Waihopai’s main task is to intercept global communications for the US National Security Agency (NSA). The Wikileaks documents inform us that the US has been blatantly violating international conventions with its detailed spying on UN figures, from Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon down.

The information sought on UN leaders included personal passwords and encryption keys, credit card numbers, and “biometric information on UN Security Council permanent representatives”. Maybe Waihopai has helped the US get some of these details.

A lot of the information sought was clearly to advance American foreign policy aims, not New Zealand’s. One question posed is why should Waihopai be collecting information for the US on “plans by UN special rapporteurs to press for potentially embarrassing investigations into the US treatment of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay”, to quote a Guardian summary of US directives contained in the documents.

The Guardian says the “operation targeted at the UN appears to have involved all of Washington’s main intelligence agencies”, presumably including our GCSB’s Big Brother, the NSA. The secret “national human intelligence collection directive” was sent by Hillary Clinton in July 2009 to 33 embassies and consulates, presumably including Wellington. We can assume it was implemented by the US Embassy staff here, particularly those with FBI, CIA and NSA assignments.

A lot of the documents are embarrassing governments, particularly in the Arab world, by showing they were more supportive of US foreign policy than they were admitting to their own people. I wonder if any of the Wikileaks documents shows this also applies in New Zealand? We’ll find out soon enough.

Image created by Lyndon Hood

It’s good to see the Tertiary Education Union (TEU) come out against lecturers being asked to spy on their students for the SIS.

Supposedly this is necessary to uncover students using our universities to do research related to “weapons of mass destruction”? But how likely is this in New Zealand? It makes one think our SIS might be operating, in this matter, as a branch office of some bigger foreign intelligence agency, maybe from a country where there is quite a bit of research on how to better produce their own weapons of mass destruction.

In New Zealand, as the TEU points out, the most likely result of the SIS edict is extra targeting of students because of their religion, nationality or ethnicity. Tough luck if you have to be a Muslim engineering student, particularly if you come from Iran or an Arab country.

Studying in a foreign country is hard enough at the best of times without worrying about your essays and assignments being scanned and sent to that country’s intelligence services.

Over the years, universities have tried to make their campuses a spy-free zone, to protect academic freedom.

Historically, in New Zealand the role of the SIS has been to spy on student dissenters and radical lecturers, not because they were breaking any laws, but because they were challenging the Government of the day.

I can testify to this from the contents of my own SIS file, which I received last late last year. In it the SIS shows concerns about my antiwar and anti-apartheid activities when I was a University of Canterbury student, and later when I lectured at Victoria University. There was absolutely no SIS concern that I would break any laws.

The TEU is right to preserve the universities as an open forum for ideas and research, without the intrusive presence of a politically motivated spy agency.

If the SIS wants a real target for investigation, why not look at the Auckland-based Rakon industries, which has had military contracts to provide shock-hardened and radiation-hardened crystal oscillators for American guided missiles, some of which may actually carry “Weapons of Mass Destruction”.

I have been asked a few times by commenters why I haven’t waded into the scandal. The  reason is that I take the issue so seriously that I didn’t want to wade in with  my usual tongue in cheek attitude and imperfect information. This could potentially sidetrack the very real and very serious debate about how we deal with the issue.

I am dumbfounded by the National government’s weak response, given the fact that so much of their private information has been made public in the last few years. I would have thought them to be more sensitive to this issue.  Having said that, no one has ever produced evidence that National was spied upon rather than just leaky.

However, I am even more dumbfounded by who has lined up behind Keith Locke  in his call for action on the part of the authorities. Keith has done a release both here and here, calling for an investigation:

Democracy requires the active participation of the citizenry, and it is very dangerous for our Police force to be targeting the groups most active on peace, environmental protection and animal welfare issues.

We will be approaching the new Police Minister Judith Collins, asking for an inquiry into the covert political operations of the Special Investigation Group. We will also be raising the matter in Parliament.

Meanwhile, from two other quadrants of the political spectrum, we have Kiwiblog and Garth George coming out in support of more transparency and a full investigation. David Farrar says:

So is there a solution for the Government? Well, yes, a simple one occurs to me. Why not refer the issue to the Police Complaints Authority. This wipes the issue off the front page, and will ensure that some independent scrutiny is given to the issue. This is ideal for the PCA and is much better than having a formal external inquiry by a QC.

While Garth George says:

It is all very well for Prime Minister John Key and Police Minister Judith Collins to express misgivings about this spying on the public, but Mr Key’s refusal to intervene is inexcusable.

I never thought I’d see the day when I would agree with Green MP Keith Locke, but when he describes the police surveillance as Stasi tactics and covert political operations that undermine democracy, I have no choice.

Because he’s right.

Both of them share Keith’s assertion that democracy and free association are threatened by such activities.  I hope the government listens to these calls for action and that a non-partisan approach can be taken. I won’t hold my breath.