Locke Keith: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Government Communications Security Bureau Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4514] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 This bill is about putting the Government Communications Security Bureau on a statutory foundation after 25 years without any clear mandate from Parliament for its activities. If we are to have a Government Communications Security Bureau it is essential it be on a statutory basis—and over $23 million a year is budgeted for it. But the Green Party questions—and we have to think about this seriously—whether we do need a separate institution called the Government Communications Security Bureau. The Green Party says on balance that we do not. 
I want to go through the pros and the cons of having the Government Communications Security Bureau. Clearly one pro in the bill in terms of the functions outlined for the bureau is to help to advise Government departments on protecting their communications. But that could be done by a different agency most likely under the police. There is no need for a separate Government Communications Security Bureau to do that. 
The main aim of the Government Communications Security Bureau is clearly to collect communications intelligence itself—supposedly on foreigners. The Green Party does not deny that the Government Communications Security Bureau may collect some intelligence that we all consider useful. However we have no idea whatsoever how much useful intelligence is being collected. There has never been any explanation or elaboration of that. There is no indication in terms of the functions of society that we are collecting useful intelligence. Whereas we know that other agencies of State like the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the various experts in the field overseas academics the media and agencies like the External Assessments Bureau all collect useful intelligence information for our Government and our society we have no proof that the Government Communications Security Bureau does so. 
Also given that other agencies particularly the police do already have powers to collect intelligence on criminal activities against New Zealand including communications intelligence why do we need a separate agency called the Government Communications Security Bureau with separate powers? The reason for that is not a practical one. The reason is that the agency originated through pressures from overseas. Lockwood Smith talked about “our family”. I presume he was talking about America Britain and Australia—the family that we are apparently deserting. In fact the Government Communications Security Bureau has come into existence because daddy the United States National Security Agency and mummy the Government Communications Headquarters in the United Kingdom said we should set it up to work in collaboration with them. We then became part of the five-nation Echelon communications intelligence network consisting of daddy the US and mummy Great Britain and also Australia and Canada alongside New Zealand and enabling those five nations to spy on the communications of the rest of the world. 
That has achieved some friendly relations with the Governments of those other four countries but it has created antagonism rightfully and suspicion rightfully from every other nation in the world. We see that quite clearly right now where members of this “family”—the United States Government the British Government and the Australian Government—are defying the United Nations and defying the world in invading Iraq. We have to be careful that we are not associated with them in collecting intelligence for their aims which are contrary to our Government’s aims and to those of most of the rest of the world. Unfortunately given the way that the Government Communications Security Bureau is structured and particularly the way that its main asset Waihopai the satellite communications interception station near Blenheim is structured we cannot avoid helping the aims of those three Governments in particular. 
On 11 July last year the United States Congress published a document explaining how Waihopai has been used for the war on Afghanistan. It states under New Zealand: “Intelligence support was offered as well. New Zealand’s Waihopai monitoring station is part of the five-nation Echelon network that is providing intelligence for the war in Afghanistan.” Because that network is so integrated in its operations how can we say that the Waihopai station is not helping those three countries in the war on Iraq? In fact one of the section heads of the National Security Agency of America let the cat out of the bag when he put out a memorandum stating that all parts of the National Security Agency must “mount a surge” against the members of the Security Council and get all the information on them including what he called their “dependencies”. That is I suppose finding out how they could be bribed as countries like Turkey and others have been bribed in order to try to get some support for the war effort in Iraq. 
Certainly our participation through the Government Communications Security Bureau and its main asset in Echelon has benefits for the United States Government but it has disadvantages for us. In answer to a question that I put to the Prime Minister a couple of days ago that was answered by Michael Cullen he said that the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security had said that we do have sovereign control over Waihopai and the information gathered there. However the reality is that the technology of Waihopai is such that we cannot guarantee such sovereignty. There are two dishes at Waihopai focused on two communications satellites over the Pacific Basin south of the equator. Millions of communications—faxes phone calls and emails—are drawn down through those dishes into the computers in Waihopai and they move through to Wellington. Then key words origin phone numbers destination phone numbers and email addresses are filtered through those millions of communications and thousands of those key words are put in by the National Security Agency. There is no way even if theoretically we could veto a key word or phone number that in practice there would be that kind of interrogation of all those key words. Also it is a very automated system and it functions to get the information immediately through from the satellite to the destination agency which is mainly the US National Security Agency. 
There is a huge downside for us from Echelon. When I was in New Caledonia with a parliamentary delegation a leader of the Government there criticised New Zealand for being part of the Echelon system. The Vanuatu Government people have criticised us. The European Parliament had an investigation into that system. It was worried because there were instances where Echelon including Waihopai as part of the integrated system had been used to spy on European firms like the time for instance that a contract with Saudi Arabia was secured for Airbus rather than McDonnell Douglas. 
In the discussion at the Committee stage on this bill I tried to move some amendments advocated by the Privacy Commissioner particularly to make the bill better even though we were opposed to it. The amendments sought to make sure that warranted interceptions were not arbitrary and that warrants were needed even when the permission of a householder was given. I put forward the suggestions of the Privacy Commissioner that the warrants be for 6 months and not a year that there should not be unwarranted communications interceptions authorised by unspecified enactments and that the Privacy Act should be upheld—that the principle advanced by the Privacy Commissioner that “an agency that holds personal information should not keep that information for longer than is required for the purposes for which the information may be lawfully used” should be put in the bill. But all those suggestions from the Privacy Commissioner were turned down without any debate or discussion. The Labour contribution in the second reading the third reading and in the Committee stage of this bill has been almost zero and that has been quite a disrespectful rejection of the Privacy Commissioner’s proposals. They have been rejected without any discussion or debate. 
One of the problems with the whole Government Communications Security Bureau is the lack of accountability. It is very hard to know when electronic interceptions are taking place under the reporting procedures provided in the bill. The oversight committee the Intelligence and Security Committee and the inspector-general are sadly wanting in providing real oversight.