On Friday 11th 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.
