other privacy protection in the rest of the TISA.

Privacy is not the only concern. The Snowden disclosures show how digitised data makes spying so easy, especially for the US with its web of formal and covert allies. Mega-firms like Google and Facebook have been distressingly cooperative.

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The US proposal would mean that data could be consolidated within the US or any other sycophant. In other words, it would lock in the ability of the US to spy on New Zealanders and people in many other countries.

Imagine the electronic collection, processing, storage of the kind of data held by Novopay, ACC records, credit information, KiwiSaver accounts, WINZ and police records, and private prison data is contracted to an offshore firm. Your information could end up being held anywhere in the world and the government would have virtually no way to prevent that. The only saving grace is that the firms are not explicitly allowed to on-sell the information.

To top it off, the only exception the US suggests would allow a government to ‘take any action which it deems necessary for the protection of its own essential security interests’. Great! The US and its allies can override the free movement of data and require it to be stored locally for their own national security reasons – which means the only basis on which a New Zealand government could protect our data from such abuse would be in the name of our ‘essential security interests’. Given the current geopolitics and the New Zealand government’s gutless sycophancy, hell would freeze over first.

A second rule would stop the government from requiring a company that provides a service from outside the country to have a legal presence or person based inside New Zealand. There are many reasons why the government may want to insist on a local presence.

Spending and profits go out of the country, when we really need reinvestment in local business. We are already bleeding tax revenue from the way the Internet firms and e-retailers manipulate their accounts and are exempt from GST. Local businesses increasingly can’t compete, which means job losses and the erosion of face-to-face contact between customers and firms in local communities.

The more we rely on anonymous offshore providers, the less control we have over quality standards, consumer protection, and the ability to take effective legal action.

Successive governments haven’t moved to confront these realities. The US proposal would have shut the door by the time they do so.

The US making the same proposals in all three of the mega deals – the TPPA, TISA and TTIP – what one US champion describes as ‘alternative “play-by-the-rules” clubs of like-minded countries.

In September 2014 US negotiator Christine Bliss said they had made similar ‘e-commerce’ demands in the TPPA. Both New Zealand and Australia have objected to the potential impact on privacy. Secrecy of the TPPA text makes it impossible to know who won. But it is obvious that New Zealand risks being caught through one agreement or another, unless we stop them.

You can see the leaked TISA text and an analysis by Burcu Kilic from Public Citizen and myself here.

45 COMMENTS

  1. And hence we see the more base level outworkings of the words of George Bush senior…”No one will stand in the way of our New World Order”….”Our thousand points of light” ( symbolic code for Masonic One World Government ).

    He said this during the first invasion of Iraq. We now see the overall plan to neutralize all and any opposition in a physical sense.Through brute force.

    Digitally,…we see it in methods to monopolize and through so called ‘ law’…such as the above article.

    THIS ….is what John xKEYscore meant by ” We are on the cusp of an exciting future” .

    He knows full well what is in store for this country. He has lied and covered up his evil game plan for a long time.

    But now we see it in all its hideous detail.

    Kim Dotcom was right and is vindicated. As are Snowden , Assange, Amsterdam , and Greenwald.

    THESE were the people who tried to warn us. THESE were the people who were smeared. THESE were the people who were vilified by the evil of this so called ‘ prime minister’ who once collaborated in gutting the NZ dollar….and had the gall to then be promoted through even more guile to ‘ prime minister’.

    He is no ‘ prime minister’. He is a fraud.

    And as we are presided over by this horrific individual…let us just remember just who he really is , what he REALLY stands for, and oppose him to his political demise.

    • Excellent stuff @ Wild Kaitpo . Lets meet up with our friends and drag the bastard out of ‘our’ office . He has no right to be there .

    • Tena ra tatou katoa.

      I feel privileged to be on a thread (post created and hosted by supporters of democracy) among

      DRAMATIS PERSONAE –

      Wild Katipo, Countryboy and Frank Macskasy, collectively known for experienced, literate/poetic and penetrating analysis.

