Neazor fired

Yesterday, John Key announced in a brief press release that he has replaced Paul Neazor as the Inspector General of Security and Intelligence with Andrew McGechan, effective immediately. The statement does not say that Neazor resigned, nor does it give any reasons why he was replaced.

And while the media are full of stories about a ‘stand-off’ between Kim Dotcom and John Key during the committee hearings on Wednesday (5 pm), they hardly mention the unceremonious dumping of the person who has been in charge of overseeing the country’s spy agencies for ten years.

However, TV3 reports that Neazor’s replacement has no intention to review the 88 cases of illegal spying.

Responses to GCSB file requests

Many people have inquired with the GCSB whether they are one of the 88 people who have been illegally spied on and have asked for their files. The usual response from the GCSB has been to “neither confirm nor deny” that such files exist, stating section 27 of the Privacy Act. This section allows a government department to refuse this information if the “security or defence of New Zealand” or “the maintenance of the law” are at risk – the latter being a rather strange reason, given that it was the GCSB who broke the law.

In some cases the GCSB’s director, Ian Fletcher, also states that he has “conducted a thorough search” for the information requested, but refuses to reveal what the outcome of the search was.

We would be interested to know what responses people have received, especially if they were different from the one outlined above. Please email us at OasisFromSurveillance@gmail.com. Our PGP Key can be found here.

A Phone Call with Paul Neazor - Only God Knows

In an off-the-cuff telephone conversation the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Paul Neazor, explains to a caller why he will not be told if he has been surveilled or not.

In a 'friendly' conversation Neazor explains about the 88 people surveilled and the rationale behind why everyone will get a response of 'neither confirm nor deny' when wanting to know if they are one of the 88.

In the ten minute audio clip Neazor discusses the role of the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, talks about security issues in general and goes onto explain the mistake that led to the illegal spying of Dotcom. He asserts that Dotcom got residency in NZ through business connections and compares Dotcom to Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

Towards the end of the ten minute tape, Neazor forgets the name of the Director of the GCSB.

Neazor is arguably a goldmine of information, but it is not the only time he has forgotten 'important' things. In his 2011 annual report on the activities of the GCSB Neazor highlighted three occasions in which the GCSB  operated outside of their legal authority.

Questioned about that report in September 2012 by a TV3 journalist, Neazor could not recall it and quoted a Robert Browning poem.

 "Somebody asked Browning once what he meant by one of his poems and he said, ‘Only God and Browning knew what I meant and now only God knows,"said Neazor.

Submission hearings will be public

In a very unusual move, the Security and Intelligence Committee has decided to hear submissions in public. A number of submitters have been given speaking slots of ten minutes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of next week (July 2 – July 5).

Usually submissions are heard with only the five committee members and a number of unidentified members of the “Intelligence Community” being present. The opening of the process to the public is a sign that the government has realised that there is more opposition to the GCSB Bill than it anticipated.

Submissions for the GCSB sister bill, the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill (TICS) were heard today. The two bills must be seen in conjunction to get an idea of the magnitude of surveillance the government wants to legalise. An overview of the bill is here. For both bills, after the submissions are heard, they are likely to be made public on the parliamentary web site.

The Security and Intelligence Committee will report back to parliament on the GCSB Bill by July 26, the Law and Order Select Committee will report back on the TICS Bill on a later date.