Kiwiblog

In the SST, a story from Nicky Hager had the headline:

NZ’s cyber spies win new powers

Like many, I wondered what law change had been quietly passed into law in late 2009, without us noticing.

NEW CYBER-MONITORING measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service (SIS) officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone’s online life.

The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.

Oh my God. When did this happen? Actually back in 2004. Not exactly new.

And it is not giving the SIS and Police the power to monitor themselves – it gave them the power to get a warrant to get a telco or ISP intercept communications – just as they have had the power for many decades to get a warrant to have phone calls intercepted.

Now this doesn’t mean I necessarily support the 2004 law change. I’ve blogged a series of articles highlighting draconian provisions in the Search and Surveillance Bill before Parliament. Nicky’s article would have been more useful however in 2004, than in 2010.

Police and SIS must still obtain an interception warrant naming a person or place they want to monitor but, compared to the phone taps of the past, a single warrant now covers phone, email and all internet activity. It can even monitor a person’s location by detecting their mobile phone; all of this occurring almost instantaneously.

Police say in the year to June 2009, there were 68 interception warrant applications granted and 157 people prosecuted as a result of those interceptions.

What would be interesting is the details of those 68 warrants – were they for all Internet activity, or just some?

The measures are the consequence of a law, the 2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act, which gave internet and network companies until last year to install devices allowing automated access to internet and cellphone data.

Telecom, Vodafone and TelstraClear had earlier 2005 deadlines, and new cellphone provider 2degrees installed the interception equipment before launching last year.

So these “new” powers have actually been in place for four to five years, for 95% of the Internet population.

In an associated article, Hager says:

Not long ago, police and Security Intelligence Service (SIS) interception meant tapping your landline phone or bugging your kitchen. Now, under a new surveillance regime ushered in by the 2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act, a basic interception warrant also allows them access to all your emails, internet browsing, online shopping or dating, calls, texts and location for mobile phones, and much more – all delivered almost instantaneously to the surveillance agencies.

To catch other sorts of communications, including people using overseas-based email or other services, all the local communications networks are wired up as well, to monitor messages en route overseas.

Interception equipment built permanently into every segment of the country’s communications architecture will provide the sort of pervasive spying capability we normally associate with police states.

Now Hager is right in that all telcos and ISPs have to have the capability to intercept all Internet communications by a user, if presented with a warrant. However what is not made clear in the article is that the ISPs themselves do the intercepting, and forward the data onto the appropriate authority. The article almost implies that the Police/SIS/GCSB can merely push a switch remotely, and hey presto your data flows to them.

The law gave network companies five years to install the intercept capabilities and the five years was up last year. Many network companies dragged their feet about installing the new surveillance equipment, despite government subsidy of the cost. After four years of inactivity, a consultant with police and SIS ties attended the NZ Network Operators Group conference in Dunedin last year to read them the riot act.

Dean Pemberton, who had previously set up and run “lawful interception” equipment at TelstraClear, told the roomful of network specialists what “the agencies” expected from them and said the agencies expected them to install devices that could intercept data and forward it to the agencies “on a minute by minute basis”. If companies didn’t have this gear in place, they risked a $500,000 fine and “should get a lawyer”, he said.

This part of the article is rather misleading, and I can speak from first hand knowledge as I was at that conference when Dean spoke.

The first thing people should understand is that Dean is what I call an alpha geek He is one of the guys who built the Internet in New Zealand and he attends and presents almost every year without fail to the NZNOG Conference.

In 2008 he spoke of his experiences with the Interception Act requirements, and what you had to do to comply. I doubt a single person in the room saw this as Dean “laying down the law”, let alone the implication he was speaking on behalf of the SIS or Police. Dean was doing what he normally does – sharing his experiences with the technical community.

There’s some good research in Nicky’s article about how the FBI were a prime mover in the request for NZ to have the interception capability, and it is true many NZers will be unaware of the interception capability. However the article would have been a lot more useful in 2004 when the law was being considered, or in 2005 when the big telcos implemented it.

Next I await a story about how the Post Office has been given new powers to intercept and read postcards

You simply ask universities to let the SIS know if they think any of their students are constructing them.

No, I am not kidding. The Press reports:

New Zealand’s spy agency, the Security Intelligence Service (SIS), wants universities to alert the SIS to any illicit science relating to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

SIS director Dr Warren Tucker met the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (NZVCC) and sent university managers a letter and a brochure called A Guide to Weapons of Mass Destruction: Your Role in Preventing Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Well that makes me sleep better at night.