      Of whatever form of the increasingly transparent corporate world rulership plot. Against the grey eminence of the Liar In Chief and his Deputy Liars.

      Featuring also Gosman, a prominent party apologist among those paid to come here and remind us, both what democracy is against and what it is for. We must have free expression, so we can learn to recognise the free expression of bollocks when it occurs.

      This thread among many I have recently viewed, provides a particularly elegant illustration of the plot of the play and some of the leading actors in the local production.

      We have real problems to face, and will have for some time.

      And characters to portray them, worthy of any Tolkienan drama.

      THE PLOT

      The Chief Liar and his Deputy Liars, shadows of the humans they once were, seek the One Ring, The Purge Privacy Amulet, to give to the Masters of the Empire, who will then reward them for the completeness of their betrayal of the public duties entrusted to them, back when they were still human.

      The groups resisting them are tiny and poorly resourced. Everyone else is in a hypnotic sleep maintained by the Maintain Sleepy Masses programme.

      Coming to a venue near you. You will all be part of the performance – there is no audience.

      • Bye Bye the NZ free sky, America has stolen it and it will die—

        Drove my Chevy to the levy and democracy had died.

  2. Have you any experience with IT and data storage Professor Kelsey because from your comments it suggests you are not as fully informed on this matter as you should be if you are commenting on it.

    A couple of points for you to consider in this area.

    Personal data on New Zealanders is already stored on US servers if applications (e.g. Facebook) or Search engines (e.g. Google) are used by New Zealanders and people use personal information via them. This can only happen though if the application is accessed via the Internet.

    Information stored on applications based in NZ for organiastions such as banks and Government departments are stored on systems that are generally isolated from the Internet and can only be accessed via secured and encrypted means within the country. Certainly Police details would never be sent in any form that could be stored outside the country.

      • Except I work in I.T. Frank. And in fact work in the very areas Professor Kelsey is mentioning here. I am well aware of how data security works. It certainly doesn’t work in the ways that Professor Kelsey suggests that it does.

      • So Gosman is naive is he?
        Lets examine what he said and see where he could be accused of being naive.
        First he questions Jane’s experience with IT and data storage. Is he naive in doing so? Is it common knowledge that Jane is an expert in these areas? Her biography says she is an expert in globalisation, structural adjustment and de-colonisation. No mention of IT and data storage. A valid question I would have thought.
        He then states that personal information collected through the likes of Facebook and Google are already stored in the US. I would have thought that was common knowledge, but I am open to being in formed otherwise if I, like Gosman, naively believe this to be the case.
        Next he suggests that such information can only be accessed via the internet. Again, if there is another way of accessing internet applications other than via the internet, I will happily stand corrected.
        And then he suggests that information stored in NZ for banks and Government organisations are generally isolated from the internet and only accessible via secured and encrypted means. A naive suggestion? More likely an accurate, albeit, brief generalisation. Hardly a badge of naivety.
        And finally the suggestion that Police details would never be sent in a form that could be stored outside the country. The one statement that may not be 100% accurate, but to suggest jaw dropping naivety is taking things a little bit too far.
        Unless you are a conspiracy theorist.

    • Have you any experience with IT and data storage GOSMAN because from your comments it suggests you are not as fully informed on this matter as you should be if you are commenting on it.

      • Only 17 years experience in I.T. including projects dealing with putting potentially sensitive data on to cloud based applications.

        What’s your background in this area then?

        • Gosman, you may have “17 years experience in I.T. “, but I think your experience with mass surveillance issues is sorely lacking. Just because you know how to flick a switch and write code doesn’t make you very knowledgeable in how the internet is being suborned for mass surveillance.

          I repeat, your naivety is jaw-dropping.

          I suggest you go educate yourself a bit before looking like a fool on this issue. Oh, and your ‘cheerleading team’ isn’t helping much either.

