"The 5th Eye" Documentary on Waihopai Domebusters & GCSB

New Zealand is very much a member of a western spy network that is quite capable of reading and recording every shred of electronic communication you've ever generated.
The 5th Eye is the story of the events that underpinned so much of the farcical goings on at the 2014 general election, threaded through with the only-in-New Zealand yarn of the three men who – armed with a pair of cheap bolt cutters and a statue of the Virgin Mary – managed to break into and the Waihopai spy base and deflate the dome that covered one of the satellite dishes. A pity John Oliver wasn't paying attention to New Zealand back then. He would have a had a ball with that story. Wright and King-Jones assemble their material – new and archival – into an intelligent, informative and entertaining film. This is serious stuff, deftly done. Recommended.               Source: Stuff.co.nz

The long anticipated documentary, THE 5TH EYE, that follows the story of the Waihopai Three and the GCSB premieres this month in the New Zealand International Film Festival.

The film will screen as part of the festival in Wellington, Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin and Timaru. Other regional screenings will be announced by the Film Festival in coming weeks.

Details about ticket sales are at www.The5thEye.com – Please be sure to get tickets early.

We also need your help: word of mouth and social media are currently our only promotional tools. So please join our facebook page, follow us on twitter, and please share our posts, tell your friends about the film and forward this email around to your contacts! Thanks and we look forward to seeing you at the upcoming screenings!
https://www.facebook.com/The5thEye/photos/a.839891559414987.1073741828.832972370106906/1071469812923826/?type=3&theater

Errol Wright & Abi King-Jones

Intelligence merge not new

In all but name the Intelligence Review recommended a merge of the key NZ intelligence agencies. The proposal put forward by Sir Michael Cullen and Dame Patsy Reddy was to consolidate legislation governing the GCSB and NZSIS into one Act.

This idea is not new. In 2009 there was talk of merging the intelligence agencies. A Treasury official's notebook had been found in central Wellington and in the pages were notes about a merge. At the time John Key confirmed a merge of the intelligence agencies was an option, “I drove the decision to have a look (at how they operate) because there is quite a bit of crossover.” Value for money was also an issue he said. (The Murdoch Report was the result of this review)

Dollar value is a driving force and has already seen the building of the one-stop intelligence building, Pipitea House, in downtown Wellington. Now we will also see the agencies in a one-stop shop legal merge. One law to rule all.

Surveillance Film Festival

Has the portrayal of surveillance in films caught up with us? 

Dystopian Big Brother films from the past show glimpses of a present reality. Spy films and the machinations of spy paraphernalia capture our imagination with fantastical technology. Stasi and Cold War intelligence policing methods shock and titillate people. But Edward Snowden’s revelations opened many eyes to the ubiquitous world of mass surveillance right here and now.

The Surveillance Film Festival is an opportunity to explore the portrayal of surveillance in films and documentaries and ponder the reality of surveillance in our lives today. 

 

Come and enjoy some films and see where the discussion takes us.

Venue: Thistle Hall, Upper Cuba, Wellington City 

Friday 25th March

- 6pm - Farenheit451 (112mins) – then onwards for after-film discussion and drinks at a local pub. 

Saturday 26th March 

- 11am - The Program (8mins) and ABC Secret Room (9mins) - Nicky Hager will be present for a talk after these two short films.
- 12.30pm -  Operation 8 (110mins)
- 3pm - Every Step You Take (65mins) - followed by a chat with Kathleen Kuehn about the ubiquitousness of surveillance
- 5.30pm - Maintenance of Silence (20mins) 
- 7pm - The Lives of Others (137mins) 
Film synopsis: 

Farenheit451 (1966) 112mins
In Bradbury’s dystopian future most people are mindless drones living for instant gratification, plugged into ear buds or watching screens. News is controlled in censored bites, deep-thinking and analysis don’t happen. War economy rules. Sound sort of familiar? But in Farenheit451 all books are banned, is that the only difference?

The Program and ABC News, Secret Room (2012 & 2008)
William Binney and Mark Klein are names that should be familiar. They are whistleblowers who spoke about mass surveillance prior to Snowden’s revelations. The info was out there for us, but so many chose not to listen. Why didn’t we want to know about the surveillance then? Why are we already ignoring Snowden’s revelations?

Operation 8: Deep in the Forest (2011) 110mins
Eight years ago in October dawn raids woke many people, people were briefly jailed and allegations of terrorism were thrown about based on evidence gained by surveillance. This country has a long history of surveillance, see how it was used in this most public case to hinder and control people and think about what is happening now.

Every Step You Take (2007) 65mins
CCTV and face recognition are examples of surveillance to keep people safe. Ten years ago the technology shocked, now it is old. How quick does it all change and how accepting do we become?

Maintenance of Silence (1985) 20mins
Awareness of surveillance seemed to be more common a few decades ago. Tens of thousands protested against the expansion of police and SIS powers, later the Wanganui Computer was bombed. Then Neil Roberts left the quote from Junta Tuitiva of La Paz, ‘We have maintained a silence closely resembling stupidity’. What does our silence now resemble?

