Posted on 18-11-2002

ISC Headed by PM Opposed By GP
by Keith Locke*, Friday, November 15, 2002

A little background for those of you who aren't aware of it. Yesterday
Parliament agreed to the setting up and membership of the Intelligence and
Security Committee which is meant to provide oversight to the New Zealand
Security and Intelligence agencies. The membership is Prime Minister Helen
Clark and her nominees, Michael Cullen and Jim Anderton, and Leader of the
Opposition Bill English and his nominee, Winston Peters.

In all likelihood we will hear very little from them (at least, nothing of
substance) until after the next election, when the committee will be
reestablished.


The Green Party opposes the re-establishment of the Intelligence and
Security Committee and its proposed composition. The committee is not a
select committee; it is a statutory committee. It is not governed by the
select committee procedures of the House, and it can conduct its hearings
in total secrecy, if it chooses, without Parliament having any real ability
to judge its performance, or having any significant insight into its
activities. The Greens have no idea what it did in the previous Parliament,
apart from holding a couple of hours of public hearings on the Government
Communications Security Bureau.

It is not a committee in the spirit of MMP, because, at most, five (and in
practice four) parties are represented on it, and its membership is
determined entirely by the Prime Minister, who can nominate two members,
other than herself, and by the National Party leader, who can nominate one
other member. It seems that the membership will be basically the same as in
the last Parliament, with Winston Peters replacing Richard Prebble, which
is not an improvement. Mr Peters will probably want the Security
Intelligence Service to interrogate every immigrant coming into the country.

It is also quite wrong in a democracy for one person to be simultaneously
the Prime Minister, the Minister in charge of the New Zealand Security
Intelligence Service, and the chair of the supposed oversight committee.
This accountability problem has increased since this committee was set up
in the last Parliament, because the intelligence agencies have now been
given powers to intercept electronic communications, and they have been
given more resources. Also, the Prime Minister has taken on the extra
function of designating terrorist organisations, largely on the basis of
information provided by intelligence agencies, as we have seen with the
first designation of a terrorist organisation--Jemaah Islamiah.

The second motion not only sets the committee up as an oversight body,
so-called, but actually denies the right of any other committee in this
Parliament- that is, any real select committee--to "examine an intelligence
and security agency . The Intelligence and Security Committee cannot be a
proper oversight committee. It is forbidden from seeing any operational
information of intelligence agencies, and cannot therefore judge them
effectively. It can deal only with financial and policy matters, and it is
very difficult to assess what policy is actually being implemented in the
agencies, if one does not get any operational information.

In the United States there are congressional oversight committees that do
have access to operational information, without, of course, the identities
of agents being disclosed. Even CIA Director, William Colby, said in 1995:
"My message is that we in the intelligence and security services can work
under a system of parliamentary control." There is also a movement to
broaden committees around the world. A formal inquiry by the British select
committee on home affairs in 1999 recommended replacing its somewhat narrow
oversight structure with a proper select committee oversight.

Without proper oversight, we cannot find out whether the agencies are
targeting real threats to New Zealand, or are involved in espionage on
legitimate dissidents or people of particular ethnic or religious
persuasion. The issue of legitimate dissidents came into focus a few years
ago when the home of anti-free trade activist, Aziz Choudry, was raided by
the Security Intelligence Service. The Security Intelligence Service Act
allows the agency to spy on any foreign organisation whose "clandestine
activities impact adversely on New Zealand's economic well-being . So if
Greenpeace, an international organisation, plots protests or civil
disobedience against genetically engineered (GE) crops, it might qualify
for Security Intelligence Service surveillance, given a likely right-wing
Security Intelligence Service interpretation of New Zealand's economic
well-being.

