The spying game
Our newly-bolstered security agencies boast of catching foreign spies, but they’ve failed to stop extremists who study in New Zealand. Bevan Hurley and Kelly Dennett investigate.
Our newly-bolstered security agencies boast of catching foreign spies.
Abdulmalik Altamimi bursts with pride as he poses with a certificate of English studies earned from the Waikato Institute of Education.
‘‘Congratulate me guys, moved into the third level of English.’’
The 2012 year the Saudi student spent in New Zealand seemed idyllic; he lived in a homestay in Hamilton, went to the beach with friends, and hoped to eventually enrol in a university course.
He learned to cook, played in table tennis tournaments, kicked a soccer ball around on weekends, and celebrated Halloween by helping decorate his school.
Fast forward to February 2013 and following the completion of Altamimi’s exams he announces he’s going home for a holiday, but plans to return to New Zealand permanently if his final marks are good.
He then announces that instead, he’s staying in the Middle East, then reportedly signs an Islamic State recruitment form, giving his father’s phone number and details of his studies in New Zealand.
Within a few months of leaving this country, he was using Facebook to update his friends on his new hobbies – dressed in army fatigues and holding an assault rifle.
Around the same time, fellow Saudi student Taie bin Salem bin Yaslam al-Saya’ari was also travelling to the Middle East, from Auckland, having spent five years in New Zealand studying English and engineering.
Al-Saya’ari embarked on an English course in Auckland, flatting on Symonds St in the central city with a friend, before completing a foundation year at Taylor’s College on Auckland’s Karangahape Rd.
He moved to Albany to complete his engineering degree at Massey University, which a friend of his told the he abandoned in his final year to join Islamic State.
That friend, who asked to speak anonymously out of fear of repercussions, said it would have been next to impossible to foresee the trajectory of Al-Saya’ari’s life. Even his closest friends were shocked, he said.
Whether they were radicalised while in New Zealand or being monitored by the security agencies here is unclear.
The SIS says the threat from a small number of individuals espousing support for violent extremism has continued and a small number of New Zealanders remain in ISIS-occupied parts of the Middle East.
2017: it’s a mixed up, muddled up shook up world; and the Government says there are increasingly frequent and complex threats to our safety.
To that end, the intelligence agencies received a massive cash injection in last year’s budget; the GCSB’s budget alone went up by more than 50 per cent in 12 months from $95 million to $144m.
Both services have been on a major recruitment drive in the past 12 months; the GCSB hired 50 new staff; foreign language experts, communications and cryptography specialists, engineers and technicians.
The SIS staff increased their workforce by around 30 per cent to more than 300 over the same period.
The extra $179m cash coughed up by Treasury in last year’s budget was former prime minister John Key’s parting gift to intelligence agencies after what some say had been years of under-investment.
An Intelligence and Security review by Sir Michael Cullen and Dame Patsy Reddy, released in March, recommended formally breaking down the distinction that still exists in many Kiwi minds between the externally focused GCSB – with restrictions on spying on Kiwis – and the SIS.
That advice was heeded by the National Government, and a major revamp to bring our spy agencies under a single piece of legislation is before Parliament.
Along with the millions of extra taxpayer dollars, the agencies claim to welcome the greater scrutiny they are under. ‘‘While the NZSIS handles secret information, we need not be a secret organisation,’’ SIS director Rebecca Kitteridge says in the latest annual report.
This report does offer a snapshot into their secretive world. Prising open their vault of secrets, the SIS reveal they recently thwarteda foreign intelligence officer who was trying to infiltrate high levels of Government and business.
The spy came to New Zealand under a ‘‘cover identity’’ and had meetings with senior Government officials whose high level security clearances made them targets.
He visited key business facilities and spoke with major players in international relations. ‘‘This activity may indicate foreign efforts to influence or access the knowledge of New Zealand’s business community,’’ the SIS says.
Another case talks about how in 2015 they worked with Immigration New Zealand to prevent a terrorist who had served a prison sentence for terrorism related charges from travelling to New Zealand.
Back in 2014, Edward Snowden warned New Zealanders that all of our electronic communications were being monitored.
According to the latest GCSB data, they used their extraordinary powers to spy on New Zealanders nine times last year; twice on behalf of the NZ Defence Force and seven times on behalf of the SIS.
That we are even being allowed this fleeting, largely anonymised glimpse into their world is quite a departure from the shadowy past.
‘‘When I was an intelligence analyst in the deep dark past I wasn’t even able to refer to the agency I worked for,’’ says Robert Ayson, Professor of Strategic Studies at Victoria University.
Ayson worked for the little known National Assessments Bureau, which analyses data collected by agencies like the SIS and the GCSB.
He says spy agencies have been expanding since 9/11, but cautions against rampant growth for the sake of it.
‘‘We don’t want an intelligence service that’s bigger than it needs to be.’’