The Lives of Others (2006) 137mins
Surveillance and oppression on the other side of the iron curtain has been a favourite subject for a lot of films. But how different is that past from the future here?

Intelligence & security report a dream come true for the Five Eyes

The release of the Independent review of intelligence and security recommends a range of changes that are dangerous to ordinary people, both within NZ and elsewhere, and represents a massive concentration of state power.

The major recommendation is the consolidation of the two acts governing the GCSB and the SIS into a single law.  As Radio NZ reported, “A single piece of legislation would mean both agencies operated under the same objectives, functions and powers and warrant authorisation framework.” This is deeply problematic.

It must be understood at the outset that both GCSB and the SIS are essentially political police: they exist to identify threats to the New Zealand state, essentially “national security.” These agencies do not exist to root out criminal activity, that is the job of the Police. And, although in 2013, the GCSB was given the power to assist police with any matter, it is not an objective of that organisation (or the SIS) to prevent, detect or prosecute criminal offending.  While the definition of criminal offences are spelled out quite clearly in law with identifiable components and evidentiary thresholds, threats to “national security” are at best vague and difficult to define. Even the Law Commission, an eminent body of NZ legal practitioners, struggled to explain what the national security is, noting “While the New Zealand courts have not yet been called upon to define national security, we expect that they will also face difficulties in pinning down the concept although there are varying definitions in use.” (National Security Information in Proceedings,_ p.14).

Intelligence & Security Review Public Soon

The far from independent Intelligence Review was tabled before the government on Monday, 29th February. John Key has announced that he wants it made public before March 11th and it will not be redacted.

It will not be redacted as it will only be big picture stuff. There will probably be the usual calls that the GCSB and the SIS must follow the law, that they must be more transparent and should work more closely together.

There may be an increase in the role of the NCSC (National Cyber Security Centre). In one of her last public talks as acting director of GCSB, Una Jagose spoke about the importance of that group and increasing links between the corporate and intelligence world.

The Review will also bring law changes. A recently released 2014 'top-secret' briefing said law changes were the aim.

And the Review is to make recommendations on the life-span of the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill.

The deadline for the Intelligence Review Looms

Lisa Fong will be the person in the hot seat when the Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament receive the promised Intelligence Review.

On Monday, 15 February, two weeks before the deadline for the Intelligence Review is to be tabled, Una Jagose took up her new role as the Attorney General and Lisa Fong, former GCSB chief-legal advisor, is now the acting director.

According to the GCSB, Lisa has been employed there since 2012 – the date may be arguably incorrect though (or an example of incorrect data gathering on the part of the GCSB). The official government release announcing Lisa Fong's appointment as acting director states that she started work at the GCSB in April 2013.

However, if the 2012 date is correct, that puts Lisa working at the GCSB when they were found to have spied illegally on 88 New Zealanders. She may have been giving advice then to Hugh Wolfensohn, the Deputy Director of Mission Enablement (DDME) and part-time legal advisor, who resigned in March 2013 just weeks before the Kitteridge report became public.

Regardless of whether she started in 2012 or 213 though, Lisa would have been working there as the legal advisor when operation 'WTO Project' was active and the GCSB was spying on Tim Groser's rivals for the position of director-general of the WTO. The GCSB operation involved covert surveillance of candidates from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ghana, Jordan, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico and South Korea.

Whilst Lisa has been working there the GCSB has also been spying on Pacific countries and everyone residing, passing through or holidaying in that area.

Lisa was working there when it was written in tbe 2014 NZIC report that, among other things, the intelligence community had to ensure they comply with the law.

When the far from independent Intelligence Review is finally released, it will probably herald law changes to make legal a lot of the unlawful activities that have become public since the Dotcom raid and the Snowden leaks of 2012 and 2013.

To make law changes is the role of the Intelligence Review, this was clearly stated in the top-secret briefing to John Key in 2014.The briefing stated that the "review should provide a sound basis on which to develop new legislation."

Any new legislation will only strengthen the already only so-called 'arguably legal' acts of the GCSB and ensure that NZ stays firmly entrenched in the Five-Eyes. 

The next few weeks may prove busy for Lisa Fong.

Surveillance Film Festival

Stop the Spies is hosting a Surveillance Film Festival in Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin this March.


"Has the portrayal of surveillance in films caught up with us? Dystopian Big Brother films from the past show glimpses of a present reality. Spy films and the machinations of spy paraphernalia capture our imagination with fantastical technology. Stasi and Cold War intelligence policing methods shock and titillate people. But Edward Snowden’s revelations opened many eyes to the ubiquitous world of mass surveillance right here and now.

"The Surveillance Film Festival is an opportunity to explore the portrayal of surveillance in films and documentaries and ponder the reality of surveillance in our lives today."


The Wellington festival will be held at Thistle Hall, Friday 25th March and Saturday 26th March. Details for Dunedin and Christchurch to be confirmed.

Security Intelligence Community say 'must finish what we have started'

This week brought us not just one but three reports from the ‘intelligence community’.

