Norman Russel: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionNorman Russel: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 November 2013. Volume:694;Page:14332. Text is subject to correction.]Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): I rise on behalf of the Green Party to speak about the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill. This is a bill that the Government has been promoting alongside theGovernment Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) bill which is its sister bill to enhance the powers of the GCSB to engage in large-scale spying of citizens both here and of course abroad. Essentially what this bill does is enable—by providing the technicalability if you like—the GCSB to spy on New Zealanders as well as other agencies. It also goes alongside enabling foreign spy agencies to spy on New Zealanders using the GCSB.I think what we probably need to say at the outset is that essentially signing up to this kind of legislation is part of the price that we pay for membership of the “Five Eyes” network. The “Five Eyes” network is a network between five countries that have worked together—the United States the UK Canada Australia and New Zealand—in order to engage in large-scale surveillance. The revelations about the true nature of this “Five Eyes” network which have become almost daily now as a result of Edward Snowden have become daily shocking news to people all around the world as we have discovered exactly what it is that our spy agencies are doing. Of course they never told us what they were doing but as a result of these massive leaked documents we now understand what they are doing. Essentially the “Five Eyes” network has engaged in global mass surveillance. It has particularly targeted the submarine cables that go between nations and it has taken all the data off those submarine cables in order to intercept all the communications that are going on there. So that has been able to intercept a lot of the emails the internet traffic and so forth going between countries.But on top of that the network has been monitoring the domestic communications of certainly the “Five Eyes” countries but also many other countries as well particularly as it has turned out in Europe as we found out in the last week. What that means is that it monitors the mobile phone network it targets particular telephone numbers such as the phone of the German Chancellor Angela Merkel who was targeted by the NSA so that it could listen to all of her telephone calls. Of course any other person or persons any other corporations or any other kinds of organisations that the “Five Eyes” network wants to target it simply legally or illegally—it is of no concern to them—taps in and simply gets all that data about what is being talked about the information that is being exchanged. All of this is now just a matter of fact. There was a time not so very long ago when this was a matter of conjecture it was a matter of dispute but now it is simply a matter of fact. We find that the European Union and the United States are now engaged in a very large dispute as the truth has been revealed and we discover that in fact the United States has been systematically spying on the European Union.On top of that of course we find that other members of the “Five Eyes” network have been engaged in a similar kind of spying. This bill is in order to enable that kind of activity. So for example the Australian equivalent of the GCSB and the SIS has been engaged in spying on Australians—not only on the telephone network of all the private conversations of Australians but also in using their embassies in Indonesia to target the Indonesians. Now the Indonesian Government even in the last hours is threatening to review cooperation with the Australian Government over the so-called boat people as a result of that systematic spying by the Australian Government on the Indonesian Government and other officials.We know also that it is not just Government officials who are being targeted. The NSA has been targeting private corporations. Petrobras in Brazil was one of the targets and presumably the NSA was targeting it for economic reasons. Petrobras is a major oil producer so the NSA was very interested to know what Petrobras has been up to in order to communicate that to US corporations in any of their dealings with it.The “Five Eyes” network is a global spying network a club of which New Zealand is one of the members. There was a time when that was crowed about by many people as a great thing—that we were members of this club. However I think what we are finding now is that being a member of the “Five Eyes” club has its downside. It is extraordinary that at the very moment that the downside of being a member of the “Five Eyes” club means that nobody trusts you this Government is introducing laws that give more andmore powers to the spy agencies in order to spy on us and our activities and also to spy on people in other countries and share that information among the “Five Eyes” network. The fact is that at this exact moment when it is all being revealed as to the illegal and illicit activities of these agencies the Government is proposing to give this network more power and that is an extraordinary thing. We are fundamentally caught up in this international scandal as a result of the activities of this Government and previous Governments which failed to control the GCSB and the SIS. We just as much as the US and all other members of the “Five Eyes” network are now being caught up in this thing and we are all being seen as