The enormity of the mass surveillance state NZ Government’s have built carries a huge price tag…
Kiwis pay $103m ‘membership fee’ for spying
The $103 million taxpayer funding of New Zealand’s intelligence agencies is effectively a membership fee for joining the Five Eyes surveillance club with the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, according to a de-classified report.The report says the money pays for our spies to do a few “niche” tasks well and to use our international partners to do the rest.
The “Murdoch Report” was written by former diplomat and senior public servant Simon Murdoch in 2009 for the State Services Commissioner and classified secret because of the details contained about New Zealand’s spy agencies.
It was a review of the framework in which the agencies operated, carried out at a time when New Zealand’s intelligence-sharing relationship with the United States was undergoing massive change.
It was released to the Herald under the Official Information Act, requiring it to be declassified from “secret” to be made public.
Mr Murdoch charted the growth in funding for New Zealand’s intelligence community, which includes “human intelligence” specialists at the NZSIS and the electronic eavesdroppers at the GCSB, finding it had doubled in staff numbers and more than tripled in cost to $103m since the September 11 2001 terror attacks in the US.
…so on top of the $103m per year membership fee to play with the other 5 Eyes of Mordor Glee Club, we have doubled staffing and tripled Intelligence agency budgets while creating two secret new branches of the mass surveillance apparatus…
The redactions also pose a puzzle – the glossary has removed acronyms for two organisations listed alphabetically between the NZIC (NZ Intelligence Community) and NZSIS (NZ Security Intelligence Service).
Isn’t there a gross irony in that it is our tax dollars being spent to spy on us?
We have a hundred million to pay for our membership into the mass surveillance club but we won’t spend that same amount on feeding every hungry child in every poor school throughout NZ.
Our children go hungry and child poverty deepens while we spend hundreds of millions on the State’s ability to spy upon us all. If that’s not an obscene political priority, I don’t know what is.
Now pledge allegiance to NZ…
I pledge allegiance to my brand new Prime Minister designed Flag and the Milk Powder Republic for which it pollutes rivers and sells publicly owned assets to subsidise unsustainable irrigation for. One nation under GCSB, indivisible, with selfishness and property speculation for some. In John we trust.
Speechless 🙁
I read most of this report last night, the enormous amount of redacted information is telling. However sometimes it’s what is left out that can be important. As David Fisher noted, there are a couple of redacted agencies listed. It would be interesting to figure out what these are, logic would dictate they start with NZ but beyond that what could they be and why are they so secret they need to be excluded from an OIA request.
Something I noted was that on the Capital Contributions chart for the GCSB on page 23 of the report several labels are redacted. Could these be funding from the NSA? It’s already been established that the NSA contributes funding to the GCHQ in the UK. Why wouldn’t they sling some cash to little ‘ol NZ to prop up their global spy machine?
I think this is the real story hidden in the Murdoch Report.
I bet Canadians are wondering why they bothered to fund their part in 5 eyes. All that spying for no result when it matters. The only ones they ever catch are try hard terrorists that they have led along to the point of committing a crime.
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