First there was the annual report of the Inspector General for Security and Intelligence (IG), Cheryl Gwen. It is pretty damning, and echoes many of the criticisms raised in the State Services 2014 review of the intelligence community, especially regarding the SIS.

The IG's annual report was covered on stuff, but there is a better analysis on No Right Turn. The report is littered with findings like this:

In the course of these inquiries, I identified systemic shortcomings in the procedures followed by the NZSIS. […] The process of preparing and finalising those reports has been more protracted than I would have wished because of the time required for my office and for NZSIS to work through the systemic issues that I had identified.

And it culminates in this conclusion:

As noted above, the Service lacked a compliance framework and policy, audit framework and dedicated staffing throughout this reporting period.[...] For those reasons, I cannot conclude that NZSIS had sound compliance procedures and systems in place.

Note that the innocent sounding word ‘compliance’ means nothing less than the organisation operating within the law. 

As if to counter the impression of an out of control organisation a reader would get from this report, a quasi-internal review by the SIS which had concluded in July was declassified a few days after the release of the IG’s report. It comes to the almost opposite conclusion:

The reviewer did not find any evidence of (nor was given any reason to believe there was) significant non-compliance within NZSIS.

So everything is OK then? Maybe Cheryl Gwen is a bit too critical. Or maybe Rebecca Kitteridge is a lot less concerned about these things now that she is actually responsible for the SIS than she was in 2013 when she reviewed the GCSB. Her report back then read very similar to Gwen‘s report about the SIS does now. Sometimes the best way to shut critics up is to put them in charge.

The GCSB’s Moment of Truth

There has been much talk recently about the GCSB’s ‘charm offensive’ and how it is becoming more transparent, and how that is good for democracy. However, what is pitched as transparency and openness is in reality just spin doctoring.

On 11 September, the Privacy Commissioner John Edwards organised a ‘Privacy Forum’ at which GCSB director Una Jagose was going to “describe what GCSB does to deal with cyber threats, including outlining the CORTEX programme.”

At the start of the meeting, two activists of the Stop The Spies coalition (of which OASIS is a part) unfolded a banner reading “This is a Five-Eyes Propaganda Exercise”. That was enough for Jagose and Edwards to cancel the entire event.

It has since become clear just how stage managed the event, and its repeat on 29 September, were.

A response to an Official Information Act request for Una Jagose’s speech and associated correspondence revealed that “the communications are between the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet (DPMC) and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner. This is because communications function for the GCSB is managed by the National Security Communications team base in DPMC.” This means that every word we hear or read from the GCSB comes from the same people who write John Key’s speeches.

Stop the Spies exposes GCSB

On Friday 11^th September members of the Stop the Spies coalition held a banner at a GCSB propaganda exercise. Una Jagose, the Acting-Director of the GCSB, was set to give a talk at a forum hosted by the Privacy Commissioner when two members of Stop the Spies stood with a banner before the stage. Una refused to speak with the banner present and as a result, the meeting was closed down.

The next step is to close the GCSB down.

Over the last few years we have learnt of a range of activities that the GCSB has been involved in, including:

• spying on Pacific countries and everyone residing, passing through or holidaying in that area
• spying on Vietnam, China, India, Pakistan, South American nations and a range of other countries
• spying on Bangladesh and sharing that data with the Bangladeshi government and secret security services
• spying on Tim Groser's rivals for the position of director-general of the WTO. The GCSB operation involved covert surveillance of candidates from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ghana, Jordan, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico and South Korea.
• Supplying intelligence for drone strikes, and
• spying on 88 New Zealanders.
  

The GCSB is part of the Five-Eyes (also known as FVYS), an alliance established by the UKUSA Agreement at the end of WW2. The USA is the leader and the other core members are Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The five countries operate between them a global mass surveillance, data collection and social manipulation programme. They've got the whole world covered; the sun never sets on the Five-Eyes.

But since the raid on Dotcom's home and the release of information by Edward Snowden, more information has become public about the GCSB and the role of the Five-Eyes. There was so much uncovering of nefarious deeds that members of the NZ intelligence community here, including the GCSB, were instructed last year to work on their public image. The talk by Una would have been part of that exercise.

However, Una refused to talk with a simple banner stating the truth being held in the same room. A banner that labelled her talk as a Five-Eye propaganda exercise, a banner that stated the GCSB is the real security threat. Instead the meeting was closed down.

Now we must close down the GCSB.

Widespread Lack of Trust in Security Intelligence Review

There is widespread distrust of NZ´s spy agencies, according to a report published 14th August by The Stop the Spies Coalition. The coalition, which includes the New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties, the Anti-Bases Campaign, OASIS, the Dunedin Free University and the What IF? Campaign, conducted its own People´s Review of the Intelligence Services in a series of public meetings and discussions in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin. The report was issued on the closing day of submissions for the official review.

"The People´s Review has solicited a wide range of views from ordinary people in New Zealand about the operations of the intelligence services. The questions raised went far beyond the very narrow frame of reference of the official review, currently being carried out by Michael Cullen and Patsy Reddy," said Thomas Beagle, a spokesperson for Stop the Spies Coalition.