countries that cannot be trusted.That I think is a strong argument for an independent foreign policy. It is just like when we went nuclear-free; there were those who said that we could not possibly go nuclear-free or it would be the end of the world. Well it turned out that it was not the end of the world when New Zealand went nuclear-free. The United States pulled the pin on the ANZUS Treaty. Well it turned out that that was not the end of the world either. So just as small independent countries all over the world have found that they do not need to be part of the US networks these kinds of surveillance networks and just as we found that we did not need to be part of the US nuclear network it is really time for New Zealand to take an independent foreign policy. It is very difficult for New Zealand to have an independent foreign policy while we are a paid-up member of the “Five Eyes” network which means that we must exchange all this information with other countries. When foreign dignitaries come to our country no doubt we are spying on them. When the UN Secretary-General visited New Zealand no doubt the GCSB and the SIS targeted its communications and passed the information back to the NSA in the United States because that is the nature of the “Five Eyes” network and how it works. Anyone who saw the obsequious and embarrassing performance of Jonathan Coleman in Washington will know that it is time for New Zealand to have an independent foreign policy.I just happen to have returned from the European Parliament and what was amazing there was how the European right has now become very sceptical of the relationship with the United States. The European left and European Greens were sceptical of the relationship for a long period of time but now the European right is very sceptical of that close and intimate relationship with the United States because it sees that as very damaging to it. For example when I spoke with some members of the European Parliament—from the Christian Democratic Union which is Angela Merkel’s right-wing party governing in Germany at the moment—they were absolutely scathing about the United States and the US mass surveillance. Of course the reason they were particularly scathing of it is that they remember the mass surveillance society of East Germany. They remember the Stasi. They remember the Soviet-backed regimes in Eastern Europe and what it was like to live when you were constantly spied on by the State. Of course what we find out now is that that is exactly the kind of society we live in where the GCSB the SIS the NSA and equivalent agencies overseas like the Government Communications Headquarters in the UK are all engaged now in mass surveillance of all of us and our private communications. Legally or illegally is of no interest to them; they simply engage in it when it suits them.What this means from the Europeans’ point of view is that they are now saying that it is time to establish a kind of separate part of the internet for the European Union. The European internal market commissioner has called for a European data cloud separated from the American data cloud so that those kinds of communications do not pass through the “Five Eyes” jurisdictions where that information is accessible. The justice commissioner has called the new data protection laws in Europe a European declaration of independence. What they mean is that they do not want to have their data flowingthrough countries like New Zealand where that data will simply be handed over to the NSA. So countries like New Zealand that implement laws like this very one put in front of us today are becoming places that are considered hostile for data storage. They do not want to put data storage in places where if you base the cloud data and servers in New Zealand or even pass it through New Zealand it can be easily picked up and handed back to the United States. This is a major economic problem for New Zealand. New Zealand should be a place where data is secure. One of our advantages is actually around the information and communications technology sector—that we have green energy and that if we had a second cable we would have better connectivity to the world and that we would have a certain level of creativity which could make us a great base for data services in the information and communications technology sector. But that is being threatened by this bill in front of us which will result and companies know this in companies having to simply hand over the data or that there will be a back door into their data storage servers so that the Government can simply grab the data at will and hand it over to the United States. That is fundamentally undermining the way that I would see we should be establishing an information and communications technology sector in New Zealand which is based around the cloud but it is very difficult for that to happen.We do not know as to what level the Balkanisation of the internet like this will happen whether it goes further but we do know that this kind of law undermines our ability to be world leaders in the information and communications technology sector which should be one of our growing and great sectors. That is of course on top of all the issues around democracy and living in a free and open society which are fundamental to the things that we believe in and that this law threatens. The very idea that you can have a private communication is threatened by this law. So there are not only economic reasons but fundamental democratic and privacy reasons for opposing this law which is just so backward-looking.