SIS and Locke
February 8th, 2009 at 5:34 am by David FarrarAs I predicted yesterday, the “top” MP spied on by the SIS is Keith Locke.
Helen Clark denies she knew anything about the spying on Locke, despite being Minister of the SIS for the seven years from 1999 to 2006 Locke claims the SIS spied on him.
It is of course no surpise that Locke was once a target of SIS interest:
Locke is the son of prominent environmentalists and Communist Party members Jack and Elsie Locke – they were reportedly described by former Prime Minister Robert Muldoon as the most notorious Communist family in the country.
Some of the 400-plus documents in Locke’s security file date back to when he was 11 years old.
Keith Locke joined the Socialist Action League in 1970. He was too radical for Labour, which tried to expel him in 1974. He joined the Greens and in 1999 he entered Parliament. He campaigned strongly against New Zealand’s imprisonment of Algerian dissident Ahmed Zaoui, which was supported by the SIS.
As I blogged a few days ago, the 70s and 80s were very different to today. the western world was in a struggle with the Societ Union Empire for global domination. Luckily the West won.
On the face of it, the SIS should not have been monitoring Locke once he became an MP, unless there was clear reason to suspect his involvement in something sinister – and if that was the case you would expect the Minister to authorise it.
However there may be a more benign explanation. As far as I can tell, Locke has not released his SIS file. We just have the following to go on:
The declassified file showed that he had previously been covertly photographed, that the SIS had kept track of his private work with constituents and that he had been monitored in other ways as late as 2006. …
Warrants to mount covert surveillance operations, like phone bugging, are overseen by Sir John Jeffries, the Commissioner of Security Warrants.
There are two levels of spying. Interception warrants are only needed when intercepting phone calls, mails, bugging a room etc. This has presumably not happened against Locke since 1999, as Clark would have to had authorise it.
So the alleged post 1999 surveillance has been based on direct observation.
Now I’m not making excuses for the SIS (they themselves say there has been a change of policy on what they monitor), but it is possible that Locke himself has not recently been the target of the SIS, but instead the people he meets with. For example Zaoui? So it might just be that his file was updated whenever he met with Zaoui, just like in the 1980s you would get a file note if you were seen entering the Soviet Embassy.
Tags: Keith Locke, SIS
February 8th, 2009 at 6:22 am
So Helen Clark knew nothing!!
This rings as hollow as her frantic assertion that Shower pressure would never be regulated in NZ, despite it being written into the Building Code Compliance working documents.
For a self confessed control freak, she has a convenient selective memory.
What a desperate liar. She is and remains a compulsive denier of veracity.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 8:09 am
I can’t agree DPF – if you advance causes which are openly hostile to the government (as Locke has done), you reap what you sow
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/02/diddums-1.html
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 8:21 am
from the SST;
“MPs are elected by the people. To have the secret service spying on them is hugely anti-democratic,” said Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.
Locke himself came a distant 4th with only 7% of the epsom electorate vote – what planet is she on?
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 9:01 am
I have no idea why they bothered. I’ve seen packets of sandwiches with more ability than this tosser. Organise a revolution or do some spying? You must be joking. Hes all mouth and this sort of nonsense just gives him undeserved recognition. Like his mate Minto.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Keith Locke is an idiot and the Government is quite right to spy on him. When he comes out with public comments such as ” the NZ Cricket team tour of Zimbabwe is much much worse that sex tours” (he made this comment on the eve of the Cricket Tour to Zinbabwe about 5 years ago) then who knows what else he would do in private.
Would he undermine democracy in search of obtaining his socialist / comunist utopia?
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Did Locke or any of the extreme left organisations he was a part of ever clandestinely receive money from governments hostile to democracy (USSR, China, Cuba, North Korea, Libya)? That’s the question I’d like answered.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 10:17 am
the easy test is to ask yourself, do you feel safer with the knowledge someone is keeping an eye on him? – Personally I do,
Vote:and I have real concerns at any suggestion that sitting MP’s should in some way be above the normal threshold of investigation. Particularly in an MMP environment.
