There were no surprises in the release of the report into the legislation governing our spy agencies. Former Labour deputy leader Michael Cullen has provided just what the agencies and the government wanted – a justification for further intrusive spying on New Zealanders and to keep the door open to the US National Security Agency continuing its mass surveillance of all of us.
This was always going to be the outcome and who better to deliver it than a former deputy prime minister of an opposition political party to help allay the surveillance-state fears of a sceptical public.
Cullen and the government are spinning the story to say this will just be a streamlining of the legislation with no overall increase in the spy agency powers.
Key even had a go at rewriting history when he claimed that under the current legislation the GCSB had been acting very cautiously because it had got it wrong in the past, such as when it spied on internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.
The truth is that the GCSB had been telling the country for 15 years that it didn’t spy on New Zealanders, in fact wasn’t allowed to spy on New Zealanders and there were no problems with the legislation from its point of view. It made no requests to the government for any legislative “clarifications” at any time. The “problems” only arose after it was caught out illegally spying on 88 New Zealanders at the time of the Kim Dotcom case and handing over mass surveillance data on New Zealanders to the US National Security legislation. Suddenly the legislation was confusing and the GCSB had been doing its best to keep the country safe – blah, blah, blah.
So the GCSB will now be given the power to legally spy on New Zealanders. The oversight arrangements requiring warrants are simply window dressing to hide the awful truth that the surveillance state is being dramatically extended – not to keep New Zealanders safe but to advance US political, economic and military objectives across the globe through the five-eyes network.
The GCSB has always seen its role as a loyal servant of its US masters and has opposed any “political meddling” by New Zealand politicians. That’s why the GCSB kept the purpose of the Waihopai spybase from the Prime Minister and Minister of Security and Intelligence David Lange who approved the establishment of the base; that why the GCSB was doing its best to help gather information on United Nations Security Council members to pressure them to approve the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and that’s why the GCSB provided information on to the US on New Zealand citizen Daryl Jones before an American drone strike killed him in Yemen in 2013.
Cullen has claimed the changes are needed to help keep New Zealanders safe and gave a particularly ludicrous example of the GCSB possibly being unable to use its powers to track the cell phone location of a New Zealand sailor lost at sea and so could in fact be prevented from helping a New Zealander in trouble under current legislation. Cullen’s fictitious sailor, who would in any case become the responsibility of search and rescue, means a lot more to him that the murder of a real New Zealand citizen by the US aided by our own GCSB.
The greatest terrorist threat to New Zealand comes from our membership of the five-eyes alliance and close association with the murder and mayhem of US foreign policy.
Keeping New Zealand and New Zealanders safe is best done by the police under strong democratic oversight through parliament. We should abolish the SIS and GCSB – they contribute only to make New Zealand a target for terrorism.
As well as being remembered for increasing the terror threat to New Zealand Cullen should be also remembered as our Minister of Finance who, after a decade of strong economic growth and huge government surpluses, left 175,000 of our most vulnerable children living in poverty.
It’s ok, this is just a part of the TPPA ratification’s process!
“The “problems” only arose after it was caught out illegally spying on 88 New Zealanders at the time of the Kim Dotcom case and handing over mass surveillance data on New Zealanders to the US National Security legislation. Suddenly the legislation was confusing and the GCSB had been doing its best to keep the country safe – blah, blah, blah.”
Yes, it always astonishes me, why our MSM, that is the vast majority of them, that still call themselves “journalists”, seem to forget this important bit of truth.
It gets swiftly swept aside and forgotten, that they were illegally observing and spying on over 80 New Zealanders in the past. Only due to the Hollywood style Dotcom Mansion raid and the fallout from that, and thanks to Dotcom’s top lawyers, did we learn about what was going on.
While I am realistic about the world and that there is a need for security services, I am very uneasy with the arrangement New Zealand has as part of the Five Eyes Network, which is of course dominated by the US, and to some degree by the Brits.
They set the tone and the agenda, little GCSB and SIS mercenaries here are dreaming of James Bond careers and try to grease up to their foreign colleagues, thus delivering very willingly what the US may deem of interest. And much of what goes on here, on the web, and via mobile phones, is likely to end up as stored metadata, stored for eternity, at some huge warehouse in Utah, USA.
If we had a more independent, truly supervised security service, not the setup we have now, I could perhaps give them a little trust, but not with what we have been getting, what the drunken sailor with a mobile phone citing Mr Cullen proposes. He is just part of the Old Boys Network now, so many, if not all, seem to become part of that unofficial network, which really controls the affairs of this country, in loyal cooperation with big business and their lobbyists.
