Peter Hughes Inquiry on Public Service Spying

‘This is not the way we do things in NZ’ State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes said as he described connections between government agencies and private agencies at the public release of the ‘Inquiry into the Use of External Security Consultants by Government Agencies’. Hughes sounded truly aggrieved. But the problem is that this is the NZ that many people know.

NZ has a long history of both state and private surveillance. For years a wide variety of groups and people have been spied upon, if not by state agencies themselves then by private investigators contracted by the public service. People surveilled include political and environmental activists, Māori and migrant communities, sexual abuse survivors and earthquake survivors - the list is long.

And one of the most infamous private investigation companies is Thompson and Clark (TCIL). TCIL’s main business appears to be working for a range of both state and private agencies. TCIL, started in 2003 by two former police officers: Gavin Clark and Nicholas Thompson, has been consistently employed by a range of both government and private agencies. (Thompson resigned from his directorship on 6 July 2018.)

Oppose the Intelligence & Security Bill

Submissions are being called on for the new Intelligence and Security Bill – but we say it is time to draw a line in the sand. The unrelenting expansion of the NZ Intelligence Community must be stopped.

A brief over-view of the last few years shows how relentless the changes have been:

Since 2007 the NZ SIS Act has been amended a half a dozen times. In 2011 the Video Surveillance Bill became law; a year later the Search and Surveillance Bill was passed. This was followed in 2013 by two changes: the TICS Bill (the Telecommunications Interception Capability and Security) and the GCSB and Related Legislation Amendment Bill, a Bill passed by two votes. At the end of 2014 the Countering Terrorist Fighters Legislation Bill became law.

There has also been a seemingly never-ending series of reports, reviews and a concerted PR blitz:

In 2009 there was the Murdoch Report of the SIS, GCSB and EAB. In 2011 Pipitea House was opened enabling most of the NZ intelligence community to operate under one roof and thus uniting the intelligence culture. In 2012 Paul Neazor reported on GCSB spying in relation to the Dotcom saga, this was followed in March 2013 with the Kitteridge Report on the GCSB and then in 2014 the State Sector Review of the intelligence community was released. In 2015 the Cullen and Reddy Intelligence Review began and there was a lot of talk of ‘Jihadi Brides’.

"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 & 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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.)

Nothing to hide - everything to fear

Public meeting: Looking at surveillance beyond the GCSB Bill

Nothing to Hide ... Everything to Fear is the title of a public meeting being hosted by OASIS. The GCSB Bill is just one of the latest in a line of law changes that are expanding and normalising state surveillance.

In recent years there have been many legal changes attacking our rights in the name of security, these include the Terrorism Suppression Act, Maritime Security Act, Border Security, Aviation Security Act, Telecommunications Interception Capability Act, the SIS Act, the Police Act, the Search and Surveillance Act and now back to round two of the GCSB Act and the Telecommunications Interception Capability Act.

All these laws bring in more surveillance and in NZ that is primarily the role of the police, the SIS and the GCSB. Over the years every one of these state agencies has acted outside of their briefs. Every time their illegal activities become public knowledge, there are changes in the law to legalise their activities and / or to expand their powers. What is happening with the GCSB Bill is a case in point.

It is time to say enough is enough – for one of the greatest threats to our security is actually ever-increasing invasion of our privacy. Surveillance is the threat.

Speakers

• Helen Kelly (CTU)
• Thomas Beagle (Tech Liberty)
• Kate Dewes (Peace Campaigner)

Monday, 5 August, 6pm
St John’s Hall,  Willis St/Dixon St

Media Release: Business as usual for spooks

Organising Against State Intelligence and Surveillance (OASIS)

22 July 2013

The country’s top spooks will be meeting in Wellington tomorrow (July 23) for the annual conference of the NZ Institute of Intelligence Professionals (NZIIP).

Every day, more details about large scale spying by the NSA, the GCHQ and other agencies is being revealed.

“The spy industry seems to be un-fazed by the Snowden leaks and is carrying on with business as usual,” OASIS spokesperson Anna Thorby said.

“And why wouldn’t they? The NZ government is giving them a clear message of more business to come by pushing through a Bill that would legalise the GCSB’s spying on New Zealanders.”

“The links between the government and the private spying industry are clear. Palantir, the main sponsor of the conference, is advertising for engineers to be ‘embedded’ with the New Zealand government. They are already supplying software for both the NSA and the New Zealand army.

“SIS director Warren Tucker has been the patron for the NZIIP since its start in 2008 and is about to become a ‘fellow’ of the institute.”

At the institute’s inaugural meeting, then prime minister Helen Clark gave a speech in which she indicated that she already knew about the NSA and GCHQ’s blanket collection of communication.

Clark said: “For some states […] the protective imperative has led to the balance being struck in favour of providing their intelligence organizations with access to large data sets.”

The title of this year’s conference is “Exploring Behavioural Drivers” and speakers will focus on how to use those large data sets to predict people’s behaviour.

“While the state is saying that this is used to detect terrorist plans, it can equally be used to suppress any form of political dissent and to influence debate,” Ms Thorby said.

“In the light of recent events highlighting the exposure of both the NSA and GCSB’s illegal surveillance, it should not be business as usual for the spies. There should be no more strengthening of ties between the corporate and state spies. Rather it is time to step back and re-evalaute the whole UKUSA Agreement. NZ should pull out of it now.”

ENDS

Spy conference in Wellington

On July 23, the ‘NZ Institute of Intelligence Professionals’ will hold its annual conference with the title “Exploring Behavioural Drivers” in the James Cook Hotel in Wellington. The following article looks at how exploring behavioural patterns and the recently revealed mass surveillance of metadata by the NSA and others are related.

Read more

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.

GCSB & the lives of others: Public meeting

Public meeting on the surveillance by the GCSB

You are warmly invited to a public meeting on Monday, May 27 at 6pm at the Mezzanine Meeting room of the Wellington Central Library to discuss the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), the illegal surveillance it conducted, the law change being made to legalise its unlawful activities and the role of the GCSB in the US global surveillance network.

Speakers:
Nicky Hager - author of the book Secret Power which exposed the secrecy of the GCSB
Keith Locke - who has been spied on by the state since he was 10 years old
Michael Bott - member of the NZ Council for Civil Liberties

The SIS spies on 6700 people

There was much controversy in 2009 when the NZ Security Intelligence Service (SIS) released several personal files of political activists who have been around for decades. It revealed that Green Party MP Keith Locke had and open SIS file until 2006. He was elected to parliament in 1999 and was spied on since he was a young boy delivering Communist Party newspapers in Christchurch.

In June 2010, Prime Minister John Key released a follow-up report from the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Mr Neazor, about personal files and other records held by the SIS. Key ordered a review last year on files kept on MPs and about collecting, retaining and destroying personal records. It comes as no surprise that Neazor “is satisfied with current and proposed practices.”

Surveillance of Activists – Amateur and Dangerous

"...we came across a poster a few years ago. The poster contained about 50 photos of activists  ...  At the bottom of the poster is a caption reading “If you have any information on any of the mentioned Activists/Protesters, then forward all details through to Detective Mike Cartwright, Harlech House, 482 Great South Road ”. ...  Despite being 16 at the time and having no convictions then or since I was included on the poster. Many of the other people on the poster had never been to an animal rights demo and were shocked to see themselves on it...."

Rob Gilchrist - police informant for 'anti-terror' unit

Rob Gilchrist, a Christchurch-based man has spied on activist groups for more than 10 years. He worked for the NZ Police and was sending information to Detective Peter Gilroy and Detective Sergeant John Sjoberg. They are both members of the Special Investigation Group (SIG).

The SIG has groups in Auckland (headed by Aaron Lee Pascoe), Wellington (headed by Brian Woodcock) and Christchurch (where Gilroy and Sjoberg are based). Gilchrist, also know as balaclava, was spying on various groups including the Save Happy Valley Coalition, Peace Action Wellington, Auckland Animal Action and many other groups and individuals.

Police spies caught in the act.

On Tuesday 16th September, 2008, as an October 15 Solidarity meeting was winding up at Oblong/Freedom shop, attendants were alerted to the presence of half a dozen suspected plain-clothes police positioned outside in Left Bank pedestrian mall. One was noticed pacing back and forth past the front door, looking in on the meeting.