Locke Keith: Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:12274] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will be opposing this bill as it has done previously. We do not see the need to grant these powers to the police and the intelligence agencies at this time. No objective case has been made either in terms of this bill or of the other bill that authorises such interceptions—the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) which passed through the House a year or so ago—that we would catch many more criminals be they terrorists or anyone else through the exercise of these powers. In our opinion the downside is much greater than the upside. No one doubts that by having greater surveillance be it electronic interception cameras in the streets or whatever else it is we could catch more criminals. But we have to make an objective analysis of the situation. With any advance in surveillance or security powers we have to analyse whether the downside with regard to issues of privacy and civil liberties is greater than the upside. We believe the downside is greater than the upside. 
The argument being advanced so far in the debate by several speakers including the last is that we live in a new era of terrorism. Unfortunately Ron Mark basically said that if the Greens were affected by terrorism they would think differently from how they do. I thought I would start at that point. Just over 20 years ago on 27 March 1984 I was living in Wellington and was on my way down the Petone motorway to go to a meeting of the Wellington Trades Council where I was a delegate from the railway workers union. On my car radio I heard about a bombing at the Wellington Trades Hall. One of the people I expected to see at that meeting was the caretaker of the hall Ernie Abbott whom I knew well and talked to a lot. When I arrived at the meeting I heard that he had been blown up by a terrorist bomb. 
The second incident—there have been only two terrorist incidents in New Zealand over the last few decades—occurred on 10 July 1985. Friends of mine had come in on the  
Rainbow Warrior 
. They were active in the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement and I knew that other friends of mine were visiting the  
Rainbow Warrior 
. I was living in Auckland at that time and when I heard that there had been a bomb on the  
Rainbow Warrior 
 I was very fearful for their safety. So the idea that people in this House and myself in particular are not aware of the problems of terrorism and of its effects on those closest to us is quite wrong. I think what needs to be borne in mind is that those two incidents of terrorism were terrorist acts against left-wing and progressive people. The idea that people of my political persuasion are not on the receiving end of those things and do not understand them is completely wrong. 
We hear talk that we are not in a benign strategic environment and that there is a whole new era of terrorism but we need to look objectively at the situation. We need to look at Australia where there has not been recent terrorism but there is a history of terrorism. Terrorism was much more prevalent in Australia in an earlier period—particularly that committed by some Croatian neo-fascists who set off a whole lot of bombs. If we look at the other countries that have been mentioned we see that there have been some very dramatic terrorist acts over the last year or two particularly those in Spain in Bali and on September 11. In the cases of Madrid and Bali because of the placement of the bombs there was horrific loss of life which we have all been very sad about. We have been pleased that the Bali bombers have been brought to justice and we hope that the Madrid bombers will be as well. 
 If we look historically at the incidence of terrorism in Spain we see that in earlier periods it has been much higher than it is currently particularly with regard to the ETA bombings and historically in Indonesia the incidence of bombing was much greater before September 11 2001. In Britain the incidence of terrorist bombings was historically much greater throughout the Irish Republican Army period. Looking at Europe as a whole we see that with the Red Army faction of the Baader-Meinhof gang the Red Brigades and all the rest of it there was a much greater incidence of bombings in an earlier period. Leaving September 11 aside the interesting thing about the United States is that the period from 1998 until now has been a historic low point in terms of terrorism compared with earlier periods when there were the Symbionese Liberation Army people bombing Oklahoma and the Weather Underground Organization people etc. So the idea that we are in a new age of terrorism is statistically false. That is not to say that there is not a problem particularly one generated by concerns in the Islamic world and in extremist sections of the Islamic community but the idea that one has to have these powers now is incorrect. 
When talking about a benign strategic environment one must first examine where the problem is of countries going around and invading and occupying other countries. The prime problem with the world today is that there is only one country the United States together with its allies doing that. Unfortunately New Zealand is being dragged along with the United States in one instance. The United States had invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq. That is the cause of a lot of the upset that exists throughout the Islamic world which unfortunately gives some of the Islamic extremists a degree of support for the horrific actions they carry out. One has to remove the cause of terrorism and particularly to address the cause that has been highlighted over the last week: the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel. That has been a running sore and has caused a lot of the terrorism we have seen over the last decades. In fact Palestinian terrorism in earlier times was internationalised. That occurred at the Munich Olympics and in a lot of aircraft hijackings. In order to really root out the international forms of terrorism by small groups and non-State actors one has to deal with the underlying problem in the Middle East region rather than be part of the problem by for instance sending the New Zealand SAS back to Afghanistan. 
New Zealand is involved in electronic surveillance already particularly through the Waihopai Valley tracking station near Blenheim which is part of the US-led Echelon five-nation network. What has that involved us in? It has involved us in very nefarious activities. It was exposed recently that the network had spied on Kofi Annan and other UN officials and there were reports in the Australian media that New Zealand had received a transcript of one of those interceptions of Kofi Annan. Unfortunately the Government has pleaded the need for secrecy on security matters as a reason for not reporting to the House whether that is true. I think what that issue and the whole issue of Waihopai which now links up with Echelon shows is that the use of electronic interception is part of New Zealand being an intelligence dependency of particularly the United States and alongside it of Britain Australia and Canada. 
The explanatory note on Supplementary Order Paper 197 with regard to this bill which has just been put forward and which members will talk about later shows again that there is unwarranted interception through Waihopai—that is interception without a warrant. That is explicitly allowed in this bill and it is very dangerous because it means that we can be involved in such things as spying on Kofi Annan or—this also became public about a year ago—the National Security Agency issuing instructions to its overseas partners such as those in Britain and presumably in New Zealand to launch spying on UN delegates—particularly on those from countries that were believed to be wavering on a United Nations resolution prior to the American invasion of Iraq. For us to be involved in that sort of thing by using the electronic intelligence this bill authorises and puts into practical effect would be quite wrong. We know that electronic intelligence is used for nefarious purposes and that the intelligence agencies themselves are very untrustworthy. 
There is huge debate going on in Britain in Australia and in the United States in particular about the way in which intelligence is being altered and manufactured. That can be done very easily with regard to electronic intelligence. The material coming through into computers can be altered manufactured and reinterpreted very easily. So that is a very dangerous road to go down when the New Zealand intelligence agencies and to an extent the police are in a dependent relationship with such overseas agencies.