Little Andrew: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:13993. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): It is always a great pleasure of course not only to take a call on an important piece of legislation such as this the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill but to do so under your chairpersonship because this Committee needs a good and steady hand when it is considering erosions of and invasions into the personal security and privacy of its citizens.This legislation is very important legislation which is why it is such a surprise to members on this side of the Chamber that not a single Government member tonight apart from the Minister for Communications and Information Technology who made a contribution earlier has seen fit to take a call on this fundamentally important piece of legislation. It marks a continuing process we have seen under this Government unfortunately of diminishing and eroding important citizens’ rights: the inherent right to privacy and the inherent right to be protected from the invasion into our personal space and our personal information at the very least by the State because we know that the State is very powerful.Of course the powers in Part 3 of the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill are about not just private citizens’ rights and privacy but also those of the telecommunications companies to whom citizens subscribe for their telecommunications services. When you look at for example the obligation in clause 45 it imposes—in my view disingenuously—a duty to engage in good faith with the director of the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) with no corresponding duty on the director. That tells you what this Government is about: a lack of balance; a lack of understanding of the importance of citizens’ rights; and growing almost total power of the State over citizens in important areas.You know there have been members of theStasi and there have been members of the old Soviet Union Politburo—many of whom looked a lot like Tim Macindoe funnily enough—who would be proud of the powers in this legislation. They would be very pleased about what has been achieved here. We all thought after 1990 that those evil vicious days had gone. Well they have been resurrected. They have come to life under the New Zealand National Government of 2008 to 2014. Fortunately we know that it is all coming to an end—but I get off the point just for a moment.The powers contained in Part 3 of this bill are invasive and there are no corresponding duties on the director of the GCSB when considering his right—as Maryan Street pointed out the director of the GCSB is a “his” at the moment—and no corresponding duties on the director of the GCSB in the way he conducts himself and these powers. There is a broad definition of “network operator” because that is not just the telecommunications companies; it is anybody who supplies to them. There is a broad definition of “security interest” and that includes aggregated information about subscribers and users. That is frightful. Just when we thought actually that this Government understood that there are serious issues about access to aggregated information under the GCSB legislation here we have that yet again in this piece of legislation.We have the “Henry VIII” power still contained in clause 46(2) which allows a change to parts of clause 46(1) which ought to be regarded as unusual and indeed extraordinary.Then we come to clause 47 and the extraordinary powers of the director not only to know about what telecommunications companies are doing but to direct them and then if the director of the GCSB is not happy with them to go through the “telling on you to the teacher” process if he is not satisfied with the information being provided by the telecommunications provider. Even Supplementary Order Paper 366 providing a shimmer of a check and balance by requiring going via the chap who is in charge of the warrants the Commissioner of Security Warrants before going to the Minister responsible for the GCSB is no check and balance on this power at all. It just confirms yet again the extraordinary and insidious powers that this Government is reserving for itself.