Terror Bill Urgent!

The Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill is getting rushed through the NZ Parliament with the plan for it to be law before the House adjourns for summer.

The Bill was introduced in Parliament on Tuesday 24^th November, submissions due on Thursday 27 November, oral submissions will be heard on both the 27^th and 28^th November, the Bill is to be reported back by Tuesday, 2nd December – eight days after it was introduced and then it will be law by Thursday 11^th December.

The reason for such urgency and speed is that 'our' way of life and the values that shape 'our' society are under threat. Some people would argue that what passes for democracy is actually what is under threat with the passing of this Bill – for this Bill enhances state surveillance power and expands state control.

With the continuous singing of the mantra 'terror, terror, terror', we seem to live in an increasingly hysterical time where Bills such as this one can be introduced and passed. Just within the last few years there have been numerous surveillance and 'terror' Bills, including: in 2013 both the ‘GCSB and Related Legislation Amendment Bill' and the TICS (Telecommunications Interception Capability and Security) Bill, in 2012 the Search and Surveillance Act, in 2011 the 'SIS Amendment Bill', in 2007 the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill. The list goes on. This country has a reputation for passing laws quickly.

SIS Law Changes: 'Remember, remember – terror, terror, terror' & the Group of 10

Is it deliberate or ironic that John Key's 'security threat' talk was on Guy Fawkes Day, the 5^th of November?

As children in some parts of the world sing 'Remember remember the fifth of November: gunpowder, treason and plot' and light bonfires and explode fire crackers, John Key's mantra has been 'terror, terror, terror - we are in danger'. 'We' need to be kept safe because 'our' way of life and the values that shape 'our' society are under threat.

We need protection and John Key's government will provide it.

This morning at Victoria University, Wellington, John Key talked about the need for quick law changes to strengthen SIS surveillance powers and curtail people's rights to travel. These are changes that cannot wait until next year's scheduled intelligence review.

The five key changes announced are:

• the cancellation of passports for up to three years
• the suspension of passports temporarily for up to 10 working days in urgent cases whilst preparing the paperwork to cancel the passport
• video surveillance by the SIS (NZ Security Intelligence Service) in 'a private setting or which would involve trespass onto private property' ie. in people's homes and on marae
• 48 hour surveillance by the SIS without a warrant
• a cash injection into the SIS so they can increase the number of people working to monitor and investigate 'foreign' terrorist fighters.

The last time SIS powers were expanded was back in July 2011 with the passing of the SIS Amendment Bill. That Bill had been announced in December 2010 despite the Privacy Commissioner's recommendation that there be a review of the security laws. Key said at the time that the legislation had to be changed quickly to keep us safe during the Rugby World Cup.

He also said at the time that we did not need to know what the changes to the legislation would be.

Whose Speargun is it?

In a hard to find post in the technology section of the stuff website, it was reported that the GCSB had confirmed on Friday the existence of ‘Project Speargun’, as Glenn Greenwald had claimed on Monday.

The site quotes an unnamed “GCSB spokesman” saying that Speargun was “a core component of the cyber defence project in its earlier iterations”, i.e. that it was the discarded ‘Option 2’ mentioned in the papers released by John Key few days earlier.

This is supposed to confirm what John Key said - that it was an option that never went past a business case, and that he stopped it because it was too intrusive.

What it does confirm is the veracity of Greenwald’s documents. But it doesn’t let Key or the GCSB off the hook, really.

According to the hastily declassified papers, the Cabinet Committee on State Sector Reform and Expenditure Control in April 2012 “directed the GCSB to develop a Detailed Business Case for implementation of Option 2 [Speargun] in 2013”, noting that “the implementation of Option 2 is preferred.” The committee includes of course John Key, therefore it was also his preferred option in 2012.

The NSA document from early 2013 states:

GCSB's cable access programme SPEARGUN phase 1; awaiting new GCSB Act expected July 2013; first meta data probe mid 2013.

This definitely sounds more like a project plan than the development of a business case.

Then in September 2013, cabinet “rescinded the decision [...] on the development of a detailed business case for Option 2”. Note the wording – it does not say that cabinet looked at the business case and decided not to proceed with it, as John Key claims, but that cabinet no longer required the development of the business case. Without the project being detailed, how did Key come to the conclusion that his previously preferred option was suddenly too intrusive?

One would have thought that a year and a half after being asked to develop a business case for a project that was “a core component of the cyber defence project” (according to the anonymous GCSB spokesperson), the GCSB would have done so. It sounds unlikely that the GCSB would not have made it a high priority to get on with it. Are we supposed to believe that the GCSB doesn’t really care about cyber security?

So we have the NSA document pointing to project ‘Speargun’ being well under way, with a first test having been planned for mid 2013, and a (previously top secret) cabinet paper from several months later, telling the GCSB not to bother with writing the business case for it. Could it be that this was because by that time the project had been taken over by the NSA?

What speaks for this theory is that the first paper from 2012 mentions that ‘Option 2’ “requires significant scoping and consultation in order to identify the full range of risks and dependencies for the government”, i.e. it was quite complex and possibly beyond the capabilities of the GCSB.