Certainly when it comes to the figures spent by our Five Eyes partners United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, New Zealand has been the shabby cousin in the corner wearing hand-medown threads and Roman sandals.
Otago University international relations expert Professor Robert Patman says historically, ‘‘we’ve got a lot more out of it than we have put in’’ to the partnership.
‘‘We may be trying to historically catch up in terms of beefing up our capabilities. We may have relied too much in Five Eyes.’’
He says our close ties to the world’s two most powerful countries, the United States and China, give us a ‘‘very good problem, one we couldn’t have dreamed of two decades ago’’.
Those relationships, plus increasingly close ties with dozens of trading partners around the world, require a huge amount of analysis.
‘‘I think New Zealand is steadily diversifying its economic and political links in the world. Our international commitments are growing, and we shouldn’t assume intelligence is always sinister.
‘‘If you’re going to take independent decision, you need your own intelligence to do so.’’
Beyond the headline numbers, we know very little about what the money is being spent on.
Updating cyber security is high on the agenda. Indeed, the GCSB has set itself the lofty goal of creating ‘‘impenetrable infrastructure’’ by 2020, ensuring the Government’s most sensitive areas are immune to ‘‘technologyborne compromise’’. Plus, the SIS revealed they had
purchased a new Auckland office, which could have easily chewed up a few million.
Author Nicky Hager, who has long campaigned for greater transparency in the intelligence agencies, says the claims of greater openness are little more than a PR stunt.
‘‘They say ‘we’re going to be more open’, but hand-picked examples of their good work has nothing to do either openness or accountability.’’
He says the agencies should come under proper parliamentary scrutiny, loosen up information released under the Official Information Act, and be treated as a genuine Government agency.
‘‘We are not at war and it’s not true that the SIS and GCSB require almost blanket secrecy other than their own PR.’’
Hager says the ‘‘Trump Factor’’ could offer a chance to reevaluate our relationship with the United States.
‘‘The thing the Trump Government might do is challenge the automatic assumption that we are like-minded countries with the same views.
‘‘If you take a long view, there has almost never been a time when the intelligence agencies say there aren’t new and increasing threats, and in New Zealand it is almost always untrue. This is not an especially dangerous time and there is nothing new about the claims.’’
It’s undeniable that the intelligence services have emerged from a tumultuous few years with vast new powers, resources and restored confidence.
The two young Saudi students leaving their studies in New Zealand to join ISIS would indicate the threat is real.
But in sleepy, peace-loving New Zealand, thousands of kilometres from the world’s terror hotspots, is the worry justified?
‘‘There is a concern that geography won’t protect us in the cyber age,’’ says Robert Patman.
Regardless of how much money is ploughed into our intelligence agencies, critics say it’s useless if communities don’t work harder to embrace and support young foreigners.
Saudi student Taie bin Salem bin Yaslam al-Saya’ari was last week killed in a shootout with Saudi forces, his body found clothed in a suicide bomb vest and clutching a machine gun.
Prior to that he’d been described as a ‘‘dangerous wanted fugitive’’ by a Saudi news agency, and an ‘‘expert’’ in making bombs and other equipment for terrorist plots.
He was wanted for previously manufacturing a bomb used in an attack at the Prophets’ Mosque during the month of Ramadan, and a previous unsuccessful mission that targeted a Jeddah hospital.
Those who knew al-Saya’ari in New Zealand are shocked. AlSya’ari played sports, tutored other students, was very involved in Massey’s Saudi Student’s Club, and was thought to be very bright with a successful future in front of him.
He had no family in New Zealand but on one holiday break in Saudi Arabia during his studies, he married a local woman. He didn’t bring her to New Zealand on his return because, he told friends, she was studying in their native land.
She was believed to have been pregnant with his child not long before he left New Zealand for good.
A friend, who asked to speak anonymously out of fear of repercussions, believed universities failed to play a supporting role in foreign students’ immersion in New Zealand culture.
He too had moved to New Zealand from Saudi Arabia many years ago, also studying at Massey.
‘‘We were new and we needed more support and we didn’t get it. Part of the solution is to identify the problem,’’ he said.
‘‘It strikes me that a lot of Saudi’s come to New Zealand, spend a lot of time here, and don’t change. I don’t just mean in terms of radical views, most of us don’t have them anyway, but they spend most of their time in New Zealand with other Saudis.’’
He understood Al-Saya’ari began sympathising with Islamic State after a friend of his also left his studies in New Zealand, to join IS. Al-Saya’ari packed his bags, told his friends where he was going, and left. Later he posted photos on Facebook of his new role.
‘‘He was not trying to keep it a secret.’’
He said no amount of intelligence would have identified Al-Saya’ari as a potential threat.
‘‘Even if you did dig into Taie’s case you will not find anything suspicious. He was just a normal person.’’
‘They say ‘we’re going to be more open’, but handpicked examples of their good work has nothing to do either openness or accountability. Nicky Hager, intelligence writer