February 8th, 2009 at 10:20 am
can someone run a smear campaign against locke before the next election?
educate some of these idiots that vote green.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Keith Locke is an idiot but he has come from a sinister background. Reember that Jack and Elsie Locke were involved in the SUP and its active collaboration with the USSR. That paradise of freedom and multiparty democracy and encouragement of dissent.
Vote:I believe our SIS should keep an eye on people who have gone beyond reality by endorsing organizations with a shady background.
In parliament Locke represents the fruit cake 0.02 of the population. However, we live in a free country so let him go on but let’s treat him as he is – a fool. However we need to keep an eye on him just like the Germans should have kept an eye on Hitler
February 8th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Your read – that the file was updated as a matter of record when he met with people under surveillance – sounds completely plausible and more likely to be the case than not.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
DPF The SIS has quite correctly been keeping an eye on the equivocal, pavonine Mr Locke.
Who is the “Top MP” they have been watching?
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
Helen knew it… come on guys we all know she is a liar if she denies it. Every PM know the SIS targets. She was briefed all about her idiot coaltion partners.
But, how ironic that Locke is upset about being spied on, considering he supports a comunist state
In his ideal state they get not only spied on, they get sent to the Gulags. Locke is a fucking tripper. Lets send him to the camps! Heh
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
When we do it its called intelligence gathering David, not “spying”.
The SIS don’t need you to excuse them because they acted legally. And at the direction of the PM HEC.
That Locke is squealing like a little bitch is simple hypocrisy, hes the first one to get his festering commie mug in front of a camera when someone else has people dumpster diving through their rubbish.
I for one am pleased that our intelligence agency has kept tabs on this person who is so openly hostile to the western world, democracy and New Zealand.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Locke deserved to be watched, his hatred for anything that represents capitalism and his vileness and cruelness to the USA after 9/11 was sickening, believe me if he had his way, there would be no MMP, just his party ruling.
His support thruout his life of the world’s most evil people is astounding, hes not about peace at all, hes not about justice, hes about putting his warped ideas and making them law with no debate whatsoever.
He would be a very dangerous man, if the Greens ever got 10% of the vote.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Anyone else looking forward to watching the Watchmen when it comes out?
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
“When we do it its called intelligence gathering”
well as he has very little it looks like the job was finished years ago
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Yeah its like digging foundations for house in the middle of the Pacific but they are a government department under clarks direct control so better lower your expectations Patrick.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
I want to know why the SIS stopped monitoring Locke. He is clearly a threat to National Security.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
In venting hatred against Mr. Locke people seem to be missing the forest for the trees. Either the SIS was doing the surreptitious monitoring without the Minister’s knowledge, which would mean that it is acting in a “rogue” manner outside of its charter; OR, the PM, as Minister of Intelligence, knew and authorized the surveillance. Either way, it is not a good look. It implies that the SIS acts in a “political” manner, either autonomously or at the bidding of the PM of the moment. Such politisation is anethema to the spirit of professionalism that should be the hallmark of a intelligence services in a democracy. Coupled with revelations about other politicised “spins” proffered by the SIS in recent times, it suggests something is seriously amiss in that agency.
That worrisome prospect is made more so because, in spite of the vitriol expressed herein, Keith committed no crime, was not charged with anything, and in fact did nothing as an MP that warranted the surveillance. Whatever he was or was not in the past, his activities as an MP suggest nothing to warrant such monitoring. It was therefore an utter waste of time and resources, resources that are scarce and could have been more productively been used elsewhere.
It is clear that the Warren Tucker is taking a calculated risk by releasing declassified files such as those recently mentioned in the media. In doing so he is framing the public context in order to implement a program designed to renovate the institutional culture within the SIS. What he needs is political backing for the institutional purge and revamp from the new government, something that is being signaled by the release of this type of information. That is the real issue.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
DPF “On the face of it, the SIS should not have been monitoring Locke once he became an MP, unless there was clear reason to suspect his involvement in something sinister”
He was (and is) its called the Green Party.