Today’s Herald headline is “Goff reveals role of spies in war zone“:

Labour leader Phil Goff has revealed the spies the Government has secretly been sending to the war in Afghanistan are used to alert New Zealand troops to potential threats. …

Mr Goff, a former Minister of Defence and Foreign Affairs when Labour sent the spies, said: “You would expect New Zealand, if it has troops on the ground as it has in the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamiyan to want to be alerted to any potential threat that might exist for them.”

His comments are reported without any criticism. Now compare that to this story from October 2007, also from the Herald headline “Key’s gaffe reveals spies role“:

National Party leader John Key last night tried to defend himself over an embarrassing gaffe in which he revealed that he had a Security Intelligence Service briefing ahead of this week’s dramatic police raids. …

But last night Mr Key insisted he had not breached any long-standing protocols in revealing that he had been briefed by the SIS.

So I a a bit confused that when John Key as Opposition Leader comments that the SIS briefed him on a domestic issue, this is headlined a “gaffe” and “embarrassing” while Phil Goff commenting on what the SIS or GCSB are doing in Afghanistan doesn’t attract any negative comment at all from the Herald?

I should make it clear that I don’t regard the comments of either Key in 2007 or Goff in 2009 as a massive issue, but I am puzzled by the significant disparity in how they were reported.

I am a keen recipient of the trans-tasman newsletter. You often read material in there not reported elsewhere. A great example of this is quoted in this week’s newsletter:

Excitement in the media about the Govt undertaking a review of NZ’s intelligence services scaled considerable heights this week. A Treasury official dropped a notebook in the street near Parliament, which contained some details about the review being carried out by former MFAT chief Simon Murdoch. The notebook was retrieved by a Radio NZ political journalist, and initial news reports sent competing media into a frenzy. However John Key deflated the excitement when he told journalists the review had been twice reported earlier in Trans-Tasman. The first, inthe July 2 issue, said a review was being planned of the agencies, and the second on July 16 indicated Murdoch would carry out the review.

So while still highly embarrassing for the Treasury staffer who lost the notebook, there was not actual revealing of anything not already in the public domain.

The newsletter also notes:

We have noted before Labour’s viscerally venomous attitude towards National Ministers Paula Bennett and Anne Tolley. This goes way beyond the normal tensions of political conflict. Labour MPs – especially their women MPs – appear to find the very existence of Bennett and Education Minister Tolley infuriating. You can almost see the wall of red mist descending over Labour’s front bench every time those two Ministers get up to speak. …

The attitude is actually an odd kind of snobbery. There is an unspoken “how DARE you?!” from Labour’s front bench towards Bennett and Tolley. It is a rage these women, who in Labour’s eyes should be, firstly, on a benefit themselves somewhere and, secondly, loyally supporting Labour as a consequence.

I recommend people tune into question time to see what the newsletter describes.

NZPA report:

Staff from a radio station have found notes handwritten by a senior government servant suggesting a merger of New Zealand’s two state intelligence services.

Radio New Zealand reported finding the notes on the street, with the merger one of three options to be considered in a review of the sector.

The State Services Commission confirmed former Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Simon Murdoch, was to consider ways for the security services to work more effectively.

I doubt the services will be impressed by such notes being left lying about.

Not sure what the pros and cons of merging the SIS and GCSB would be. The SIS have greater protection under the law. It is illegal to name any staff member except the Director. The GCSB does not have the same protection.

The review might extend beyond the SIS and GCSB of course. There is also the External Assessments Bureau in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and the co-ordinating role of DPMC’s Domestic and External Security Group.

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.

Pablo at Kiwipolitico looks at how the change of Government may impact the SIS:

The new Parliamentary Intelligence and Oversight Committee has been announced, and it has the potential to be a milestone for intelligence oversight in NZ. Tariana Turia and Rodney Hide were appointed by John Key (who chairs the committee), and Russell Norman was chosen by Phil Goff (who also serves on the committee). Turia and Norman lead parties that have had their members spied on by the SIS or Police, and Hide has opposed on libertarian grounds the expansion of security based constraints on civil liberties (he opposed passing of the Terrorism Suppression Act, among other things). Thus three out of the five new members have been critical of the intelligence services, which is in stark contrast to previous members during the Fifth Labour government. Although the possibility of their being coopted cannot  be discounted, there is an equal if not greater possibility that their appointment signals a shared belief by Mr. Key and Mr. Goff that the time has come for a review of the way intelligence operations are conducted in NZ.

