Norman Russel: Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNorman Russel: Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment Bill Intelligence and Security Committee Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 21 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12697. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment BillInspector-General of Intelligence and Security Amendment BillDr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green):I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak on the third reading of the “Big Brother Government Communications Security Bureau Amendment Bill”. As the moment of truth approaches on this legislation there will be 121 people in this House who will have to make a decision on how they feel about freedom. They have to make a decision as to which way they are going to vote about freedom. Are they going to vote for freedom—for liberty? Or are they going to vote against it? That fundamentally is the decision that everyone in this House—the 121 of us here—have to make.This legislation is a fundamental constraint on freedom. It fundamentally restricts our freedom of expression. It reduces our freedom to live free from State surveillance. In that respect it is legislation that reduces the freedom of New Zealanders. This is the moment of truth. This is not just an issue for New Zealand because the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) which this legislation considers is part of a global spying network called the “Five Eyes”. I think the global context is absolutely essential when considering this legislation.A few days ago theGuardiannewspaper revealed that it was forced by the Government of the United Kingdom to physically smash up the hard drives of its computers. We had the Government of the United Kingdom which prides itself on being the home of freedom and liberty to some extent forcing theGuardiannewspaper people to smash up their computer hard drives in the basement of their newspaper offices. That was because those computer hard drives contained information about the “Five Eyes” global surveillance network—the documents that were released by Edward Snowden.Those documents have revealed to every citizen on planet Earth that the “Five Eyes” network of which New Zealand is a member is engaged in a global surveillanceactivity where it is spying on all electronic communications that it can possibly get its hands on which is a pretty complete set and is analysing them and storing them in a very large database.Beyond that the partner of one of the journalists who has been intimately involved in exposing this global surveillance network that the United States and the “Five Eyes” network have established was detained without an arrest warrant for 9 hours under anti-terrorism laws as he passed through an airport. He was detained for 9 hours under anti-terrorism laws without any kind of arrest warrant. All of his information devices were taken away from him and copied.The reason why this is relevant to this legislation in particular is that the GCSB is New Zealand’s contribution to the “Five Eyes” network and the global surveillance State. The way that New Zealand and New Zealanders whether they realise it or not whether they consent to it or not participate in this global surveillance State is through the GCSB. What we are seeing is that the States that have prided themselves on their commitment to liberal values and a commitment to freedom of expression are now leading the world in cracking down on those very values themselves.The veil of liberalism which all of us I would hope believe in is slipping and what we are seeing is that the kind of State that has emerged now in the United Kingdom and in the United States is the kind of State that would have Edmund Burke spinning in his grave. This kind of global surveillance State is the exact antithesis of what those who led revolutions through the 19th century in particular believed in when they believed we should extend citizens’ freedoms rather than constrain them. They believed that citizens should be free of mass surveillance by the State and that was a fundamental value that many fought for and many gave their lives for over the past couple of centuries in order to establish those basic principles.But here today we find ourselves once again fighting for those basic principles. This legislation significantly extends the power of the GCSB the New Zealand branch of the “Five Eyes” network. I read to you from the Law Society’s submission on the bill—the Law Society which the Prime Minister has very sadly denigrated over and over again. The Law Society says: “The Bill changes the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) from being a foreign intelligence agency to a mixed foreign and domestic intelligence agency. The Bill empowers the GCSB to spy on New Zealand citizens and residents and to provide intelligence product to other government agencies in respect of those persons”—those persons being New Zealand citizens and residents—“in a way not previously contemplated and that is inconsistent with the rights to freedom of expression and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (NZBIRA) and with privacy interests recognised by New Zealand law.”All of the leading law professionals who presented to the Intelligence and Security Committee came to the same conclusion yet time and again we have had this Government in a way that is very reminiscent of other authoritarian regimes denigrating anyone who dared to differ with the Prime Minister on this issue. It is a very sad day in this Parliament when it would appear that there is a majority of a single vote in favour of progressing this law at a time when the global debate is exactly around these issues—about protecting our freedom in an environment where security is being debated.It is easy to say that you believe in freedom and liberty in abstraction. But when it comes down to it and we have the debate about freedom and liberty within the context of the Prime Minister screaming hysterically about al-Qaeda and various other things that he introduces randomly into the debate I think that is when it gets hard to have the debate around freedom and to protect freedom. What it requires is that we have couragein our values courage that those who came before us stood up for something that was important and that our job here in this House tonight is to stand up for those values once again.What is important I believe is that although we have the somewhat bizarre commentary coming from the other side of the House it is none the less important that we defend the rights of freedom of speech that we defend the rights of expression and that in the House we vote against this bill. We are not obviously confident that we will get that result today but none the less I think it is important.What we have seen with the debate around this bill is that the Government has consistently tried to confuse people and actively tried to confuse people. The Prime Minister went onCampbell Live and said that the GCSB would not have access to the content of people’s emails under the cyber-security function. That was completely false and the Prime Minister was required to correct his answer to that later. Either the Prime Minister does not understand the legislation which is why he gave a false answer on live television to hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders or the Prime Minister purposely set out to deceive New Zealanders. Whichever interpretation is correct—that the Prime Minister set out to deceive New Zealanders or he simply does not understand the legislation—it does not fill us with confidence.I would also point out that we in the Greens have consistently attempted to amend this legislation and have put up a series of substantive amendments which the National Government has voted against. For example we put forward Supplementary Order Paper 316 to make sure that metadata was included in the definition of communication so that it was abundantly clear that any protections around communication applied to metadata as well. The National Party United Future and the ACT Party voted against that because of course they want access to your metadata.We put up Supplementary Order Paper 317 which said that we should return the GCSB to just its foreign intelligence objectives rather than the spying on New Zealanders objectives that this bill introduces. Again the National Party the ACT Party and United Future voted against it. We moved to tighten section 8B so that the information that is gathered about New Zealanders cannot be passed offshore. The Government says it does not want to pass this information offshore. So we sought an amendment on exactly that point—to prevent the information gathered about New Zealanders from being sent offshore. This was Supplementary Order Paper 315. The Government voted against it. National voted against it once again.We moved a whole string of amendments to this legislation to try to protect freedom from the depredation of this Government and this Prime Minister or future Governments and future Prime Ministers who would seek to constrain the freedom of New Zealanders in order to facilitate this global surveillance State which we now know exists and is coordinated by the United States. The National Party United Future and the ACT Party consistently voted against every attempt to tighten this legislation to protect freedom. The Green Party will stand up for freedom and liberty today. We will vote against this legislation.