“Top MP spied upon”
The Press report:
The Security Intelligence Service (SIS) tracked MPs as recently as 2006.
The Press understands details will emerge tomorrow about a high-profile politician who still sits in Parliament and has finally received his file from the SIS.
The MP was tracked for at least seven years.
I very much doubt it was a top MP. That implies a Minister or Leader.
I’ll be very surprised if it isn’t a Green MP, probably Keith Locke.
It is no surpise that the SIS used to track Locke. He supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, amongst other things. Having said that, I would generally expect tracking to stop if someone is an MP.
There is a certain irony that Helen Clark has the SIS spying on Green Patry MPs, if my guess is correct. I can’t imagine the SIS would track an MP without approval from their Minister. The Minister can’t instruct the SIS to track an MP, but could I imagine say it is inappropriate unless there is a clear direct threat to security.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:07 am
The SIS works directly for and answers only to the PM.
Work it out for yourself.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:10 am
Isn’t John Key a known associate of Tame Iti?
February 7th, 2009 at 11:15 am
Hey Johns not an Uruwera pig hunter pal!
He may help out when they’re busy but hes not a member.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I cant understand how Keith Locke is still allowed to be a member of parliament, he is the most racist, bigoted, hateful politician New Zealand has ever produced, his hate for the USA is beyond belief.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:54 am
I was thinking it might be Hone Harawira.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Update Report (Confidential): Surveillance target, “Mr Wrong About Cambodia”, observed opening mouth, and being wrong about something else. No change. PS: This assignment is getting very boring. Can we be assigned to Winston, instead?
Report ends….
February 7th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Russel Norman?
February 7th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Sue Bradford, Keith Locke, Russel Norman… all worthy of the SIS keeping an eye on. Anyone sympathetic to the Urewera militants is under suspicion of undermining NZ democracy.
February 7th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Code Word, Operation Watermelon?
February 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Murray
Given that the SIS answer only to the PM then the person who they were watching must have been someone who had the capability of doing the unthinkable…. Gain more votes than Labour and democratically win the election without cheating and theft of tax payers money…. Ummm, I just can’t think who that could have been…
February 7th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Hmm…Clark was the head of the SIS…
I wonder if the “top MP” was Don Brash, we never did find out how Hager came into possession of the emails did we.
February 7th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
I spy with my little eye Aunty Helen pulling the strings of the SIS puppets.
February 7th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Burt I have housepalnts that could have beaten Helen.
“Its all about trust”. That still makes me giggle.
February 7th, 2009 at 1:29 pm
It isn’t Brash because the HVT, err, HRMP is still sitting in Parliament. Keith Locke was reported as having an SIS dossier based on his activities (when the original story came out he refused to comment because he hadn’t yet read it) but my understanding is that that was closed around the same time as his sister’s, which was sometime in the 1980s. This person was still being monitored as of 2006 which is astonishingly late. The only other person that I could think of is Nandor Tanczos for his activities in attacking crop and field GE experiments (after all the SIS fingered chinese for trying to smuggle apple saplings out of the country) but he isn’t an MP.
February 7th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
MPs need even closer scrutiny by national security than do ordinary citizens.
Apart from Red Keith Locke, the racial re-engineering of NZ means we will eventually have Korean, Chinese, and probably Middle Eastern MPs.
We need to know that there is no chance of a North Korean “sleeper”, an agent of the PLA, or an Osama sympathiser gets into or stays in the House of Representatives.
February 7th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Sounds like another Nicky Hager article in the SST tomorrow.
The article says it’s a “he”, was an MP in 2006 and now. There are 56 MPs that qualify under that criteria – Russel Norman was not an MP in 2006, nor were any of the current male Green MPs except Keith Locke.
“The MP was tracked for at least seven years” – Keith Locke would have been tracked for 40+ years, and will not be a surprise. If the article said decades I would go with Locke.
I’m thinking Hone Harawira or Pita Sharples
[DPF: I read the tracked for seven years as meaning seven years as an MP - ie from 1999 to 2006. And who entered Parliament in 1999? Keith Locke. But I may be wrong]
February 7th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Benson-Pope?
February 7th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
[DPF: I read the tracked for seven years as meaning seven years as an MP - ie from 1999 to 2006. And who entered Parliament in 1999? Keith Locke. But I may be wrong]
Ahh Jesus DPF, did you have to remind us that Locke has been sucking from the public tit for ten years now?
To think we have paid that complete waste of space in excess of one million dollars over that same time frame just ruins an otherwise great day.
February 7th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
The SIS wouldn’t be doing their job if they weren’t keeping tabs on Green MP’s. The fact he’s an MP makes him even more of a threat to our security arrangements
February 7th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
big bruv,,
Don’t know what to say but give you my condolenses
Least you know you’re not alone.
and remember
Green is the meaning of mean no more!
February 7th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
wiki
No worries, I went outside and took the dogs for a walk (all four) and now the world is a great place again.
When I do get a little down I just think back to that magical night November 8th, the image of a sour faced Helen Clark conceding defeat and jumping ship always makes me feel good.
February 7th, 2009 at 8:54 pm
That Rodney! Whats he done now?
February 7th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
This strikes me as an unnecessary waste of scarce intel resources that could be directed elsewhere–say, counter-intelligence on PRC espionage in NZ and WestPac. If it was Keith, it is not only his past activities but the Zaoui case that made this an SIS vendetta (since Keith was the only politician who stood up for AZ from the start, and he did so in the face of the Labour attack/smear machine).
John Key needs to ask Warren Tucker some hard questions about the thrust of SIS intel collection, especially its domestic focus given the debacles of recent years. This may yet be another one.
February 7th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
My exclusion of Locke was on the basis that Hager likes to break material not previously known. The article also implies the mystery MP has just received his file since the Locke’s.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:16 am
It certainly wasn’t the chuckle brothers at NZ1.
They were left alone so that they could take bribes for Scampi and Fish Quotas etc.
And they had the protection of the Head of Police and SIS, Helen Elizabeth Clark.
Co-conspiritors in fraud, forgery and accessories after the fact!
February 8th, 2009 at 9:18 am
“He supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, amongst other things.”
So what? If the SIS spied on everyone who supported the invasion of Middle Eastern countries there would be quite a few commenters on this blog being spied on, and quite possibly the author too.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:39 am
“So what?”
Few NZers wanted to see Afghanistan become another Soviet satellite and thereby fall under the rule of anti-democratic totalitarian communists. Locke did. So did you apparently.
February 8th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
What the fuck qualifies Keith Barking Mad Locke as a “top” MP??????
February 8th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
“Few NZers wanted to see Afghanistan become another Soviet satellite and thereby fall under the rule of anti-democratic totalitarian communists. Locke did. So did you apparently.”
Silly me. From what I have read on the history of the country, the Islamic fundamentalists who ousted the Soviets ended up becoming the Taleban, and a few went into al-Qaeda as well. A much friendlier option than the scary Soviet puppet regime. What was I thinking?
February 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
“A much friendlier option than the scary Soviet puppet regime.”
You’ve already made it obvious who you’re cheering for. No need to repeat yourself. (…and you’re not even good at sarcasm.)
February 8th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
The mujahideen who fought the Soviet aligned Afghan Government in the 1970s, then the Soviet forces who came to the aid of the Afghan Govt in 1979 when it looked like they had almost won.
The Taliban are a different grouping who ousted the remnants of the anti-Soviet mujahideen in 1996. The Taliban were originally based in Pakistan and funded by Saudi Arabia, and some elements hardline islamic components of the mujahideen defecting to the Taliban. Al-Qaeda and UBL were mainly based in Sudan from the early 1990s until the Taliban took over in Afghanistan.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
“You’ve already made it obvious who you’re cheering for. No need to repeat yourself. (…and you’re not even good at sarcasm.)”
It’s simple. The puppet regime was fighting the Islamic fundamentalists, of which Osama bin Laden was one. If you support the fundys and are glad they won, just say so. Stop beating around the bush.
February 8th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
“What the fuck qualifies Keith Barking Mad Locke as a “top” MP??????”
quote of the week