Showing posts with label NZIIP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NZIIP. Show all posts

Thursday, July 16, 2015

A Quick Look at Some Spying 'gone wrong'


At the annual NZIIP conference on Wednesday 15th July, the Privacy Commissioner said “... we've really only in the last 40 years had public scrutiny of things where things go really wrong, so the average view that people in the public have is of the examples such as Ahmed Zaoui, Aziz Choudry, such as Kim Dotcom, where the agencies have been seen to have been in breach of the law.”

It was good to hear that John Edwards acknowledged those three cases as examples of 'where things really go wrong' in New Zealand's security intelligence. But he needs to do his homework and read some history. The three cases listed may have 'gone really wrong' but there are others. 

New Zealand has a long history of things going wrong and laws been breached. Even the very beginnings of official state intelligence was mired in controversy.

The first official intelligence agency was the Security Intelligence Bureau, it kicked off in 1941 with the arrival of Major Folkes, a British MI-5 agent who only three years earlier had been working in real estate. Folkes was duped by a con-man named Sidney Ross. On release from Waikeria prison, Ross travelled directly to Wellington and spun tales of plotters and saboteurs in Rotorua planning to overthrow the government and kill the prime minister. For three months he was believed before finally been uncovered; he was never charged in relation to the deception and Folkes was fired and sent back to Britain. The tale only came to light when Ross appeared in court at a later date on an unrelated charge of safe-breaking. Ross told the judge the story and it became public.

Peter Fraser, PM at the time, when questioned in the House about the débâcle came out with the classic line “It is not advisable in the public interest to discuss publicly the question of the means adopted to ensure public security.” A statement very similar to that trotted out by modern PMs.

After Folkes left Wellington, the SIB was effectively taken over by the police but was reconstructed in the late 1940s after visits again by the MI-5 and then finally in 1956 the SIS was established. In 1969 the first NZSIS Act was passed.

But even when the SIS became legal there continued to be 'things that really go wrong'. The first director, Brigadier Gilbert, had to pay damages to an Auckland barrister for identifying him as a communist in a 1962 speech entitled 'Communist Cancer in our Society'. The barrister was not a communist but an anti-nuclear activist and member of CND.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Stop the Spies - Spies Annual Conference

The country's top private and government spooks are holding their annual conference on Wednesday 15th July, and the newly launched Stop the Spies campaign will be there to protest the expansion of surveillance.
5:30pm, Wednesday 15 July 2015
Outside the Rydges Hotel, 75 Featherston St, Wellington

The theme for this year's NZ Institute of Intelligence Professionals (NZIIP) meeting is 'Protecting the Balance: Trust, Confidence, Privacy and Intelligence'.

It is a theme highlighting the current re-branding of surveillance that is been pushed by the government and private intelligence. This need to re-brand is a result of the increasing information about NZ's active role in the Five-Eyes and the global network of surveillance. Revelations have shown that NZ is actively involved in both spying around the world and the manipulation of communities and people for political ends.

The NZIIP may appear to be an independent non-government organisation but it is a core link between both the private and government spy agencies. One of its key founders in 2008 was Warren Tucker, then director of SIS. In the years since, NZIIP conferences have been attended by prime ministers, the SIS, GCSB, NAB, and Defence Intelligence, as well as intelligence professionals from a range of other Agencies and representatives from private industries such as Wynyard and Palantir.

People will be gathering outside the conference at 5.30pm - the intelligence professionals will be meeting for dinner inside and the guest speaker is the Minister for Intelligence Chris Finlayson. Stop the Spies plan to use the opportunity to highlight the links between the many intelligence agencies and the NZ government.

5:30pm, Wednesday 15 July 2015
Outside the Rydges Hotel,
75 Featherston St, Wellington


Further information about Stop The Spies can be found here:
http://stopthespies.nz/
https://twitter.com/StoptheSpiesNZ



Monday, July 22, 2013

Media Release: Business as usual for spooks

Organising Against State Intelligence and Surveillance (OASIS)
22 July 2013

The country’s top spooks will be meeting in Wellington tomorrow (July 23) for the annual conference of the NZ Institute of Intelligence Professionals (NZIIP).

Every day, more details about large scale spying by the NSA, the GCHQ and other agencies is being revealed.

“The spy industry seems to be un-fazed by the Snowden leaks and is carrying on with business as usual,” OASIS spokesperson Anna Thorby said.

“And why wouldn’t they? The NZ government is giving them a clear message of more business to come by pushing through a Bill that would legalise the GCSB’s spying on New Zealanders.”

“The links between the government and the private spying industry are clear. Palantir, the main sponsor of the conference, is advertising for engineers to be ‘embedded’ with the New Zealand government. They are already supplying software for both the NSA and the New Zealand army.

“SIS director Warren Tucker has been the patron for the NZIIP since its start in 2008 and is about to become a ‘fellow’ of the institute.”

At the institute’s inaugural meeting, then prime minister Helen Clark gave a speech in which she indicated that she already knew about the NSA and GCHQ’s blanket collection of communication.

Clark said: “For some states […] the protective imperative has led to the balance being struck in favour of providing their intelligence organizations with access to large data sets.”

The title of this year’s conference is “Exploring Behavioural Drivers” and speakers will focus on how to use those large data sets to predict people’s behaviour.

“While the state is saying that this is used to detect terrorist plans, it can equally be used to suppress any form of political dissent and to influence debate,” Ms Thorby said.

“In the light of recent events highlighting the exposure of both the NSA and GCSB’s illegal surveillance, it should not be business as usual for the spies. There should be no more strengthening of ties between the corporate and state spies. Rather it is time to step back and re-evalaute the whole UKUSA Agreement. NZ should pull out of it now.”

ENDS