Michael Cullen is happy to work with the Key government, it seems, and yes, as a former Deputy PM from Labour, he is the perfect excuse to go further with search and surveillance, as Key and co dream of doing.
The ISIS fighter is under your beds, New Zealanders, have you not realised it yet, they try to make us believe. While ISIS and some other groups are a real threat, they are whipped up by MSM and the government, as evil minded sensation, nothing else.
The real threat they fear is the people waking up, standing up, opposing the big business and big finance agendas, people like activists, unionists and determined opposition parties, who do not fall for the brainwashing we get day in and out.
So far they have got their way, we must not allow them to get more of this, we must reveal what this is really about!
Thanks for a good post, John Minto!
Yes They are just pushing through any spying opportunities prior to the election so they can get advantage like a dictatorship would do.
National are the new dictators and will do anything to cling to power.
We must make this an election opportunity to promise to curtail any wide sweep law changes these dictators have placed over us all of surveillance powers at the election John,
It is my opinion that SIS and GCSB should amalgamate with the defence force, the skills we’ve accumulated take decades to build up to standard operating procedures.
We saw LAVS (NZ Army Light Armoured Vehicals) deployed to the Kawarua and Nelson armed stand offs, also being able to respond to cyber and space threats is a ligitimate capability, coupled with the militaries existing rules of engagement for loaning military assets to the police, well it’s as transparent as it is possible to get.
What particular skills have the Defense got that would be of help to preventing terrorism in NZ?
Quick example: Military vehicles can over come obstacles that the police are neither equiped with or funded to use, overcoming obsticles sush as flood areas, reinforced barricades, helicopter insertions onto buildings, ships and mountainous terrain.
When you put multi million dollar equipment in situations where it can be damaged. It’s nice to have the communications and censors for commanders to have superior information over your adversary. Especially if your aim is to prevent loss of life.
Thank you, John, for keeping this up front and centre.
Where is the Nat Government getting the money from for all their snooping and swooping? Every time jonkey’s crew puts in a new system there’s a problem resulting in chaos and more country debt. And it’s not as if jonkey has responsibility for a HUGE country with a HUGE population.
People of the world are moving away from believing the rhetoric regarding terrorism and there is enough reliable research to say that terrorism is created (in caps and underlined) by those with vested interests. Who doesn’t know, for example, that ISIS is a creation of the US Black Ops and is controlled, weaponised and financed through the CIA. Other major terrorist events have all been researched and the dots connected. Even those involved in major child trafficking and pedophilia have been identified and are slowly being removed, sometimes quickly removed. Banking is being cleaned up BIG TIME with over 1,000 bankers removed from various branches of the HSBC, the major drug money launderer. In fact, all the main banks are being spring cleaned.
Now we need to spring clean at home and New Zealanders need to look after each other and just laugh at the shenanigans of this lamentable government still tied to the apron strings of a small bunch of sick and dying bunch of bullies whose mantra is: Be afraid, be very afraid. Yeah, right, whatever.
Here’s one avenue to learn what’s happening in one area of the real world:
http://www.landachinaglobal.com/conferences.php
I like David Icke’s summation of terrorising governments:
https://www.davidicke.com/news-by-david/all-this-surveillance-to-stop-terrorism
It’s a reflection of Key’s paranoia, and his US corporate/tea party thought processes?
While in broad terms I support abolishment of the GCSB and SIS, I would actually like to replace them with an agency that does something a little similar. We should totally be spying on oppressive regimes, defending our electronic infrastructure, and hacking in to get information. But we should then make said information publicly available. This agency should also spy on the rich and powerful in New Zealand, and disclose data that proves legal wrongdoing. (and destroy all other data to respect their privacy)
Basically, I think we should have a government equivalent of Wikileaks.
Excellent Post @ John Minto.
I have another theory as to why the NZ spy paranoia thing.
The Mega Star players are here. In NZ as I write.The Uber Riche. Those few who control the earths economies and play them like cheap fiddles. Those who start wars them supply the waring factions with expensive guns, bullets, bombs and sundry technologies. The invisible super-power players who play the players are here.
This is my fear.
When the last one arrives and the doors are bolted? You will see an Armageddon the likes of which human history has never seen before and billions will perish.
Ahhh. I love Sundays.
JK following the USA around like a little puppy dog is sure to get NZ in the shit with radicals worldwide?
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