      • Murray, rather than regail us with an “everything you say is rubbish” type comment, perhaps you could identify which of Gosman’s statements are not correct?

        • @SGTHREE –

          I don’t recognise your nom de plume, you may be new here…

          Comments by Gosman go back many months on The Daily Blog and The Standard.They are always moderate and civil, and almost always attempt to confuse issues or derail debate. One might reasonably conclude that this is his real job, as well as to discredit those he succeeds in provoking into open annoyance.

          Should you decide to analyse the ample archived material available, you may gain a better appreciation of and perhaps some sympathy for the widespread exasperation (of which you see just a few examples here) at Gosman’s well known chronic misrepresentation. Gosman does his job well, and it is not in the interest of truth.

    • You are right that i am not an IT expert, but the memo was co-written by someone who is. It would be very good if this proposal can prompt more discussion among that community in NZ.

      I am aware that what you describe about the location of data is the current NZ situation. The problem with the US proposal is that we will not be able to require that there is a local presence in NZ of entities conducting cross border e-transactions or that the personal data that entities hold is held in NZ, as concerns about their use and abuse offshore increase and as data previously held in house by governments is contracted to private, foreign controlled entities.

      The EU, for example, has a short list of countries whose domestic regime is considered strong enough for it to permit the data to be held there. The most likely reading of the US proposal would not permit them to continue that or NZ to adopt such an approach. Likewise, the ability of the government to restrict the transfer and storage of sensitive data to NZ, subject to whatever encryption and other protections, would go, with no protections aside from ‘essential security interests’.

    • Gosman;

      Government departments are stored on systems that are generally isolated from the Internet and can only be accessed via secured and encrypted means within the country

      What, you mean like this, Gosman;

      Security experts will examine how the Work and Income computer system was hacked, allowing the secret details of some of the most vulnerable New Zealanders to be exposed.

      The officials meant to safeguard them cannot yet say how many people have unlocked the information.

      The privacy blunder also raises doubts when the Government is setting up a database on children at risk of abuse.

      Source: http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/security-experts-probe-winz-computer-hacking-5129824

      As for your naive faith in the government;

      Certainly Police details would never be sent in any form that could be stored outside the country.

      – National seems to have had other ideas;

      Privacy Commissioner Marie Shroff has highlighted risks around “cloud computing” just days after the Government announced it would push ahead with a “cloud computing strategy” to improve services and cut costs.

      The strategy may see personal information about New Zealanders gathered by the Government held in storage by private sector companies, in some cases overseas, where it may be examined by foreign governments.

      […]

      Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak recently warned there would be “a lot of horrible problems” over coming years as a result of businesses and agencies placing their data on the cloud.

      “The more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we’re going to have control over it.”

      Source: Shroff wary of Govt data in ‘cloud’, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/politics/news/article.cfm?c_id=280&objectid=10831318

      Note Steve Wozniak’s comments? I trust his IT creds meet your personal standards, Gosman?

      • Yes Frank. There are major concerns about Cloud computing solutions in terms of data security especially in relation to the US Patriot Act. I have been dealing with these issues for three or four years now. However no major Government department has plans or will likely utilise Cloud computing solutions for their core application data. There may be subsidiary applications that are put on the Cloud but privacy concerns make this incredibly problematic. Nothing in regard to the TPPA affects this.

        • There are major concerns about Cloud computing solutions in terms of data security especially in relation to the US Patriot Act. I have been dealing with these issues for three or four years now.

          Three or four years…

          Gosman “has been dealing with these issues”…

          Oh, I’m reasured by your comments, Gosman. I shall sleep well tonight. (Note: sarcasm)

          • What was your point here Frank other than to be a smartarse?

            I’m not dealing with them for you. I have to work with the implications of them for the places I work at. For example I worked at a bank that was looking to use a cloud based solution for marketing purposes. To do this some data had to be sent outside the bank. What we could send was heavily restricted.

