Curran Clare: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCurran Clare: Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 08 May 2013. Volume:689;Page:9696. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): This bill the Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Bill represents a major and frightening expansion of Government powers over New Zealand’s communications networks and over those who provide services to New Zealanders on the internet. That is a sobering prospect. It is potentially a big step towards an authoritarian approach to Government.This bill raises serious issues affecting the civil rights and personal privacy of New Zealanders and it has a lack of checks and balances. It provides extraordinary discretionary powers to the Minister on the advice of the Government Communications Security Bureau. On the face of it this bill could impose unreasonable and illogical costs on network operators to comply with the new requirements. On the face of it it could capture small network operators such as schools and Wi-Fi communities and result in unreasonable and unnecessary compliance and surveillance measures.It gives ministerial discretion to decide what sort of network should be captured. If for instance a network was established to provide information and provide a campaigning tool for an issues-based organisation—an NGO that was of a political nature—could the Minister on the advice of the Government Communications Security Bureau decide that this was a threat to national security or economic well-being? That is a frightening thought and it does go to the heart of democratic activity.On the face of it this bill hands the control of the network design and operation of a telecommunications network to the Government Communications Security Bureau in the name of “security” which not only loads a level of bureaucracy and complexity to a legitimate commercial operation but provides an extraordinary level of potential interference in that commercial operation.This bill gives sweeping powers to the Minister responsible for the GCSB to prevent mitigate or remove a significant network security risk that could be related to national security or our economic well-being—in other words to have the ability to shut down a network or part of a network should it not comply with its demands. This is not supposition; this is how the bill reads.On the face of it this bill contains no definition of the problem that is trying to be solved. I would like to just reiterate the words from the previous discussion around thisbill and that is that the privacy of New Zealand’s citizens counts the civil liberties of New Zealanders count and checks and balances count in all of our legislation and they do not exist in this bill as it has been tabled in this House today. On the face of it this bill should make New Zealanders afraid of what their Government is trying to achieve. There are so many unanswered questions and too little information about the reason that this bill has been brought before us in this form. It has been brought before us with no consultation no discussion no analysis of the problem that it intends to solve no regulatory impact statement and a lack of checks and balances that would give the New Zealand public confidence in its security agencies and in its Government.Labour supports the modernisation of legislation. Labour supports the need to ensure that New Zealanders and New Zealand businesses are protected from cyber-threats. Let there be no doubt about that. Labour has serious concerns though about the two core underpinnings of this bill—the obligations being put on telecommunications companies and the changes to the interception capability regime—and deep concern about the introduction of a formal so-called transparent network security regime and the sweeping powers that it gives to both the Government Communications Security Bureau and the Minister.Labour cannot support this bill. Labour opposes this bill. This is about our national security about our human rights and about Kiwis’ confidence in their security agencies and in their telecommunications agencies. It is also about confidence in the Government and trust that our Government will do the right thing.We want to see evidence-based analysis that would demonstrate the need for such sweeping powers and changes. Late on Monday night I received a media release email with a link to the bill before us. Last night I received in my office a letter from the Minister for Communications and Information Technology regurgitating that media release that she had sent out the day before. Less than 24 hours later we have the first reading of this bill. There has been no briefing to the Opposition on this bill. There has been to my knowledge no in-depth discussion with the industry about this bill. There has been as we have said no regulatory impact statement released to the public.This bill sits alongside the Government Communications Security Bureau and Related Legislation Amendment Bill which Labour also opposes. We believe that before such an overhaul can take place there has got to be an independent inquiry into our intelligence agencies and as I said an evidence-based approach to why this legislation is necessary.The process around this is incredibly shoddy and it is quite frankly frightening because it shows that this Government does not take seriously the concerns of citizens about the important checks and balances that such an important piece of legislation should contain. I am pleased to hear that the bill is going to the Law and Order Committee which will actually be able to have participation in it. I certainly hope that there will be adequate time for those submissions to be held.This bill replaces the Telecommunications (Interception Capability) Act 2004 but it adds a significant new component to the title and that component is “Security”. It also defines threats to our economic well-being as being security risks but there is no definition about what that means and that definition it appears lies with the Minister and the Government Communications Security Bureau. There is in this legislation no independent oversight or accountability on what economic well-being or national security is.The process around getting this bill to this House has been shoddy yet the Prime Minister has said that he wants cross-party support. So why has there not been a discussion with the Opposition parties about this bill? Why has there not been an explanation of the problems that require such sweeping powers to be given to a Ministerand to the bureau? Why have we not been told that the intercept arrangements that exist right now between the surveillance agency and the telecommunications companies or the network operators are insufficient? What is wrong with those arrangements? Why has there not been a public discussion on that issue?We certainly know that there has been a raft of data breaches and security flaws exposed within Government departments and agencies over recent months. In the last year tens of thousands of New Zealanders have had their private information exposed because of lax processes and insufficient IT capability expertise and governance arrangements across those Government agencies but will the bill solve those problems? No. Will it address any of those problems in any way? Is the Government doing anything about those issues in any way? No. What is it doing? Nothing.Will this bill make New Zealanders feel more safe and secure? My fear is that it is actually going to make them feel more vulnerable—more vulnerable to intrusion into their privacy and civil liberties. There could be intrusions also into the lawful commercial business activities of our network operators and that is one of the potential dangers behind this bill. Will it have a chilling effect on the innovation of network operation centres and the development of new services? That is a question that is being asked today about this very issue.Could we see our economic well-being being undermined by this bill? New Zealanders should be aware that this bill covers their email their texts Twitter other social media Skype and private encrypted discussions through chat sites and cloud services such as Microsoft Lync Dropbox Google Drive and Mega. It would include any business operating cloud services. It could cover the likes of Xero and TradeMe. The limits of the ministerial and Government Communications Security Bureau powers have not been defined and they leave many questions unanswered.