Locke Keith: New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Locke Keith: New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:673;Page:19634] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 I thank the Minister in the chair Minister Finlayson for that explanation in relation to Part 2 of the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Amendment Bill and David Parker for drawing our attention to the lack of clarity in it. I will also address those particular clauses because they relate to the question of computer access. That has been quite a controversial issue both in the original law back in 2003 the Crimes Amendment Act which the Attorney-General referred to which granted some powers of computer access to Government agencies including the Security Intelligence Service and also in relation to the Search and Surveillance Bill which gives a range of powers to Government agencies under different Acts including I think the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service Act. This provision in Part 2 that relates to computer access is an attempt to tie it all together and streamline it etc. but underneath it all is the more fundamental question of intrusive powers being given to the Security Intelligence Service in its relatively unaccountable state compared with other agencies such as the police.  
Computers have much information—I can speak for my own computer and I am sure that other members will feel the same—given that a large proportion of one’s life views attitudes and sometimes personal correspondence is sitting on one’s computer. So to grant to an agency too readily the power to take a copy of what is on a person’s hard drive to search it with key words and all the rest of it is a power that should not be given lightly. There have been submissions to select committees on this issue over the years. People get very upset at the intrusion this involves. The authorisation although it has been streamlined here under bills like this bill and the Search and Surveillance Bill can have a certain delegation and it is not necessarily always a high-level judicial person who will give that authorisation.  
The other problem with this bill and where this bill and this provision relate to the Search and Surveillance Bill is that when searching whether a building or a computer a principle has been introduced that even though the search is being made on the basis of one crime if evidence of another crime comes into what is called plain view then that bit of evidence can be picked up. If there is enough evidence the charge can be proceeded with in relation to this other crime which had not necessarily been mentioned in the original warrant. That has a particular problem when applied to computers because a lot of things can come into plain view. People accidentally use certain words and word combinations to search for one thing and a whole lot of other things come up and some smart officer of the Security Intelligence Service or the police can sort of get what they want. They can look for evidence of a whole range of crimes not included in a warrant more easily in terms of accessing a computer than possibly if they were searching a person’s home—although there are ways of doing it if they are searching a person’s home. Police officers might walk into a home looking for a bit of stolen property for example and they might sort of know where that stolen property is but they might forget to look in the particular place for a start. Instead they look everywhere else in the room or the house and then end up at the place where they knew the piece of stolen property was really likely to be. In the meantime they have searched the whole building and tried to uncover information about or evidence of other crimes if they are out to get that particular person for example. There may be cases like that.  
But my main point is that access to computers is a very very difficult area particularly if the person in question does not know what is going on. Under this legislation and the parallel legislation the Search and Surveillance Bill access to a computer can include not only the physical computer one operates from but other computers that are part of the network and various other email addresses. It can relate to trawling—you know finding out what people are doing in their computer searches. Access can include a whole range of things.