Browning Steffan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBrowning Steffan: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13956. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STEFFAN BROWNING (Green): I rise to speak to Part 1 of the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. Just looking at some of the interpretations I will jump through to the infrastructure aspect. The “infrastructure-level service” means “any service that provides the physical medium over which telecommunications are transmitted …” and it talks about the optical fibre. So in other words it talks about the hardware—not the hardware of the phone itself but the wires and the like. I remember in the Marlborough Sounds where we ran a telephone wire down to a neighbour’s—a sort of outrigger from our home. I realised that that wire between the baches or homes in the sounds would fit within that and obviously that is something else that can be intercepted.Something that concerns me more in terms of the interpretation is the definition of “Minister”. No disrespect to the Minister sitting in the chair the Minister for Communications and Information Technology but in clause 3 of the bill “Minister means the Minister of the Crown who under the authority of any warrant or with the authority of the Prime Minister is for the time being responsible for the administration of this Act …”. Now at the moment it is the Minister for Communications and Information Technology and I think there is a real role for a Minister who deals with the business end of communications. But this bill is really also about the spying part. One thing is that it is about network security but the fact is that it is about snooping it is about spying and that Minister can change—the bill says—“with the authority of the Prime Minister”.That is the part that really concerns me because we have already got a problem with the Minister responsible for the GCSB and the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service and his selection of his director of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). He has got strong strong powers in this. There is nothing in this bill that would stop the Prime Minister making himself or in future maybe herself the Minister of this legislation and the Minister of the GCSB and the SIS and other aspects of that. When we have got the history of the illegal spying and when we know that these bills do not even cover the large-volume spying that ishappening within the range of activity that that Minister covers then if that Minister were to have control of this as well—full individual control of whom he seeks to employ and did in terms of the Director of the GCSB Ian Fletcher—it actually gets into the realm of sinister.Maybe the Minister for Communications and Information Technology could address that and make the interpretation a little bit more specific in regard to the range of ministerial responsibility. Maybe she can preclude that the Minister responsible for the GCSB and the Minister in charge of the NZ Security Intelligence Service can be the one and same Minister who operates this just so we can do a little bit of separation. I think it would be a good idea and it is good to see the Minister there with that capacity. I also say to the Minister in the chair thanks for the letter to the Green Party. There was an expression that we could meet but I actually find that a little bit farcical. It is probably a bit rich seeing you are sitting there and we are face to face. It is not very practical in terms of the speed that this bill is going through. It is going to be after the event I expect. So the dialogue is probably here and now.I am always concerned when I see the interpretation of “national security” including economic well-being. Well of course we want New Zealand and “New Zealand Inc.” to be in a very good economic fitting. We do not want somebody to come in and muck that around particularly. It is always a concern as to what that definition actually is. What is in that definition? Whose version of economic well-being is it? How far out is it? How sustainable is the well-being we are talking of? Is it intensive dairying and we must protect that at all costs when we know it has got a big externality? We need to look after some of the MPs in this House and their interests around farming maybe. And we do—we must look after the family farmers but we must not have economic well-being measured by something that is temporal and not sustainable at any time.The interpretation of “network operator” has been brought up already but that is also quite concerning when we think about what a network operator is. There are some definitions in the bill but they are very broad. They do need to be toned down and made more specific and someone’s Supplementary Order Paper may address that. But what we have got operating through Parliament the networks there—I would look to some of my NGO friends and wonder whetherGreenpeace’s network within their offices is going to get intercepted. AreFonterra’s big office and the networks within that and elsewhere part of the same sort of equation? That could be tidied up as well. It was interesting to hear the debate on the issue around the terminal. Is this telephone a terminal device or does the fact that I can tweet on something that has been said to me make me part of the network? I suppose it is intended to be.There is a concern as well in this part. There has been some criticism of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 366 and we will probably revisit that. We have got some comment from outside—telecommunications and IT people—about the definitions. One of them is from CatalystIT’s director Don Christie whose concern is that the definition of “network operator” is so broad as to essentially capture anyone in the sector. He said that the bill “creates huge uncertainty and therefore business and investment risk for anyone in the New Zealand ICT industry or considering entering it.” So I am hoping that through the Supplementary Order Papers the Minister sitting there might be able to fine-tune this somewhat.The Greens of course are opposing this bill because of its breadth because of the purposes and principles here—they are not being addressed properly before we have a full investigation into the surveillance issues or security issues of New Zealand. We have had so many things that have gone wrong—the illegal activities—that we must have a genuinely independent investigation and then come back and address this bill. I am looking forward to that sometime in the future. We have in clause 5 of the bill thepurposes relating to interception capability to ensure that the “agencies are able to effectively carry out the lawful interception …”. Well that is about the lawful part and it does concern me that it may actually need to be spelt out a little for this Government and the GCSB as to what certain activities are not lawful because we have got other parts around the world other countries like Brazil which are just setting up their own new networks new systems to find a way to actually avoid the likes of Waihopai and the National Security Agency of the United States which was actually spying on it. Brazil found that it was being spied on. It is not impressed.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! No you can carry on but we are on Part 1.STEFFAN BROWNING: This is around the purposes of the legislation relating to interception capability. I think that New Zealand with a full investigation into the purposes and the principles relating to interception capability might want to follow what Brazil has done in terms of doing something that is absolutely independent and looking at network security for itself that will stop the likes of what we appear to be allowing to be set up through this bill. I will speak to this a little bit further as we go through the rest of the parts. Thank you.