    • You miss the point. The intent and wording of these laws is to force the removal of any legal impediment to off-shoring sensitive personal information. Technical issues such as you raise here are irrelevant, and would not prevent sending any form of information off shore.

  3. This is really scary stuff. I read through Prof Kelsey’s analysis on the link provided – wish I understood it all, but I don’t.

    Based on the parts that i did understand, her excellent and detailed joint analysis with Burcu Kilic left me with the impression that the only sensible thing a country that values its independence and sovereignty can do, is walk away from all three “agreements” as fast as possible.

    Three points that particularly alarm and appall me . . . . (Quotes from above link):

    1. “. . .it affects all services ranging from electronic transactions and data flow, to veterinary and architecture services.”

    . . . in other words it will eventually turn out to be the case that it affects practically all NZ commerce – electronic or otherwise.

    2. ” . . the text is designed to be difficult to repeal and is to be considered confidential for 5 years after being signed.”
    Further down in the article we see why it is proposed that it remain confidential for five years . . . this ensures that the current negotiators (in our case, Key, Grocer and their supporters) can not be held liable within their own country for selling their country down the loo (some of the negotiating countries have 5 year parliamentary terms).

    3. The proposals aim to ” . . prevent or restrict government regulation that impedes the activities and profits of the major global services industries, . . . which impacts on consumer protections, privacy laws, regulatory constraints and competition policy.”

    Well that say’s it all . . . bye bye NZ independence if we sign up to any of this (Bilderberg-inspired?) American imperialist crap thinly disguised as “free trade”.

    I implore anyone and everyone who cares about this country to pay close attention to Professor Kelsey’s excellent and scholarly postings on these matters.

  4. Fantastic work Prof Jane Kelsey . Thank you . It must take up a lot of your time , to help keep us up to speed .

    Don’t worry about @ Gasman . For every intellectual with a good heart and a sound mind there has to be an equal and opposing opposite . It’s the way of basic physics .

  5. One last thing here …

    It’s my view that we’re deeply embroiled in a war . We’re being carpet bombed by debt , brainwashed by the Corporate lap dogs that are the MSM and we’re being traitorously sold out by our very own politicians .

    There fore we must fight back . We must rid ourselves of the scourge that is foreign banks and jonky- esque money fetishists .

    Sounds preposterous I know . A bit like Auckland house prices . A bit like 250 k Kiwi kids in poverty . A bit like our government being held over a barrel by a fat , ugly slug like slater .

  6. This is yet another aspect of these agreements which would undermine New Zealand’s sovereignty to make law for itself in it’s own interests. It seems clear that even if this is not the intended purpose, it is a consequence of such agreements. Their proponents would argue that this allows for trade which is free from barriers, it’s opponents realise that some things aren’t worth trading. They include self-determination and privacy.

    Keep fighting the good fight Professor.

    • An overwhelming victory for the Noes.

      That the above poll comes from the files of the normally conservative (right wing) NZ Herald is even more remarkable.

      If accurate it shows that we have a government that only acts on the interests of the less than 1%

  7. The T.P.P.A. is one of the most dangerous things to ever affect New Zealand sovereignty.

    Despite what Labour says, there are only two parties in Parliament which seriously oppose the T.P.P.A.: the Greens and New Zealand First.

    National sovereignty should not be for sale to the highest bidder. In fact it should not be for sale at all. I find it ironic in that sense, that the Americans who talk all about freedom and independence are backing one of the anti-freedom and independence things ever conceived.

    • “National sovereignty should not be for sale to the highest bidder. In fact it should not be for sale at all.”

      The problem is that in NZ there are two kinds of sovereignty: political sovereignty, which is used by the state to argue that parliament makes law, and authentic sovereignty, which is about the qualities of competent leadership. Political sovereignty and authentic sovereignty are opposites in the sense of accountability – a true sovereign is not accountable, but the NZ state defines its sovereignty in terms of accountability.