Vote:February 8th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
From New Zeal-
During the early 1980′s Keith Locke’s Socialist Action League was very very close to the pro-Soviet NZ Socialist Unity Party-named incidentally after the then East German ruling party. Keith Locke was at that time effectively a supporter of the Soviet Union and by extension, its client state-Stasi run East Germany.
Oleg Gordievsky, a former high-ranking officer of the Soviet security service, the KGB,-who, from 1974, worked as a long-serving undercover agent for MI6 until his formal defection in 1985–recalled:
“KGB activity in Australasia was … increased as the result of the election of David Lange’s Labour government in New Zealand on an antinuclear programme in 1984…. The [KGB] Centre … was jubilant at Lange’s election….In its attempts to draw New Zealand into nuclear-free activities, the Soviet authorities had made tremendous efforts to penetrate and strengthen the Labour Party, partly through the local Party of Socialist Unity…and partly through the Trades Union Congress.”
Gordievsky alleged that New Zealand communists were being run by International Department of the CPSU. He said:
“I know the situation in New Zealand very well; only 500 members of the Socialist Unity Party, but they are invaluable because each was ready to do something. It was like the KGB had 500 agents in the country…Plus some of them penetrated the trade unions, and then they penetrated the left wing of the NZ Labour Party.”
SUP members studying at Lenin’s Institute For Higher Learning (aka the institute for Social Sciences) in Moscow during the early 1980s were drilled extensively by their Soviet tutors on the advantages that could accrue to the Soviet Union from the election of a Labour Government in New Zealand.
They instructed in the way to bring this about. A time honoured method practised by western communist parties for decades. The trick was to use New Zealand communists to make Soviet designed policies into Labour Party policies and consequently New Zealand law.
Step 1 New Zealand’s anti Nuclear policy’s were formulated in Moscow.
Step 2 SUP members were indoctrinated by their Soviet tutors and sent back to New Zealand to promote anti nuclearism through the peace movement, the unions and their secret members and sympathisers in the Labour Party. SUP members were to cite this “public groundswell” as a reason why Labour should adopt the SUP’s anti nuclear policies.
Step 3 Get the anti Nuclear policies adopted as official Labour Party policy.
Step 4 Keep SUP/union/peace movement pressure on the Labour government to ensure that the policies were passed into law.
Step 5 keep up the propaganda to achieve maximum public acceptance of Moscow’s policies.
http://newzeal.blogspot.com/search?q=locke
Vote:February 9th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Mr Locke is now on his hobby horse about how terrible it is that he’s been ‘spied upon’ especially as he is an MP – and for the last 51 years at that! Playing it for all it’s worth, which is about what was expected.
The MSM will of course be giving his every word and (faux) indignation full coverage – and no-one will be asking ‘Why was the observation-action necessary?’
What is fascinating is the total lack of comment from Goff et al – the silence is deafening – and that no-one in the MSM has yet approached (Dared to approach?) the former Dear Leader for comment- she was after all the OIC at the time the Locke was under ‘observation’ and would have authorised the action. Most curious!
Vote:February 9th, 2009 at 8:49 am
DPF can you give us any reason the SIS should not have and indeed not still be monitoring this man?
Being on the list of an also run non government party is NOT a reason. Locke and I got the same number of votes, none. I’m subject to the law why isn’t he?
He is a paranoid loon with an extremist communist agenda who has shown open hostility to law and order in New Zealand ranging from encourging unlawful acts such as “eco-terroism” to accusing the NZSAS of engaging in torture.
I for one would pay to see him rock up to Willie Apiata and say it to his face.
Vote:February 9th, 2009 at 10:45 am
The MSM continue the Locke barrage as though he has been wronged. Of course Locke with his extremist-left politics and long background of support of far-left regimes deserves to be monitored, and especially as he is an MP with privileges ordinary citizens don’t have. Locke’s record suggests a man who does not support Western democracy. So a Western democracy needs to handle him with care.
