Browning Steffan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — Referral to Law and Order Committee Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — Referral to Law and Order Committee Second Reading[Sitting date: 15 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13850. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak to the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. We too agree that this bill should actually have gone back to the Law and Order Committee because of the changes to it. In fact changes were dropped to us even as late as last night in terms of Supplementary Order Paper 366 which has got right down into some of the things that we were in fact asking for. But they have not been addressed properly and we have not been able to look at them deeply enough yet. Some of them appear to be helpful to industry to a degree but there is certainly nothing helpful for the citizenry of New Zealand.This bill is part of the fix following the Government’s mess-up with illegal spying on at least 85 people whom it has admitted to spying on. The Government admitted to illegally spying. Then we got the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) bill and now we have the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill which is its partner in crime as such. The GCSB bill has basically set up the philosophy that you can spy on New Zealanders that you can invade their privacy and that you can breach their human rights and then this bill is the technical part of how that can happen.There are some little chips and changes it seems and as we get into the Committee stage later we can maybe look at those a little bit more deeply. But there is a bundle of people—80-plus people—who have the rightright now to know whether they were illegally spied on while it was illegal. They are I am very sure due for an apology because not one of them whom I am aware of was arrested or charged with any crime and yet they were illegally spied on. Then we would also need to ask how they were spied on exactly which agency or agencies spied on them and what conduit was used to spy on them. Was it part of what is covered in this bill? Was it something external to New Zealand and fed back into New Zealand?Although we are opposing this bill we also see this bill as a veneer. It is just a wee bit of a legalised surface to the whole spying operation. We have had plenty in international media and consequently in New Zealand media about Edward Snowden PRISM the National Security Agency in the United States and its link into New Zealand through the Waihopai spy base and the GCSB. What was going on there? And what we have been saying for decades—and now it has been shown to come true—is not even covered by this bill. This bill certainly opens up the portals that those agencies will be able to exploit possibly without the different service providers even knowing. The service providers make sure that their technology and their services are snoop-friendly. Sometimes no doubt they will be aware that that is happening when there is a proper warrant and everything going through but do they know for the rest of the time? Did they know in the past when New Zealand’s “Five Eyes” complicity was involved that the information that was going through their portals was being taken away and being stored by the National Security Agency of the United States?The Minister for Communications and Information Technology says that this bill is no back door. It may be that this bill does not seem to be that but the fact is that the different service providers have to either have their services intercept-ready or be capable of doing that at relatively short notice because this bill goes on about the short time they have to comply. Is it a back door? I do not think the Minister can say that with the confidence she appeared to have before.I point out that in the United States at least one operator has said that it is over it and that it is not going to even carry on operating in this business any more because it is not prepared to be complicit with the breach of human rights. It was not prepared to havesurveillance on its customers and it has actually closed down shop. This is part of the risk here where some operators will not provide services that could be available in other parts of the world because they are not prepared for their customers to be under this sort of surveillance and it clearly stops the innovation within New Zealand. I do note as well that in the Supplementary Order Paper which we will get into through the Committee stage innovation is mentioned as one of the considerations and I think that is a positive thing. However that is very subjective. We have got no idea as to what degree innovation will be considered at that point.The Minister has invited us to meet some time to discuss the legislation and I think that will be appropriate and we will take that up. But one aspect in her note to the Green Party states that nothing in the information-gathering powers under clauses 72 and 73 will permit a designated officer or the GCSB director to require a network operator to supply produce or reproduce any information that could have been obtained or should have been sought under an interception warrant or other lawful interception authority. That is that back-door part and that will be something I would like to explore. Some things I will point out but other things about that I will question. The “Five Eyes” scenario that we are part of through Waihopai definitely seems to be part of that.I notice that Google MicrosoftSkype and Apple are still unhappy even though the Minister appears to have tried to make some changes to accommodate some of their concerns. They are still unhappy. They can see where the weaknesses lie in this bill. The Minister has also given us a flow chart showing us where intercept ability already exists what the current Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act does and where the proposed changes sit and she has said what the bill does not do. She says that it does not change the authority of agencies to intercept communications. Well we have got the Government Communications Security Bureau Act and the Search and Surveillance Act both of which certainly allow a certain amount of interception of telecommunications. So no this bill does not do that; it is basically just as someone described it the pipes and the conduits to do that. She says that it does not change existing privacy protections. No. We have asked for we still believe in and we will be looking forward—later in 2014—to being able to initiate a full inquiry into the security services in this country to ensure that we have an understanding of what is going on with our security agencies. We might also be able to find out how the Minister can say the things she is saying when Snowden and others have exposed those “Five Eyes” points. We might be able to expose who the 80-plus people were who were spied on unreasonably. The Green Party will be opposing this bill through its stages. Thank you.