Spying on ourselves - spying and surveillance in New Zealand

There have been more revelations today about New Zealand's GCSB assisting the NSA with spying - this time with China.

NEW ZEALAND PLOTTED HACK ON CHINA WITH NSA

Ryan Gallagher and Nicky Hager

the Intercept

18 April, 2015

New Zealand spies teamed with National Security Agency hackers to break into a data link in the country’s largest city, Auckland, as part of a secret plan to eavesdrop on Chinese diplomats, documents reveal.

The covert operation, reported Saturday by New Zealand’s Herald on Sundayin collaboration with The Intercept, highlights the contrast between New Zealand’s public and secret approaches to its relationship with China, its largest and most important trading partner.

The hacking project suggests that New Zealand’s electronic surveillance agency, Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB, may have violated international treaties that prohibit the interception of diplomatic communications.

New Zealand has signed both the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, international treaties that protect the “inviolability” of diplomatic correspondance. The country’s prime minister, John Key, said in a recent speech on security that New Zealand had an obligation to support the rule of law internationally, and was “known for its integrity, reliability and independence.”

Last year, Key said that New Zealand’s relationship with China, worth an estimated $15 billion in annual two-way trade, had “never been stronger.” The relationship was not just about “purely trading,” he said, “it is so much broader and much deeper than that.”

In 2013, Key described a meeting with top Chinese officials in Beijing as “extremely warm” and told of how he was viewed as a “real friend” by the country’s premier, Li Keqiang.

At the same time, as minister in charge of the GCSB, Key was overseeing spying against China – which included the top-secret planned operation in Auckland, aimed at the Chinese consulate.

The hacking project is outlined in documents obtained by The Interceptfrom NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

A secret report called “NSA activities in progress 2013,” includes an item titled “New Zealand: Joint effort to exploit Chinese MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] link.” The operation, according to another NSA document, had “identified an MFA data link between the Chinese consulate and Chinese Visa Office in Auckland,” two buildings about a five-minute walk apart on the city’s busy Great South Road.

The document added that the New Zealand agency was “providing additional technical data” on the data link to the NSA’s Tailored Access Operations, a powerful unit that hacks into computer systems and networks to intercept communications. The agencies had “verbally agreed to move forward with a cooperative passive and active effort against this link,” it said.

Passive surveillance refers to a method of eavesdropping on communications that intercepts them as they are flowing over Internet cables, between satellites, or across phone networks. Active surveillance is a more aggressive tactic that involves hacking into computers; in the case of the Auckland operation, active surveillance could have involved planting spyware in the Chinese government computers or routers connected via the consulate data link.

The documents do not reveal whether the operation was successfully completed, due to the timeframe that the records cover. In May 2013, Snowden left his Hawaii-based intelligence job and flew to Hong Kong carrying the cache of secret files. In April 2013, shortly before Snowden’s departure, “formal coordination” on the hacking plan had begun between the NSA and its New Zealand counterpart, according to the documents.

More New Zealand operations targeting China appear to have been ongoing at that time. In another April 2013 NSA document describing the agency’s relationship with New Zealand spies, under the heading “What partner provides to NSA,” the first item on the list is “collection on China.” New Zealand’s GCSB surveillance agency “continues to be especially helpful in its ability to provide NSA ready access to areas and countries that are difficult for the United States to access,” the report said.

China intelligence is handled inside the New Zealand agency by a special section that focuses on economic analysis. According to sources with knowledge of the agency’s operations, its economic section, known as the “IBE,” specialised in Japanese diplomatic communications from 1981 until the late 2000s. In recent years its focus has shifted to intercepted Chinese communications, the sources say.

In response to the revelations, a spokesman for the Chinese Embassy in New Zealand told the Herald on Sunday that the country was “concerned” about the spying. “We attach great importance to the cyber security issue,” the spokesman said, adding that “China proposes to settle disputes through dialogue and formulate codes to regulate cyber space behaviors that are acceptable to all sides.”

China itself is known to be a major perpetrator of espionage on the global stage, and it has been repeatedly accused by the U.S. government of hacking into American computer networks. Last year, China was linked to an apparent intelligence-gathering hack on a powerful New Zealand supercomputer used to conduct weather and climate research.

But the Snowden documents have shown that countries in the so-called “Five Eyes” surveillance alliance – which includes New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia – are also heavily involved in conducting aggressive spying and hacking operations across the world.

Previous revelations have detailed how agencies in the alliance have hacked law-abiding companies, foreign government computers, and designed technology to attack and destroy infrastructure using cyberwar techniques. Last year, The Intercept revealed how the NSA had developed the capability to deploy millions of malware “implants” to infect computers and steal data on a large scale.

The NSA, the GCSB and the New Zealand prime minister’s office each declined to answer questions about this story.

GCSB’s acting director, Una Jagose, said in an emailed statement that the agency “exists to protect New Zealand and New Zealanders.” She added: “We have a foreign intelligence mandate. We don’t comment on speculation about matters that may or may not be operational. Everything we do is explicitly authorised and subject to independent oversight.”

Here is the parallel article from the NZ Herald

Leaked papers reveal NZ plan to spy on China for US

The government is using ISIS to up the terrorist alert in the country (while 'not exaggerating the threat).  This Radio New Zealand report discusses the likelihood of an attack in New Zealand but skirts round the issue of using the situation to counter internal dissent

How real is the terrorist threat to NZ?

Radio NZ

19 April, 2015

Originally aired on Insight, Sunday 19 April 2015

Brent Edwards, Political Editor - Brent.Edwards@radionz.co.nz

Rebecca Kitteridge is a worried woman.

Since Ms Kitteridge took on the job as director of the Security Intelligence Service 11 months ago, she tells Insight, the threat of a terrorist attack in New Zealand has risen.

Last year she reported the SIS had a watch-list of 30 to 40 people it was monitoring closely.

In typical spy speak she now says the people under watch has increased to the high end of that range, not the low end. Some are considering terrorist action in this country.

But Rebecca Kitteridge does not want to exaggerate the threat.

She says people can still go to the supermarket without worrying about the prospect of being caught up in a terrorist attack.

Ms Kitteridge says it is her job to worry so the public do not have to.

What mainly worries her is the influence of Islamic State, as it uses social media to reach out to disaffected people in the West to not just travel to Syria and Iraq to fight, but to also carry out attacks in their own countries.

"I think it's the first time that we've seen a terrorist organisation actively trying to recruit people to commit attacks internationally and that is the difference from what we see now to what we have seen before.

"So there is an active effort to recruit anybody who might be susceptible to this kind of propaganda to and to give them information on how to commit attacks too."

Islamic State uses a professionally designed and produced magazine Dabiq to get its message across.

But how serious is the threat and is anyone in the Muslim community taking note of the propaganda?

Young Muslims say they are not aware of Islamic State's social media campaign getting any traction in New Zealand.

Tayyaba Khan is the chief executive of the Change Makers Refugees Forum in Wellington.

"I know for a fact that through my work and through the work that I do with different organisations within the Muslim community, we are not aware of any such social media interaction that can be seen as threatening or concerning," Ms Khan says.

Auckland blogger Latifa Daud agrees.

"No, actually, I haven't seen anything."

Ms Daud says she has not heard anyone talking about Dabiq.

Both she and Ms Khan worry that the focus on Islamic State has made the Muslim community in New Zealand a target.

Ms Ketteridge says she has been very careful to avoid that.

"The fact that there is a very tiny group who might be categorised as Muslim... I think the most important thing to think about with these people is not what is their religion but what are they doing.

"What behaviours are they exhibiting that means that they may be a terrorist risk to this country?" she says.

Ms Khan says while the Muslim communities themselves are peaceful, there might be one or two individuals attracted by Islamic State's propaganda.

"We are extremely concerned about those who might be likely to be affected by this recruitment process and like I said I think we want to get involved because who better to get involved in changing things than the Muslim community themselves."

The SIS has been given greater powers to monitor people, particularly by being able to conduct urgent video surveillance before a warrant is issued.

Those changes were rushed through Parliament late last year, prompting widespread concern from Muslims who felt they were not consulted over powers they believe are directly aimed at them.

Ms Kitteridge says the new powers, plus extra money for the SIS to expand its activities, have helped.

But will those new powers and sending troops to Iraq make New Zealanders safer as they go about their daily business?

One security contractor, who wishes to remain anonymous, believes it is only a matter of time before there is a terrorist incident in this country.

He is appalled by security at public venues, particularly airports.

He says the main threat will come from a so-called lone wolf attack, not from some planned and coordinated terrorist plot.

No one can discount an incident of that nature, including Otago University lecturer Najibullah Lafraie, a former foreign minister for Afghanistan.

"That kind of incident, isolated but nonetheless affecting someone and then ISIS trying to find it and influence so that's possible. Hopefully that's not there but, as I said, we cannot rule it out."

But Professor Ramesh Thakur from the Australian National University says people have to keep the threat in perspective, and made reference to the 2008 terrorist attacks in India when 10 gunmen belonging to the Islamist  terror group, Lashker-e-Taiba, carried out a three-day rampage in Mumbai’s main railway station, five-star hotels and a cafe killing more than 160 people.

"Think of the attention that was given to the terrorist attack on Mumbai. Of course it was a serious incident. But, as I said, in terms of people who are killed on the roads in India and in India it is pedestrians and cyclists who are killed much more than people in the cars, or any other way you look at it, in terms of the real threats to people's safety and security terrorism should rank way down in the sale."

A fire blazes at the Taj Mahal Hotel on 29 November 2008 - one of several sites attacked that month in Mumbai. - Photo: AFP

He says Western governments have exaggerated the threat of terrorism to justify giving their spy agencies stronger powers and to win public support for military intervention in the Middle East.

Ms Ketteridge says she has no interest in exaggerating the threat.

She says her job is to worry about the unthinkable so ordinary New Zealanders do not have to worry when they visit the shopping mall.

This program was aired a week ago , featuring Keith Locke of the Green Party who was spied on from the age of 11( for most of his adult life),  and a former SIS spy.

Spying on ourselves - A panel discussion

A couple of weeks back we took a look at the ethics of spying on your friends and neighbours, today we're exploring the ethics of spying on ourselves. Keith Locke is a former Green MP whose SIS file revealed that he had been under surveillance since he was 11 years old and attended a William Morris social evening; Rhys Ball is a former SIS intelligence officer turned Massey University academic; and Kathleen Kuehn is a Victoria University media studies lecturer and author of a forthcoming BWB text on surveillance in New Zealand.

And here is a story about the outing of a police spy