The NZ Green Party’s absorption of the SUP and the other far left elements has given these extremists a measure of respectable cachet, at least as far as the MSM are concerned.
What is it with the NZ Greens cosying up to Marxists? Not all Green parties are like this. The BBC News for example has just reported that the Mexican Greens lead the campaign for the return of capital punishment in Mexico, which is suffering a particularly bad spate of lawlessness.
Vote:February 9th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Paul Buchanan at 6.39 yesterday wrote:” … Keith committed no crime, was not charged with anything, and in fact did nothing as an MP that warranted the surveillance. Whatever he was or was not in the past, his activities as an MP suggest nothing to warrant such monitoring It was therefore an utter waste of time and resources, resources that are scarce and could have been more productively been used elsewhere.”
1. It seems odd to suggest that surveillance of a person should stop the moment the person becomes an MP. Why should any surveillance stop because a person wins an electoral seat? Or more especially if a political party (especially a wacko one like the Greens) appoints the person to Parliament as a list member? Is the surveillance based on a person’s occupation or on perceived potential risk to the state?
2. Suspicions of wrong doing based on past behaviour — or likely behaviour based on attitudes, beliefs etc — to most thinking people would be an acceptable ground for surveillance, depending on the level of surveillance of course. Someone in the past who has supported totalitarian states and has been continuously active in NZ politics justifies at least mild caution.
3. “Surveillance” can mean a light watch, rather than spying (the SOED: ” …Watch or guard kept over a person or thing …”). PM Key today suggests the level of surveillance of Locke has been merely adding clippings from the media to his file. Not much of a waste of resources here Paul. Ten minutes every six months?
4. Given that all this information would probably be available online anyway, the SIS watch has obviously been at the lightest possible edge of the definition of “surveillance” if it is surveillance at all. So what’s Locke whingeing about? The obvious conclusion is this is a leftist ploy to paint our Government as undemocratic. That is hypocrisy in Locke’s case given his support for undemocratic regimes in the past (and perhaps the present — what does he think of Cuba?)
Vote:February 9th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
# Paul G. Buchanan (39) 3 6 Says:
It is clear that the …is taking a calculated risk by releasing declassified files …In doing so he is framing the public context in order to implement a program designed to renovate the institutional culture within the SIS. …That is the real issue.
Damn Right Paul!
Locke would have known for 40+ years that the SIS had a file on him.
This current action would not have been sustainable under the informal coalition with Clake etal.
But it is viable now they have nothing to lose with the Blue team.
L oO
Vote:February 9th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
I should have added that it should be no surprise to Locke that parliamentarians are obsevred by the SIS.
The parliamentarians, more than anyone, have the potenial to run afoul of the “constitution.”
Locke should have been pleased at the egalatarian treatment he witnessed from the SIS.
L oO
Vote:February 9th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Thanks for pointing out the great work done by Trevor Loudon on “New Zeal”, Redbaiter.
Unfortunately some of his best stuff that covers Keef Locke, has only been in “Investigate” Magazine articles. The connections between the Greens and Communist organisations and our own Te Aro Te Qaeda, are current. The SIS should keep up its good work.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
This hysteria overlooks the fact that in western countries close to NZ, the security organisation do often monitor politicans – the most recent example being the FBI’s wiretaps of that corrupt Illonois Governor, and also MI5′s monitoring of British MP’s – half the British Labour party were either paid moles for the KGB, or more recently, the Iranian government.
Vote:February 10th, 2009 at 5:52 pm
The SST article noted that Paul Buchanan was mentioned in the Locke files. I assume that is the same Paul G. who is in this thread. Why was he in that file (the SST article just says that he and Locke were jointly bad mouthed in a letter)? Surely the SIS would not start a file on Buchanan because of the Zaoui case or his published criticism of the agency?
Vote: