Key orders SIS to exempt MPs from spying
The Herald reports:
Prime Minister John Key has asked the Security Intelligence Service to put on ice any active files it has on MPs after a report found they should be treated as a special case. …
Mr Key said he had written to SIS head Warren Tucker “inviting” him to take up the recommendations. He had also asked the Speaker to begin considering it and would ask Justice Neazor to do a follow-up report in about six months.
It is worth remembering that John Key could have done what his predeccesors normally did, and just say “I don’t comment on security issues”. Instead he ordered the Inspector-General to do a review, and is ensuring a change of policy.
Recommendations are:
- “Deactivate” files of any person who becomes an MP.
- Require the SIS to get Speaker’s permission to put any MP under surveillance.
- SIS must show good grounds for believing the MP is involved in activities which endanger security.
- Limit the information the SIS can keep on any other person’s dealings with an MP.
All looks sensible.