How much does the NSA subsidise the GCSB?

By
Keith Locke
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6
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The Guardian’s revelations yesterday of NSA funding of its British partner, the Government Communications Security Headquarters (GCHQ), raises questions about similar funding of our GCSB.

In 2011/12 The NSA gave the GCHQ $34.7 million.

Is the NSA subsidizing the GCSB either in money or provision of sophisticated equipment? If it is, this might explain the refusal of Prime Ministers Clark and Key to give out any information as to the cost to the taxpayer of the Waihopai spy station. When I was an MP I repeated asked, via parliamentary questions, about the gross annual cost of the spy station. I was refused the information on national security grounds, but it may have actually been “embarrassment” grounds, to cover up the NSA’s subsidy of the spy station.

It is also interesting that in 2009, the NSA gave the GCHQ $4 million for its work in Afghanistan. Has our GCSB been similarly subsidized for helping the NSA in Afghanistan? We know that they have had officers there working alongside American intelligence.

We shouldn’t have to wait for future revelations in the Guardian, this time about New Zealand, to find out answers to these questions.

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6 COMMENTS

  2. Thousands of Britons could have been spied on by GCHQ under a “chilling” link to a secret American operation covertly collecting data from the world’s largest internet companies.

    David Cameron and Theresa May, the Home Secretary, faces cross-party demands to spell out details of links between the electronic eavesdropping centre in Cheltenham and the previously-unknown Prism programme operated by the National Security Agency (NSA). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/prism-scandal-agency-to-reveal-us-links-shortly-after-claims-that-thousands-of-britons-may-have-been-spied-on-by-gchq-8650001.html

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