COVID Vaccine Passports: normalising surveillance

Whether we like it or not, it seems that ‘vaccine passports’ are set to become the norm. They are being introduced as a fait accompli by the NZ government and will be in use by the end of 2021.

Currently, most discussion about the passports (and even mandatory record-keeping) has focussed on the question of equity. Criticisms include that mandatory signing-in assumes the majority have android or i-phones and that the problem with the vaccine passport is unequal access to vaccination. This is true: there is a disparity of access to vaccines both within and between countries.

As it could be years, if ever, before access to vaccines are equitable, vaccine passports will ensure travel becomes even more privileged than it was before COVID. Planes will be full of privileged people from privileged countries travelling the world. And some countries will even open their borders to the privileged vaccinated tourist because it’s good for the economy, regardless of the vaccination status of their own population.

However, it is likely that the vaccine passport will not be limited to only international travel. Grant Robertson has said that there is a 'conversation underway' on the use of vaccine passports to access public places and businesses, an idea supported by many, especially those in the hospitality industry.

A vaccine passport becoming a domestic vaccine pass will mean not just dividing the world between privileged international travellers but also the country between privileged people. Domestic vaccine passports could become the key to access both work and social life and, as vaccination rates in this country are not equitable, we will see a new form of discrimination: discrimination based on vaccination status. Researcher Alapasita Teu has pointed out, "It is easy to see us creating a two-tiered society between the vaccinated and unvaccinated." Historically this has been true.

Yellow Fever Vaccination Certificates in the US are said to have helped create and maintain the southern US class system. Society was already sharply defined by race, income and free-status: there were whites, gens de couleur libre (free people of colour) and slaves. However, there were also sub-groups of people who did not have certificates. Only those white non-slaves with immunity certificates could get jobs, have bank loans, or get married and the value of a slave was based on their immunity status. The Vaccination Certificates saw the creation of more underclasses of excluded people. The same will happen here; vaccine passes will create further inequalities and discrimination in already oppressed and undervalued communities.

There are definitely ethical concerns around the use of vaccine passports. And there are also concerns about the practical aspects of the vaccine passport. There are a multitude of questions, including: Will the vaccine passport be limited to use only during the COVID pandemic? Will only vaccine status be stored on it? How will the meta-data be stored? Who will have access to the data? How can we stop it becoming a form of permanent bio-surveillance? 

But there is another deeper discussion about the vaccine passport that needs to be had and that concerns surveillance. This discussion is crucial. Vaccine passports are definitely one step too far on the slippery slope to the normalisation of state surveillance.

Over recent years there has been a huge paradigm shift in our expectation of privacy and surveillance. We have become inured to ubiquitous surveillance. We leave traceable electronic footprints everywhere: think of phone data and eftpos card transactions, or even loyalty cards. Data is the lifeblood and it feels like we give over more data buying a Ticketek ticket than we used to have to give for a passport. A lot of this change is also through (supposedly) freely informed choices: using Facebook, google location, fit-bits and TikTok, and even some activist groups ask people to pre-register attendance at a protest by using an on-line registration form. The introduction of a vaccine passport, though, is at a very different level.

Carrying a vaccine passport around for access to public places and businesses is changing the understandings of privacy. In the long-term it is ensuring more wide-spread acceptance of state surveillance as normal.

With mandatory signing-in and record-keeping already in place for all levels of COVID lockdown and with a vaccine passport on top of that, the government is creating an embedded surveillance system.

It is about now that many people start the mantra of ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ as there is a common belief that mass surveillance is just a passive collection of material with the odd targeted focussing. But surveillance is much more than that. An 18th Century French Minister of Policing, Joseph Fouché, put it well when he said surveillance was needed to maintain control of the population. By watching and observing and noting what is happening in society, surveillance can ensure the ‘preservation of the political regime’ (read The Phantom Terror).

Carrying around a vaccine passport will enable more widespread surveillance, and the result is likely to be a chilling effect on civil liberties.

The COVID pandemic is an ‘extraordinary time’ but the introduction of a domestic vaccine passport is equally extraordinary. The decision to introduce vaccine passes cannot be narrowed down to the immediate choice between surviving COVID and ‘the return to normal’ in our daily lives versus the future long-term ramifications of normalising state surveillance. Practices and laws put in place during extraordinary times do cause dramatic changes in society.

Vaccine passports are complicated and dangerous, they cannot be introduced as a fait accompli.

COVID Mandatory Scanning and Signing-in - A Game Changer

Scanning and signing-in is to become mandatory. The government has announced that seven days after this latest lockdown ends mandatory record keeping will be required at all alert levels for ‘busy places and events’.

The fear of COVID is real and we do need to protect ourselves from the virus, but we also need to look at the costs and long-term effects of practices and procedures introduced to assist in controlling outbreaks of COVID.

Making scanning or signing-in mandatory is a major change in our social behaviour and will have long-term ramifications. Mandatory signing-in is definitely on the slippery slope to normalising state surveillance.

Think Carefully About Any COVID-19 Tracing App

As one of the tools to fight COVID-19 the NZ government has promised that there will be a contact tracing app available by mid-May. The first iteration they have said, will be in the form of an on-line sign-up form, and could be out by 11th May.

But there has been minimal discussion about the pros and cons of COVID-19 apps. Rather, our fear of the virus and its effect on our world has meant that most people are unquestioningly accepting the necessity of using apps to keep the spread of the virus under control.

However, we need to break away from the fear factor and consider the long-term societal results of any COVID-19 apps. We need to consider possible consequences weighed up against any benefits. We need to not only question the short-term need for contact tracing but think of their long-term use and effect. We need to look at what we are being asked to give up.

Decisions made today about any tracing or tracking apps will have huge implications for our futures.

COVID-19: Tracking and Tracing Apps in NZ

Desperate to stop the spread of COVID-19 and to get the economy going again, the NZ government announced at the end of lockdown level 4 that they will introduce a tracing app within two weeks. That means there will be some type of an app by 11 May (unless they change their mind). The first iteration they have said, will be to just register your contact details with the Ministry of Health.

Covid 19 coronavirus: NZ's own tracing app on way....NZ Herald, 27 April 2020

Little more is known about what the government is planning, so OASIS has gathered together an overview of some of the types of contact tracing and tracking apps that have come to light in the media.

The Aim of Contact Tracing

The aim of a contact tracing app is to be able to alert anyone who has been in contact with an infected person and warn them to isolate themselves. It is not a system that warns anyone of the presence of a person who is infected (as a recent article on Stuff claimed).

"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

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.)