Sweeping powers for spy agencies

[William Knowles <erehwon () C4I ORG>]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/index/0,1008,460236a10,FF.html

Sunday, 29 OCTOBER 2000

Police and government spy agencies are pushing for major new surveillance
powers - including the ability to intercept e-mails.

In a move the Council for Civil Liberties labels a "major and disturbing
intrusion" new surveillance laws are being planned which will allow police
and intelligence agencies to hack covertly into home computers and
intercept email and other electronic communication.

Researcher and author Nicky Hager, says the proposed legislation strongly
resembles the British Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act passed amid
huge controversy three months ago.

But he says unlike the British experience, the New Zealand legislation is
being slipped through in stages, as extensions of present laws. The first
is to be tabled in parliament in about 10 days.

The laws were devised under the National government and can be traced back
to a push by the FBI in the United States for standardised spy systems to
intercept mobile phones and emails.

The changes are now being promoted by Associate Justice Minister Paul
Swain, and would also impose "requirements" on Internet service providers
and phone companies to co-operate with intelligence agencies and police
and install systems to assist spying on their customers.

Hager, whose 1996 book on the global Echelon surveillance network prompted
a year-long investigation by the European parliament, said the public had
a right to demand proof that the new intrusive powers were so crucial that
individuals had to give up privacy and freedoms.

He said the way the changes were being introduced, piecemeal and in
secret, was "a model of bad government".

The first legislation expands the interception powers of the police and
the Government Communications Security Bureau to cover all forms of
electronic communications (including email, faxes and text messaging) and,
for the Security Intelligence Service as well, to cover hacking into
computer systems to view and copy people's files.

This would be achieved by amending the Crimes Act to make it illegal to
intercept emails or hack into computers - and then exempting all the
intelligence and law enforcement agencies from the new law.

The legislation will also increase the status of the GCSB, moving its
existing powers into the Crimes Act.

The other half of the plan is changes to the Telecommunications Act,
requiring telephone companies to make systems "interceptable".

Hager says New Zealand officials secretly agreed to implement the
surveillance changes after attending a meeting at the FBI headquarters in
Quantico, south of Washington DC, in 1993.

Swain says the driving force of the law changes is the wish to protect
privacy because there is no legislation to say "wandering into someone's
internal communications system is illegal".

The exemptions for the government agencies came later, he said.

Council for Civil Liberties chair Tony Ellis says the proposed
surveillance laws are a major civil liberties concern.


------------------------------------------------
Private information is practically the source of
every large modern fortune.       -- Oscar Wilde
------------------------------------------------
erehwon () c4i org      http://www.c4i.org/erehwon/
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