Browning Steffan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionBrowning Steffan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 22 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14065. Text is subject to correction.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak to the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill looking at the title and the commencement date. When this bill was introduced I criticised the title quite a bit I note. I thought it ought to really be the “TELCO Spying on Kiwis Bill” or the “TELCO Let’s Get Hacked Bill”. I do not actually move away from that too much particularly this aspect of hacking.This bill sets up the mechanism to allow spying agencies but also others to gain access to communications and networks in New Zealand. Just today we heard mention of France calling in US officials because of further revelations of what the National Security Agency has done in conjunction with New Zealand and some other countries. The National Security Agency does not do it only on its own; it does it in conjunction with New Zealand’s Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) through the “Five Eyes” Waihopai system. So when we look at the timing of this we also look at the timing of what is actually happening out in the globe regarding this very issue.I mentioned last week the fact that the Brazilians are setting up a new system that is totally different from a lot of the normal providers to ensure that they do not get hacked any more by us and the National Security Agency. Mexico is another country in the news today that is saying it has had a gutsful of what is happening with spying from the National Security Agency and those PRISM systems.This bill is a sham. This bill may allow that access for when we need it for some legitimate surveillance but it is a sham as well because of the surveillance that is going on besides. I do not think that the media and certainly a number of the members on the other side in this House sometimes actually get it. They just do not get that we aresetting up to add even more—or maybe they do. Maybe they do not mind that we are setting up to look after American foreign policy and some others of the big mega corporates in the world by allowing the route into New Zealand’s electronic data communications through this system.Right back when the original version of this bill was formed we the Green Party with Keith Locke produced stuff with regard to some of the hacking that was happening coming back through those conduits of spying. We also realised that this bill is not complete in terms of scrutiny—redacting as they call it a lovely word that seems to have been introduced in recent times of the amount of information that has been withheld. How could this be given serious scrutiny especially on the basis that we have never had a proper independent investigation into the whole issue of security services in New Zealand? There is so much missing from the regulatory impact statement that it does not allow it. So what do we do? We get information from overseas from people who have been courageous enough to go out and leak the material that they see that they are so offended by ethically in realising that this stuff should not be kept secret any more. It needs to be opened to the world to let the world know what is going on. Unfortunately we are very much a part of that.When this bill got introduced the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill its mate got introduced as well. I pointed out at the time in my first reading speech on it that on that very day we were having the five-nations meeting of Attorneys-General. There was also a meeting of the heads of the different police forces from the “Five Eyes” fraternity—all meeting in New Zealand on that very same day. It was a gift from the Prime Minister the Minister responsible for the GCSB who also chose the director of the GCSB. He made that appointment. He flouted it seems the systems of appointment to get his man his schoolmate in.We know—it has been proven—that there is spying going on and that it is not something New Zealanders agree with. There was no investigation to see what they wanted and overall New Zealanders disagree with the concept of it. There is the issue of privacy but there is also the question of what we are doing with our sovereignty. But the Prime Minister has the ultimate power. What the Mexicans for example are worried about right at this moment is the fact that the National Security Agency spied on the former President when he was still in Opposition and on other Opposition members. The agency was looking at their emails and looking at their text messages and the same systems the same conduits that we are setting up here will allow the same thing.So I wonder what we in the Opposition here should really be thinking of when we have a Prime Minister we are having a little bit of difficulty with in terms of the integrity of his appointments process and getting his mates in and in terms of giving him the conduits so he can do it even more easily. We have had the internal stuff we have had the issue around the Henry inquiry and we have had the illegal spying that was carried on as well. So we have a major question. We insist that we have a totally independent investigation into these processes. We take cognisance of the Human Rights Commission and the issues around appeals without proper real representation—the persons themselves not being there. There is a bundle of issues that affect human rights privacy and our level of what we are prepared to trade off around the issues of security. These things all need thorough investigation.We need to extract ourselves from the “Five Eyes” mechanism and have stuff that is actually relevant to our communities here. Any security and surveillance should be relevant in a way that the community agrees with. We need to separate ourselves from the international stuff that brings us into international wars and conflicts that we do not choose as a community. This conduit needs to be looked at far more thoroughly and ithas to be done in a holistic sense with the Human Rights Act with the GCSB legislation and with the Search and Surveillance Act to look at the whole thing completely. So clearly we will carry on opposing this. We look forward to the opportunity to initiate a full independent inquiry and investigation of those services. Thank you.