Interestingly while Goff nominated Norman, John Key had to approve the nomination in advance. So there does appear to a deliberate decision to do things differently to under Helen.

Lets hope so. There are already signs that moves in that direction are afoot–Mr. Key’s request of the SIS Inspector General to report to him on the domestic spying programme and SIS Director-General Warren Tucker’s apparent commitment to more transparency being two examples.

It is almost unprecedented to have the PM intervene on behalf of a political opponent of his, and order a review of the SIS’s actions in relation to that person. The outcome of the inquiry will be interesting.

As 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.

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.

The Press reports that the SIS has released files on individuals whom they no longer monitor. They should be commended for such openness – this seems an initiative of new Director Warren Tucker who is well regarded.

Obviously various current or former Marxists, communists and Maoists are upset about the fact their files reveal the SIS were monitoring them.

But the reality is the world today is very different to the 1970s and 1980s. The western world was, to be blunt, engaged in a massive struggle with the Soviet Union for global control. They communist states were enemies of freedom and the West, and posed a huge threat to our way of life.

And these people who were monitored were active in groups that were on the side of the communist totalitarian states, not our side. They won’t put it like that, but that was the reality. They never ever condemned the communist states – in fact they did friendship visits there and extolled how good they are.

Luckily the Soviet empire collapsed in 1990. We now have the wonderful luxury of having mainly put that threat between us. Today a communist is just a hardline economic socialist. The only threat they pose is to good economic policy, and that is not a matter of national security. It is appropriate the SIS no longer regards people active in communist groups as people who should be monitored.

But again it was different before the collapse of the Soviet Union. It wasn’t just about disagreeing on economic policy.

Now this is not to give carte blanch to everything the SIS did. Some of the revelations don’t put them in a good light and they themselves today probably don’t defend certain things. Again it is to their credit they they are releasing it. But just to make the case that the context in the 70s and 80s was vastly different to today. Unless you lived through it, you can’t no how much the world changed after that glorious summer where totalitarian communist states fell one after another until they were almost all gone.

It has been interesting to see the debate on whether or not Bill Sutch was a spy for the Soviet Union. I amgoing to ouch on that, but think that debate misses some crucial issues.

On the issue of whether or not he was a spy, I of course don’t know. The verdict of not guilty appears to be the correct one on the basis it was not proven beyond reasonable doubt. If one was deciding on balance of probabilities, it would possibly be a different outcome (especially as he lied denying there were any meetings and then claimed they were al to discuss Zionism!), but for criminal issues the test is beyond reasonable doubt so Sutch was not criminally a spy for the Soviet Union – mainly it seems because while there was proof of multiple clandestine meetings – there was no proof about what information was exchanged at them..

However he was an apologist and supporter of a murdering Stalinist regime. That makes him a man of incredible flawed and warped judgement regardless of whether or not he was a spy.

The SIS files on him are worth a read. He once described himself as a “Stalinist” and opposed NZ entry into WWII (the speculation being because of the German-USSR peace treaty) until the USSR became an ally.

Even after Stalin was denounced by Krushchev, Sutch defended Stalin’s actions on the grounds of economic necessity. He also disregarded instructions from the NZ Govt and voted in UN bodies with eastern bloc countries against his own Government’s wishes. He also thought the USSR invasion of Hungary was justified.

The SST reported:

He was considered to be a communist fellow traveller while working for New Zealand at the United Nations in the late 1940s, and drafted three radio talks about eastern Europe “in which he described the Soviets as liberators and generally welcomed communism in Eastern Europe”, the files say.

So as I said, he may or may not have spied for the USSR. But he was a dedicated supporter of it and apologist for it. In my eyes that is like the difference between having worked for the Nazis, or defending what the Nazis did – neither are testaments of good character.

The London School of Economics has confirmed that Mary-Anne Thompson did not gain a PhD from them, as publicly advised in the past, and allegedly claimed to gain employment in 1990 and 1998.

There was a rumour yesterday there was no record of the MA from Victoria either, but VUW have confirmed that degree was conferred.

Mary-Anne was in DPMC and eventually headed its Policy Advisory Group. This would beyond doubt require a top secret security clearance. There may be questions for the SIS about whether such clearances do or should involved checking claims of qualifications etc.