To date, New Zealanders have been mostly apathetic as the government build up it’s ability to spy and store personal information on us. Most of the government’s “targets” have been so-called “terrorists”, immigrants, criminals, student-debt defaulters, and those on welfare benefits or living in state houses.
Two days ago (28 October), FBI Director, James B. Comey, sent a letter to the US Congress disclosing that the Bureau was investigating newly-discovered emails from disgraced former US Congressman, Anthony Weiner.
The NZ Intelligence and Security Bill is the culmination of twenty years of increases in the powers of NZ’s spy agencies. It gives them everything they could hope for. The Bill radically broadens the focus of the SIS and the GCSB so they can run operations on almost anything. It allows them to do literally anything to advance on operation or to cover it up. It allows them to co-opt anybody else into an operation. And it grants immunity from prosecution to everyone involved.
When New Zealand amended the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) Act in 1996, it was the first significant change in almost 20 years. The 20 years since that amendment have seen a constant stream of law changes extending the powers of the country’s spies. The Intelligence and Security Bill currently before Parliament is the latest of these. In this series of three articles, I outline why I think this Bill represents the most disturbing attack to date on the rights and freedoms of New Zealanders.
It could safely be argued that stories of “jihai brides” would scare the bejeezus out of the public, in the process softening opinion to welcome extending the powers of the SIS and GCSB. If so, this would be a cynical ploy by National and our spy agencies to manipulate public opinion to accept the unpalatable; a massive increase in state surveillance and mass-gathering of data on all NZers.