Topics of the submissions included issues of privacy, oversight, the effect of surveillance on society, the lawfulness of the agencies´ activities, NZ´s membership in the 5 Eyes network and whether having the GCSB and the SIS was even desirable and what the alternatives could be.

"Rather than answering the paternalistic and leading questions in the official review submission form, people discussed questions like whose interests the agencies serve, whether we really need them, and whether New Zealand should be in the Five Eyes," said Beagle.

SIS Minister suffers from “Key Memory Syndrome”

The Minister in Charge of the SIS, Chris Finlayson, appears to be suffering from a form of memory loss – showing similar symptoms to his boss, John Key.

In questions at parliament today, 12 August 2015, Finlayson said “The particular deficiency that I would identify is that the Act (NZSIS) was last comprehensively reviewed in 1969 and is expressed in 1969 language.”

It beggars belief that he never heard of or has forgotten about either the 2009 Murdoch Report into 'optimising the structure of the NZ security intelligence community' or the 1976 Powles Report, an infamous white-wash in the '70s to cover-up the Sutch saga.

He should also be reminded of the total of seven amendments to the SIS Act that have been passed into law since 1969 – the most recent one while Finlayson was Minister in Charge of the SIS:

• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Act 2014 (2014 No 73)
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Act 2011 (2011 No 28)
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Act 2003 (2003 No 108)
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Act 1999 (No 2) (1999 No 91)
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Act 1999 (1999 No 14)
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Act 1996 (1996 No 48)
• New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Act 1977 (1977 No 50)

He should at least remember the 2014 amendment, because it was in the context of that Bill that he called that the Select Committee process “chit chat”.

Spies in PR frenzy

The current Listener (dated 15 August 2015) runs a cover story “Secrets & Spies – The revolution inside our intelligence agencies” by Rod Vaughan, who claims to have been granted “special access” to those agencies. This example of embedded journalism has attracted a scathing commentary by Chris Trotter, to which – on one level – there is not much to add.

Except that Trotter somehow misses the point. He – like Vaughan – falls into the trap set by spy masters. The talk about the alleged ‘revolution’ within the agencies, defined by their directors having attended anti-tour protests at the age of 15 (Kitteridge) or being lesbians (Jagose), is simply a distraction for the flattered journalist. The real messages are buried in the middle of all the nonsense of how the agencies have changed.

Kitteridge is given a half page of unquestioned quotes about how big a threat the Islamic State is for NZ, culminating in the dubious claim that the SIS is neither capable nor allowed to monitor people’s internet browsing behaviour. She is also given space to perpetuate the mantra that “my staff barely have time to read their own emails, let alone so many emails of other people” - the naïve and dangerous myth that ‘full collection’ means that someone actually reads all the stuff that people write. This is followed by Una Jagose lamenting at length the legal restrictions the GCSB is under. The implied message in both cases is that the agencies need more resources and fewer legal restrictions.

Getting these messages printed just before the deadline for public submissions to the ‘Intelligence Review’ was the real reason why Vaughan was granted ‘special access’ to Pipitea House. And these messages just happen to match a lot of the questions in the official submission form.

Also by sheer coincidence, Vaughan was not the only journalist who happened to run a piece on the spy agencies this week. The Dominion Post’s political editor Tracy Watkins came up with the same idea. Her article “Spy boss Rebecca Kitteridge goes on a recruiting drive” (complete with a highly relevant picture of James Bond with sports car) follows the same pattern. After some light-hearted banter about Kitteridge subjecting herself to a job interview at the SIS, Watkins obligingly writes what Kitterridge already spoke into Vaughan’s dictaphone: the Islamic State is coming and we need more resources.

Vaughan may also be disappointed that he wasn’t the first journalist to be given ‘special access’. Back in March 2013, when the GCSB’s illegal spying on 88 people was all over the news, TV3’s Jessica Mutch claimed to be the first reporter to have been inside the GCSB headquarters. Her report back to Q+A host Susan Wood sounded like a small child reporting to its parents from a school trip. She was so much in awe at the swipe card system and the tinted windows that she completely forgot to ask about the spying.

Defining Surveillance

The obfuscation of what and what 'surveillance' is not continues.

In their investigation into whether Detective Inspector Grant Wormald perjured himself during one of Dotcom's court appearances in August 2012, the Independent Police Conduct Authority (IPCA) decided that the senior police officer did not perjure himself. The problem was, he just may not have realised what surveillance is.

They found that Wormald was aware the GCSB was assisting in the investigation. Wormald knew that that involved the "interception of the private communications of Mr Dotcom and at least one of his associates" but that was not surveillance in Wormald's mind.

If Wormald perjured himself - it wasn't his fault. According to the IPCA, "'surveillance' was a generic legal definition that did not exist at the time of the Police operation in January 2012." It only became clearer what surveillance was after the enactment of the 2012 Search and Surveillance Act. (NB. Wormald was questioned in August 2012 about the surveillance of Dotcom, nearly four months after the Search and Surveillance Act was enacted in April 2012.)

