Kiwi spooks forced to come into the light
THE COUNTRY’S spies sink ever deeper into trouble, and how richly they deserve it.
Nobody has done more to bring accountability to the secret state than Kim Dotcom. Nobody has done more to reveal the spooks’ gross incompetence and contempt for the law and civil rights.
Justice Helen Winkelmann has ordered the Government Communication Security Bureau (GCSB) to ‘‘confirm all entities’’ that received information scooped up from the bureau’s illegal snooping on Dotcom. These entities includes members of Echelon, the American-led spy network of which New Zealand is part. Justice Winkelmann is dragging the spooks into the light. It was not long ago that ‘‘Echelon’’ was a banned word. The spies’ official spokespeople would not even confirm that the network existed, although it had been around since the late 1940s and was exposed in Nicky Hager’s work in the early 1990s. Now the bureau is forced not only to confirm Echelon’s existence. It also has to say whether it supplied Echelon with its illegally-acquired information.
As always, of course, the spies have protested about ‘‘national security’’. There was a time when they had only to wave this banner and their critics and opponents were expected to surrender. That day has passed. Judges will no longer simply bow down when the state plays the security card.
This time, Stuart Grieve, QC, will be able to examine what the bureau produces and determine whether it’s relevant to the case. This is perhaps an inevitable halfway house. The critics of this country’s spy system have long since concluded that it cannot be trusted. But judges and courts move more cautiously. So let Grieve do his work.
The court has also cleared the way for Dotcom to sue the GCSB and the police for damages. This is an excellent ruling and Dotcom should take them both to the cleaners. The police launched a ludicrous, over-the-top and illegal raid on the German tycoon’s house. The GCSB spied on him and broke the law. This was an intolerable assault by state agencies on a private citizen. It cannot go unpunished.
A big bill for damages might also persuade the spies to take more care in future. What has obviously happened with the GCSB is what always happens with state agencies who operate in the dark and are not held to account. They become sloppy and arrogant and they abuse their powers.
Nobody can argue that there are proper checks and balances on the GCSB. It wasn’t John Key or the official security watchdog who caught the bureau out. It was Kim Dotcom’s lawyers.
This case suggests that both the spooks and the police were far too eager to help the FBI catch their man. It is not their job to do this. Their job is to act professionally and within the law and not to get caught up in anyone’s crusade, whether it is Hollywood’s or the FBI’s or the American Government’s campaign to impose its absurdly restrictive copyright rules upon the rest of the world.
John Key’s Government, of course, has been desperately snuggling up to Washington for four years. It has discovered that in the new age of American ‘‘containment’’ of China, the anti-nuclear policy is no longer a problem. New Zealand can be both anti-nuclear and an American lickspittle at the same time. It’s a conservative politician’s wet dream.
Officials, however, must not follow politicians into madness. Spies and police officers must keep cool and obey the law.
The police launched a ludicrous, over-thetop and illegal raid on the German tycoon’s house. The GCSB spied on him and broke the law. This was an intolerable assault by state agencies on a private citizen. It cannot go unpunished.