  8. At its core what the TPPA represents is a profound betrayal of the interests and wishes of the New Zealand people.

    To highlight the fact that this is a betrayal. What I would like to see at all future rallys against the TPPA a sea of New Zealand flags. (Both the Flag of the Dominion and the Tino Rangatiratanga Flag)

    As well as uniting the huge majority of New Zealanders of all political persuasions that are provenly opposed to this sell out. This huge display of our National symbol would confound the traitors seeking to sell us out. (particullarly as they are proposing their own flag)

    For all its quirky failings, the current New Zealand flag came into vogue with the collapse of the British Empire and to some extent represents that hard gained independence.

    “With humanbeings perception is everything”

    Symbolism is important

    To appease our new foreign trading partners, and to symbolise the loss of this hard gained sovreignty represented by the TPPA, the government want to change the flag.

    Before I visited the Middle East I had no appreciation of flags at all.
    They left me rather Ho hum.
    But to see the police and the army ordered to attack the protesters in Tahrir Square confounded by the fact that the protesters were all flying the Egyptian National flag, this caused a reevaluation by the police and the soldiers. “Who are the traitors? Who are those with the best interests of the nation and the Egyption people at heart?” As a result the army and to some extent the police as well were paralysed to act against the protesters. And the real traitors of the Egyptian people became revealed as the government of Hosni Mubarak.

    As well as flying the New Zealand Flag we need to publicy burn John Key’s favoured corporate flag at every anti-TPPA rally.

    (And maybe some to those fruit salad ones as well)

  9. Whether we sign or don’t sign these agreements the outcome(s) will be the same – data will be moved elsewhere for ‘processing’ – indeed it probably already is.

    We can snort away in self righteous indignation about our freedoms and our laws which protect us. We can blame Key and our Government … da da da … do they really have a choice? We still want our products purchased overseas and the revenue they return, we want our sanctimonious warm fuzzies and our tree hugging ethnic hat wearing do gooders all piously chanting away.

    As for the Google’s of the world – here’s what happens when you go against the Empire.

    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/11/yahoo-nsa-lawsuit-documents-fine-user-data-refusal

    Get over it and comply children.

    • Hey ‘child’ your ignorance is breathtaking. Our health, social science and law enforcement information is not stored overseas and in fact cannot be without explicit exception which is hard to obtain.

      Yes, Key and Labour do have a choice. They can simply refuse to sign and pull out. Not much will really happen because the TPP is likely to collapse anyway.

      You can throw up your hands and give up, or get off your fat arse and do something. I prefer the latter.

  10. Wonderful Jane Kelsey, we are blessed to have her in our camp.

    Great posts from all of you Wild katipo to Country boy Murray and Frank for the side swipe to that caustic Gooseman.

    This makes us now reflect back to how we fought for our Sovereignty
    against this same so called “friend” the USA.

    Yes we battled to stand up to US expansion of war when Vietnam and their Nuclear weapons were being forced onto our shores.

    We actually isolated US as we stood up of the Nuclear weapons expansion, because Nuclear become such a scourge that there were nuclear agreements limiting them for some time till now right.

    Now the US is using a more insidious weapon, the stripping of our Sovereignty now as they take over the country by TPPA.

    We must all fight this invasion of our Country by a foreign Government that still calls us Kiwis :aliens” when we arrive as visitors to their shores.

    We should call them similarly aliens also right?

    Go home Yankee we don’t need your wars anymore.

  11. Mine is 30 years experience Goz, and you’re quite obviously one of the fukwits that slips around various projects making fuckups whereever they go – i.e. hopping along from one ballsup to the nexr/
    Fundamentally, it sems to me that your of the ilk that contests technology should drive humans, rather than the other way round. I suspect you’re one of an IT salesman’s best friends.
    Can you name me a project or two you’ve worked on that you’d regard as a ‘success story’ (going forwid – to coin a phrase, so to speak, as a matter of fek, ekshully).
    I suspect you’d be one of the ‘Dangerous Enthusiats’ and I sure as hell hope you never get let loose near an IRD projek, or a hereth systum
    Unnecessary swearing deleted. – ScarletMod

    • Your are right Once was Tim. Gosman is one of these self proclaimed Experts , X is an unknown quantity and spert is a drip under pressure.