John Key's definition of surveillance is also hard to pin down.

Back in September 2014, John Key knew that mass collection was mass surveillance. Key told reporters "...we're not collecting wholesale information… We don't have the capability for mass surveillance."


Then in March this year on RadioNZ, Key said, "I don’t even know what you mean by mass collection. I have no clue. It is not a term I have ever used. It is not something that sits in something I see."

At the same time he refused to respond to comments made by ex-director of the GCSB Bruce Ferguson. When revelations from Snowden showed the degree of spying going on in the Pacific by the GCSB, Ferguson admitted on National Radio that what the GCSB did is: "...sort of like whitebaiting and trying to catch one whitebait, you can't do it and within the net you'll get all sorts of other things - it's a mass collection."

More recently John Key appears to acknowledge that the GCSB has the capability to collect large amounts of data. However, it is not surveillance and it is not mass collection.

There seems to be a constant obfuscation of surveillance.

Get Smart - the People's Review of the Intelligence Agencies

The Intelligence Review is a review of New Zealand's intelligence services being conducted by Michael Cullen (ex-politician) and Patsy Reddy (lawyer and board member). It is nothing but a rubberstamp for mass surveillance and the Five-Eyes.

To help compensate for the lack of public consultation, the NZ Council for Civil Liberties is hosting public meetings in Wellington (July 29th) and Auckland (August 6th). They are inviting people to go along to have their say about what should happen to the GCSB, the SIS, and New Zealand’s participation in the Five Eyes spy network.

A Quick Look at Some Spying 'gone wrong'

At the annual NZIIP conference on Wednesday 15^th July, the Privacy Commissioner said “... we've really only in the last 40 years had public scrutiny of things where things go really wrong, so the average view that people in the public have is of the examples such as Ahmed Zaoui, Aziz Choudry, such as Kim Dotcom, where the agencies have been seen to have been in breach of the law.”

It was good to hear that John Edwards acknowledged those three cases as examples of 'where things really go wrong' in New Zealand's security intelligence. But he needs to do his homework and read some history. The three cases listed may have 'gone really wrong' but there are others. 

New Zealand has a long history of things going wrong and laws been breached. Even the very beginnings of official state intelligence was mired in controversy.

The first official intelligence agency was the Security Intelligence Bureau, it kicked off in 1941 with the arrival of Major Folkes, a British MI-5 agent who only three years earlier had been working in real estate. Folkes was duped by a con-man named Sidney Ross. On release from Waikeria prison, Ross travelled directly to Wellington and spun tales of plotters and saboteurs in Rotorua planning to overthrow the government and kill the prime minister. For three months he was believed before finally been uncovered; he was never charged in relation to the deception and Folkes was fired and sent back to Britain. The tale only came to light when Ross appeared in court at a later date on an unrelated charge of safe-breaking. Ross told the judge the story and it became public.

Peter Fraser, PM at the time, when questioned in the House about the débâcle came out with the classic line “It is not advisable in the public interest to discuss publicly the question of the means adopted to ensure public security.” A statement very similar to that trotted out by modern PMs.

After Folkes left Wellington, the SIB was effectively taken over by the police but was reconstructed in the late 1940s after visits again by the MI-5 and then finally in 1956 the SIS was established. In 1969 the first NZSIS Act was passed.

But even when the SIS became legal there continued to be 'things that really go wrong'. The first director, Brigadier Gilbert, had to pay damages to an Auckland barrister for identifying him as a communist in a 1962 speech entitled 'Communist Cancer in our Society'. The barrister was not a communist but an anti-nuclear activist and member of CND.

Stop the Spies - Spies Annual Conference

The country's top private and government spooks are holding their annual conference on Wednesday 15th July, and the newly launched Stop the Spies campaign will be there to protest the expansion of surveillance.

5:30pm, Wednesday 15 July 2015
Outside the Rydges Hotel, 75 Featherston St, Wellington

The theme for this year's NZ Institute of Intelligence Professionals (NZIIP) meeting is 'Protecting the Balance: Trust, Confidence, Privacy and Intelligence'.

It is a theme highlighting the current re-branding of surveillance that is been pushed by the government and private intelligence. This need to re-brand is a result of the increasing information about NZ's active role in the Five-Eyes and the global network of surveillance. Revelations have shown that NZ is actively involved in both spying around the world and the manipulation of communities and people for political ends.

The NZIIP may appear to be an independent non-government organisation but it is a core link between both the private and government spy agencies. One of its key founders in 2008 was Warren Tucker, then director of SIS. In the years since, NZIIP conferences have been attended by prime ministers, the SIS, GCSB, NAB, and Defence Intelligence, as well as intelligence professionals from a range of other Agencies and representatives from private industries such as Wynyard and Palantir.

People will be gathering outside the conference at 5.30pm - the intelligence professionals will be meeting for dinner inside and the guest speaker is the Minister for Intelligence Chris Finlayson. Stop the Spies plan to use the opportunity to highlight the links between the many intelligence agencies and the NZ government.