I do not think that the intelligence agencies are coming at the GE issue
from the Green Party's political angle that pro-GE multinationals, such as
Monsanto, are more clandestinely affecting New Zealand's economic
well-being than anyone else. Any right-wing interpretations of threats will
be reinforced by the Security Intelligence Service's intelligence partners
abroad. In this regard we have just seen the service's partner agency
across the Tasman, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation,
raiding the homes of Muslims, whose only crime was to listen to a
fundamentalist Islamic sermon at a local mosque. It is very likely that the
Security Intelligence Service here is targeting certain ethnic solidarity
groups. The service claims in a recently released booklet that there are
individuals and groups in New Zealand with links to overseas organisations
that are committed to acts of terrorism, violence, and intimidation. Some
have developed local structures that are dedicated to the support of their
overseas parent bodies." But I, as an MP, am unable to find out what these
overseas organisations or their New Zealand support groups are. I asked the
Prime Minister via written questions about this and received a reply on
Tuesday, 12 November, which stated that for security reasons she could not
answer.

What types of organisations are being targeted needs to be out in the open
and a subject for public debate. For example, is the Security Intelligence
Service targeting those New Zealanders who give support to the Sharon
Government in Israel that is occupying a foreign territory in violation of
international law and UN resolutions, terrorising its Palestinian
inhabitants, and that possesses weapons of mass destruction, or is it
instead targeting any New Zealanders who support the Palestinian group
Hamas that has a terrorist component to it? Is the Security Intelligence
Service targeting those New Zealanders who support the West Papuan freedom
movement that uses arms, or is it targeting those New Zealanders who
support the Indonesian government, whose army carries out human rights
violations and killings on a much larger scale than any liberation movement
in Indonesia? Is the Security Intelligence Service broadly targeting the
Islamic community in New Zealand, particularly migrants from Middle Eastern
countries in the way that American intelligence agencies certainly are as
part of their so-called war against terrorism, and in a way that is
fostering racist responses in the community?

The problem with these secret intelligence agencies and the lack of proper
oversight from the Intelligence and Security Committee, or anyone else, is
that their agendas have been historically formed following discussions with
their overseas intelligence counterparts, particularly in America, Britain,
and Australia, rather than following any discussions with New Zealanders,
or even the MPs who represent them. Anyone following George Bush's
presentation of the war against terrorism and the case it constructs
against Iraq to justify an invasion is aware that lies and distortion of
the facts are his stock in trade, and that US intelligence agencies are
conscripted to construct these lies. In the murky world of American
intelligence it is difficult to distinguish fact from constructed fiction,
yet our Government is increasingly using American intelligence, most
recently to justify the banning of Jemaah Islamiah under the Terrorism
Suppression Act with virtually no confirming information for that banning
being available in the public domain.

We then have the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau that
mainly functions as a small cog in Echelon, the worldwide communication
spying network run by the United States National Security Agency. We have
no real way of knowing whether the information from the huge volume of
phone, faxes, and emails that are passed from the Government Communications
Security Bureau to the National Security Agency is being misused. The
Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security
Bureau are also a threat to our privacy, particularly since the passage of
the Crimes Amendment Bill that gives those agencies an extra power to
intercept our emails and secretly hack into our computers. Of course, it is
argued that we need intelligence surveillance to protect our freedom, but
as the fictional spy master, George Smillie said in a John Le Carre novel:
We've given up far too many freedoms in order to be free.

This committee, with its narrow mandate and narrow membership does not deal
with the fears of the Green Party and many New Zealanders as to what the
intelligence agencies might be doing. We need a true parliamentary select
committee oversight with a broadly based representation. We must trust
Parliament. I agree with Peter Dunne's comments that we need to broaden
representation. If the National Party speakers are to criticise the Prime
Minister for not giving sufficient information, surely they should support
a broader oversight body, and a proper select committee oversight of these
intelligence agencies. We have an Inspector-General of Intelligence and
Security, but his powers are limited. Members just need to read his annual
reports to see how ineffectual he is.

The Green Party cannot support these two motions.

* Keith.Locke@parliament.govt.nz