      Being “in IT ” dosnt make Gossman an expert,it makes him a “always correct” type and very boring .

  12. Your thoughts are compromising
    Self centered , patronizing
    Your image supersedes your soul
    You find me mystifying
    Subhuman , so annoying
    You cant have me under control
    You think you live forever
    You don’t find that profound
    You wont think your so clever…..

    When you hear thunder underground -all right now !

    Your morbid fear of losing
    Destroys the lives your using
    You only have one point of view
    The stigma of delusion
    Confirms your self illusion
    And after all this could be you.

    When you hear thunder underground , – here we go now !
    Could it be that I have found my mind or have I gone insane?
    Roller coaster of the madness and there’s only me to blame
    The ever faithful hand of doom will take the pain away
    I’ll never know the answer to it all til my dying day !

    Your bullshit culture licking
    Cant stop the deathwatch ticking
    Your only mortal after all
    Your appetite for power
    Subverts your every hour
    But every time the mighty fall.

    ‘Thunder Underground ‘ .

    Ozzie Osbourne .

    Pretty damn relevant .Take heed Globalists,…your only mortal – just like us.

  13. This has very serious implications and must be stopped.

    I can easily see our current government (and probably Labour) using the cheapest offshore bidder to provide government services e.g. health services. Your highly sensitive health information will then being stored and managed in a country by a company with different data standards to NZ as costs are cut all the way (security is often the first to go). All of a sudden surprise surprise also the NSA has all your health information. Great now not only the NSA but the Nigerian or Russian scammers and everyone else can gain access to it!

    Likewise imagine Police or Justice system information could be off shored in a similar manner and then be available to the NSA and scammers.

    Under this rule anybody can have access to our medical and judicial information outside of NZ against an individuals will, (and in a location where a small bribe could disclose or change anything).

    But this goes further. Also imagine what could happen if anybody changes this information, either through incompetence or malice. Good luck getting this rectified – we already have huge problems getting basic services through call centers in the Phillipines, India etc or even in our own country.

    But even worse is the potential to play dirty politics with this information – it’s inevitable, just look what the SIS got up to playing politics with information to discredit Phil Goff.

    Imagine what individuals, governments, corporations and the NSA could do to anyone they see as a threat to their empire building. All done conveniently off shore with less transparency and accountability.

    This is Globalism and off shoring magnified to horrific levels.

  14. The TPP and its sister the Trans Atlantic trade treaty are the desperate actions of Corporate America to retain its hegemonic control of the world. I feel an inevitability about the movement to the Eurasian bloc. That is China Russia, the other Bric countries and South East Asian countries. The Ukrainian crisis ,fomented by the USA, is an attempt to prevent a closer alignment of Europe with this bloc. No doubt the bankers and 1% in Europe are doing their best to assist the USA. Unfortunately the debt ridden corrupt west can no longer create wealth in the way China can or energy the way Russia can. They are reduced to military power projection and that has not gone so well for them. A sensible NZ government would delay joining the TPP until we can clearly see how the land lies. I think we should throw our lot in with Asia but I can see what a difficulty it creates for a Five eyes network member who has so far shamelessly cast our lot in with the lying, torturing, drone killing,coup producing,terrorist supporting, foreign nation invading, mass surveilling , money printing,morally and financially bankrupt and fascist nation the United States of America.

  15. No sane person supports TPPA or any of these other top secret agreements. In this age of hackers being able to access pretty much anything it seems incredible that sensitive data such as health records could even be considered as cloud storable.

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