5:30pm, Wednesday 15 July 2015
Outside the Rydges Hotel,
75 Featherston St, Wellington

Further information about Stop The Spies can be found here:
http://stopthespies.nz/
https://twitter.com/StoptheSpiesNZ

Intelligence review - a rubberstamp

Headed by Michael Cullen and Patsy Reddy the mandatory review of all security agencies and security legislation was finally announced on Wednesday 13 May.

The review will be a rubberstamp for the government's mass surveillance, the Five-Eyes and the US's endless 'war on terrorism.'

Through recent revelations by Edward Snowden and Nicky Hager it has now been proven that the GCSB is without doubt part of the US's National Security Agency apparatus and New Zealand is an active member of the Five-Eyes. The first few months of 2015 have seen more information coming to light about this country and its role in the Five-Eyes (also known as UKUSA) and the use of the GCSB by the government to ensure political power and control is maintained by them.
Snowden has released documents showing that:

• the GCSB spies on Pacific countries and everyone residing, passing through or holidaying in that area (leaked 8 March), 
• the GCSB spies on Vietnam, China, India, Pakistan, South American nations and a range of other countries (leaked 11 March),
• the GCSB spied on Tim Groser's rivals for the position of director-general of the WTO. The GCSB operation involved covert surveillance of candidates from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ghana, Jordan, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico and South Korea.
• the GCSB spies on Bangladesh and shares that data with the Bangladeshi government (leaked 16 April), 
• the GCSB had plans to hack a data link between the Auckland Chinese consulate and the Chinese Visa Office, five minutes down the street (leaked 17 April), and there will be more to come.

John Key has admitted that it is likely that information gathered and supplied by the GCSB to the NSA has played a role in enabling the US military to carry out drone strikes that have killed hundreds of civilians, including children.

The SIS also has a disturbing history. Release of archives in the first decade of this century showed that the SIS spies on political dissidents, children and vulnerable refugee communities. Last year, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security investigated and upheld allegations that Key's office had used information from the Security Intelligence Service spy agency to gain a political advantage in the 2011 general election.

Both the SIS and the GCSB are a dangerous threat to the security of ordinary people. We don't need a review to tell us what we already know. OASIS calls for the disestablishment of both.

Public Meeting: Digital power & Social control

The State and corporations have ever increasing data about us, while we know less and less about what they are doing.

Come and join the discussion about collection of personal data, how we can resist this shifting form of social control and understand what’s going on.

Tuesday, 12 May, 6pm 
St John's Church Hall  
(corner of Dixon and Willis Streets, Te Aro, Wellington)

Speakers:

• Thomas Beagle, Tech Liberty
  
• Sandra Grey, Senior Lecturer, VUW
  
• OASIS on What we know about Five Eyes

and the launch of the What If? Campaign
What If? is a new grassroots education and action campaign working to stop data collection and sharing by the NZ State and private corporations for the purposes of social control and exploitation, and working for community control of information resources for the benefit of all.

what_if_campaign@riseup.net

The Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill passed

The Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill was passed on 9th December 2014.

The Bill makes changes in three Acts: the Passports Amendment Act 2014, Customs and Excise Amendment Act 2014 and the New Zealand Security Intelligence Amendment Act 2014.

It amends three existing laws to give the SIS greater powers of surveillance and to give the Minister of Internal Affairs greater powers to suspend and cancel passports.

The SIS will now be allowed to conduct surveillance on terrorist suspects without a warrant for 24 hours, to conduct video surveillance on private property (in relation to suspected terrorism), and to have access to the Customs data in relation to suspected terrorism.

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.

Cortex, 'Operation Speargun' and Surveillance in NZ

This week saw the introduction of another surveillance term to the world: 'Operation Speargun'.

It is another of a growing list of surveillance programmes and tools that have come to light over the last year: Prism, Boundless Informant, XkeyScore, Tempora, Shelltrumpet, Honeytrap, Egoistic Giraffe, Evil Olive, Blarney, Stormview, Thin Thread, Muscular, Moonlightpath, Spinnernet, Trial Blazer, Treasure Map...to name a few. Most of the names are as bad as the Five-Eye powerpoint slides revealed by Edward Snowden since leaving his job as a sub-contractor with the NSA.

Glenn Greenwald, the former lawyer turned journalist who has been helping Snowden, came to NZ to release the documents. Within hours of Greenwald's arrival Prime Minister John Key was on the attack, describing Greenwald as 'a loser' and 'Dotcom's little henchman'. Key also played the jingoist nationalist card and several times pointed out that Greenwald was a foreigner and not with New Zealand's interests at heart. He even went so far to say, “We are a good country doing good things. This guy turns up ... he's not a passionate New Zealander.”

John Key has also once agan been repeatedly reassuring us that the GCSB is not involved in mass surveillance in NZ. He is keen for us to believe that the GCSB, in fact all the Five-Eye members, always act legally and never spy on their own citizens – they only spy on 'threats'.

