New Snowden revelations released in New Zealand

Andrea, who had her own personal details leaked is absolutely right on this. The number one problem is APATHY.

Apathy will allow Key and his cronies to get away with what they want.

Silence on surveillance not healthy

Andrea Vance

NEIL BOND

The technology of spying.

Stuff,

8 March, 2015

OPINION: Nicky Hager must wonder why he bothers.

The journalist brought the Snowden documents to New Zealand in the last week, to be met with a collective shrug of shoulders. Maybe you are unmoved at the Government Communications Security Bureau spying on Pacific neighbours. Perhaps you don't care if your emails, texts and Facebook messages are hoovered up and stored in a US data bank. Or that the GCSB is little more than an outpost of the US National Security Agency. But, with a pending significant review and a likely increase in their electronic reach, there are still a few reasons to take the leaked papers seriously.

READ THE FILES IN FULL: GCSB update 2010* GCSB update 2012* Second Party National Identity RulesREAD MORE: * Spying on the family* Satellites are targeted by Waihopai

*Inside the Waihopai domes

1 NO-ONE'S GOT THIS

Yes, yes, spies work in secret. That's as it should be. But to prevent abuse of the immense power offered by bulk data collection, robust oversight mechanisms are crucial. Yet, they barely exist here. Despite recent vague promises to be more open, spy agencies remain in the shadows. More than a year after her appointment - and two years after an overhaul - watchdog Cheryl Gwyn released her first report but says she didn't have enough information to determine if the agencies operate differently after an illegal spying scandal. The responsible parliamentary committee is equally toothless and Chris Finlayson, minister in charge, has dismissed public deliberation over spy legislation as "chit chat."

2 DIRTY POLITICS

In an abuse of power, Prime Minister John Key's staff used information supplied by the Security Intelligence Service in a partisan hit job on then-Opposition leader Phil Goff. Key has also selectively used intelligence to justify a controversial decision to send troops to Iraq and further boost surveillance powers. At the same time, he's refused to make public full details. Governments are perfectly entitled to argue national security as a reason for keeping intelligence secret. But it's dangerous when politicians use sensitive - and partial - snippets of information to push their own agenda. Or bully those they don't agree with.

3 THE APATHY

Key, probably quite correctly, assesses that the public care more about snapper than spying. The initial revelations from the Snowden archives actually galvanised his support. It gives Key the confidence to vilify journalists, like Glenn Greenwald and Hager. That is bolstered when other media outlets slavishly report his pre-emptive strikes, even before scrutinising their investigative work, or the evidence. But the absence of debate about surveillance is not healthy. This is where abuses go unnoticed and thrive. And it's Orwellian when Key shuts down pertinent questions with: you don't understand the detail, and the journalists are wrong.

4 THE CONTRADICTIONS

Despite the Government's regular assurances the GCSB are acting legally, with each set of revelations, come contradictions. Back in September, when asked if bulk data collection tools like XKeyscore were being used on Kiwis, Key said: "We're not collecting wholesale information. We don't have the capability for mass surveillance." The Snowden documents tell a different story: describing how emails, browsing sessions, and chat messages from 150 different locations are harvested through Waihopai, using XKeyscore. Snowden often came across New Zealanders' data while using XKeyscore in his work and Key conceded he might well be right. Whether it came from surveillance by the GCSB was never proven. We can only take Key's word that New Zealanders are not subject to mass surveillance by their own agency - and he promised to resign if it happened. But he's wrong to say the GCSB don't have the tools.

Snowden files: NZ's spying on the family

NICKY HAGER, RYAN GALLAGHER AND ANTHONY HUBBARD

NEIL BOND

Where the spies are.

Stuff,

8 March, 2015

In the Cook Islands they hold New Zealand passports, are eligible for New Zealand social services and New Zealand is responsible for their foreign affairs. 

The same in Niue.

Leaked Edward Snowden documents, published for the first time today, reveal New Zealand is spying on them anyway – despite residents being New Zealanders.

Some of them don't like it.

The people of both these tiny nations are New Zealand citizens, and the GCSB is legally barred from eavesdropping on New Zealand citizens' phone calls and emails except under a warrant.

However, a United States National Security Agency document, which explains GCSB targeting rules to US spies, says: "Note: The governments of Cook Islands and Niue may be targeted, but not their citizens since they are entitled to hold New Zealand passports." 

The exception is made to allow spying on all Cook Island and Niue politicians and public servants, even though they too are New Zealand citizens.

Asked this weekend if the GCSB had changed the rule seen in the NSA document that surveillance of the Cook Islands and Niue governments is permitted, acting GCSB director Una Jagose said: "We do not comment on operational matters.... Everything we do is authorised under legislation and subject to independent oversight."

Veteran Cook Island politician Norman George says the idea of the GCSB snooping on the Cook Islands was as absurd as "sending a spy team to Christchurch or Whangarei". The idea is "more ridiculous than serious", says George, who spent 32 years as a Cook Islands MP and still works as a lawyer in Rarotonga.

Cook Islanders were New Zealand citizens and were not just brothers of the Kiwis "but more like twins, because in all the wars New Zealand has been involved with, we have been involved", he said.

"There are no terrorists in the Cook Islands. We are peaceloving Christians – to spy on us is....frankly, bad manners." 

Cook Island Opposition leader William Heather was shocked and disappointed to learn that the GCSB spied on the Cooks. Why, he asked, would New Zealand "spy on the family?"