Yet one only has to look at the swathe of material revealed by Snowden to know that the Five-Eyes are a force unto themselves. The five original key agencies that make up the Five-Eyes: the United States NSA, the British GCHQ, the Canadian CSEC, the Australian DSD and the NZ GCSB, have been and are involved in mass surveillance and data collection of people worldwide, including in their own countries.

They are not government run organisations that only focus on 'signals intelligence'. The Five-Eyes are intelligence agencies involved in mass data collection and surveillance. They are also agencies involved in pro-active spying, entrapment schemes and smear tactics.

'The Moment of Truth' – Operation Speargun

On Monday 15^th September Greenwald and Snowden revealed Operation Speargun – a Five-Eye programme to be operated in NZ. A surveillance programme that the GCSB was working on, and had laid the foundations for, prior to the changes to the GCSB Act going through last year.

Operation Speargun was a programme to hack into the Southern Cross cable and install covert cable access equipment capable of monitoring all communications to and from NZ. The programme was ready to go, the first phase had occurred. According to NSA documents, it was only waiting for the new GCSB Act for it to be activated. (For some reason the government had decided to follow the law. Possibly the scandal over the illegal surveillance of the 80 plus New Zealanders that came to light in the Kitteridge Report meant the government wanted to play safe.)

Sept 2014 Report on Communications Surveillance in New Zealand.

The Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch) has recently published a report on communications surveillance in New Zealand.

The report concludes that as a result of the GCSB and TICS laws introduced in 2013, surveillance of communications in this country has increased. The "new laws provide much stronger, direct state-sanctioned surveillance (including the use of metadata) by the GCSB, which it can use in domestic law enforcement."

The report is a concise report of the state of communications surveillance and the changes that have occurred since the raid on Dotcom's home in early 2012. The report summarises the GCSB spying that came to light as a result of that raid, the publication of the Kitteridge Report and the resulting acknowledgement by the Prime Minister that the GCSB had been spying on NZ citizens. 

NZIC Report July 2014 - Report on the NZ Intelligence Community

Late last year the NZ State Services Commission reviewed the New Zealand Intelligence Community and their findings have finally been written up in a 'Top Secret' Report.

It reads like a high school report for a student who is struggling:

“There are signs,” says the report, that “the leadership of NZIC has ‘grasped the nettle’ and is starting to prioritise the changes needed and to implement change.” But, the report says, urgency is needed as “...there is a huge amount of change to be undertaken. The changes will be progressive but already associated parties are indicating signs of obvious improvement, and this is welcomed.”

The public version of the report quite clearly states that the NZIC do not have clear priorities, do not work together well and have a naïve faith in wanting to copy the structure of the NSA and that they rely too much on the Five Eyes network. It seems they are basically working as an external department for the NSA.

The review covers all aspects of the intelligence community, that is – the GCSB, the SIS and both the NAB and ICG of the DPMC. (Or to try and put it more simply, the report looks at the Government Communications Security Bureau, the Security Intelligence Service and two agencies that operate out of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet: the National Assessments Bureau and the Intelligence Coordination Group.)

The full report has been presented to the Head of the State Services Commission – it is not meant for public viewing, but the 19 page review gives a sampling of what the report contains.

Foremost in the Report are 10 key objectives for the agencies to achieve over a 'Four Year Plan'. These objectives include the need to:

1. clarfiy their role
2. ensure they work together effectively
3. only gather intelligence that is needed; as stated so succinctly in the report “All information, including intelligence, is useful only if it is used.”
4. upgrade their financial and managerial control systems (the current systems have not been maintained to the levels expected of modern government agencies.)
5. ensure they comply with the law
6. operate within budget
7. work on their public image

The report admits that the four year plan will be difficult for the Intelligence Community and will require “strong governance, ruthless prioritisation and experienced change managers”.

John Key has already taken steps towards achieving the objectives. Just days after the report became public he finally announced the appointment of the first-ever deputy Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security. Paul Neazor would be happy if he were still in that role.

The 19 page review can be read here: http://www.ssc.govt.nz/sites/all/files/PIF-Review-NZIC-Jul14.pdf

And an analysis can be found here: http://www.indymedia.org.nz/articles/2921

Information about Paul Neazor and his wishes can be read (and listened to) here. 

Drone Die-In at NZ National Party Conference

Demanding the dismantling of the GCSB and the exiting of NZ from the 'Five Eyes Club', people opposing New Zealand´s involvement in the so-called "drone wars" staged a die-in outside the annual National Party Conference in Wellington during John Key´s closing speech Sunday, 29 June.

Motivated by the Prime Minister´s recent comments that he is "quite comfortable" to provide GCSB assistance to the US to murder "bad people" and his absurd comment that he thought it was legitimate to "prosecute" New Zealand citizens and others with Hellfire missiles, the "dirty wars" was taken to the doors of the National Party.
 
At the conference, a symbolic drone struck down those who were "targeted" as well as bystanders. 

"Just like real drones, this one produces plenty of collateral damage," said Valerie Morse, member of OASIS. "When John Key says he is comfortable with drone strikes, he is really saying he is comfortable with extra-judicial assassinations, because that is what they are."

"New Zealand is complicit in the US´s dirty wars around the globe. Through our involvement in the Five Eyes, information gathered by the GCSB is shared with the NSA."

"The US is waging an undeclared war in countries like Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and probably soon Iraq."

"The Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) has been given a free reign to kill any target that it believes to be a possible threat to US security, without any accountability or control."

"Since Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama has taken office, more than 2600 people have been killed in more than 400 drone strikes. Is that really something anyone can be comfortable with?"

"New Zealand must leave the Five Eyes club and the GCSB must be dismantled." 

The Never Ending Drone Wars and NZ

The fatal spying warrant

On May 19, 2014, prime minister John Key formally acknowledged that the GCSB has been, and presumably still is, providing information to the US which is used in the so-called drone wars. He said “it is almost certain” that the GSCB’s information was used “in identifying targets” for drone attacks in Afghanistan and possibly in other countries.

However, he was “quite comfortable” with it and said that everything the GCSB did was within the law.

What sounds like another one of Key’s blanket assurances about the lawfulness of a government agency without knowing anything about it, is in fact a serious admission of involvement by the NZ government in a US government assassination programme.

The issue came to the fore because of revelations that a NZ citizen, Abu Suhaib al-Australi, was killed in Yemen in a drone strike in November 2013, and that Key had issued a warrant to the GCSB to spy on him. Although US officials say that al-Australi wasn’t the main target but rather “collateral damage” (along with 4 other people), it’s likely that the GCSB’s information was used in this killing.

All that was needed to convince the prime minister to issue the fatal warrant to the GCSB to spy on al-Australi was that “he had gone [to Yemen] and gone to a terrorist training camp” and was “reported to be an al-Qaida foot soldier” (TV3, 16 April 2014). Other people say, he was teaching English in Yemen.

Normally, the killing of a NZ citizen by another government without any form of trial would be the cause of moderate to serious diplomatic rows, but in this case it is simply accepted. NZ is so far involved in the “Five Eyes” (the spying agreement between the US, Canada, the UK, Australia and NZ) that the government blindly accepts the US’s jurisdiction over NZ citizens in a foreign country.

Dirty Wars: film screening & discussion

 

Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill is pulled into an unexpected journey as he chases down the hidden truth behind America's expanding covert wars.

Join OASIS and Peace Action Wellington for this compelling movie and discussion night at 19 Tory Street, Wellington, on Saturday 14 June at 6pm, and find out more about New Zealand's role in the 'Dirty Wars.'

Key admits role in illegal drone wars

Media Release: Key admits role in illegal drone wars

From: OASIS - Organising Against State Intelligence & Surveillance

Date: 20 May 2014

"John Key must be held responsible for New Zealand´s involvement in the US´s illegal secret drone war that is murdering thousands of people," says OASIS member Valerie Morse. "His proud admission that the GCSB has been providing information used by the US in drone wars in Afghanistan and elsewhere shows what a sycophant he is."

John Key today admitted that the GCSB is supporting the US state sanctioned assassination programme. He said that the GCSB provided information to the United States that was used to conduct drone strikes in Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere. 

"Under the continued guise of `fighting terrorism´ or `bringing stability´, the US has simply replaced the heavy tanks with which it invaded Iraq and Afghanistan with drones that strike in any country where it suspects `enemies´," said Ms Morse. "New Zealand and the Five Eyes signals intelligence partners are complicit in this assassination programme."

"The US drone war has no legal basis under international law. The UN´s Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, has said that the use of drones is not combat as much as `targeted killing´. He has repeatedly tried to get the US to explain how it justifies the use of drones to target and kill individuals under international law.  The 2011 murder of US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki and his son in Yemen caused serious debate in the US, and the murder of Daryl Jones should do the very same here."

"John Key obviously thinks the US government has the right to decide who - including NZ citizens - is allowed to live and who has to die."

"On June 14, we are calling for NZ actions as part of the international day against the drone wars and against the surveillance state. If the National or Labour parties imagine that being part of the US´s `Dirty Wars´ is perfectly OK, they clearly need a little education. Thousands of New Zealanders took the streets last year to protest the extension of GCSB powers of surveillance. People are totally opposed to the involvement of the GCSB with the NSA and their mass surveillance programmes."

ENDS

Crypto Party

A Crypto Party in Wellington:

When: Saturday 26th April 2014, 7pm, 

Where: Enspiral Space, Level 2, 18-24 Allen Street, Te Aro

A Crypto (encryption) Party is an opportunity for people to learn how to keep their online lives private and free from surveillance. It should be a fun-filled evening talking about and practicing email encryption as well as learning programs such as Tor and TrueCrypt.

A CryptoParty is free, public and fun. People bring their computers (but not essential), mobile devices, and a willingness to learn! There will be special trainers on hand to show people how to install and use the software.

CryptoParty is a decentralized, global initiative to introduce the most basic cryptography software and the fundamental concepts of their operation to the general public.