Spy agency to pay $66k settlement to journalist
Journalist Nicky Hager will receive $66,000 from the Security Intelligence Agency after his phone records were unlawfully spied on.
Hager took a case against the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) to the Inspector-general of Intelligence and Security agency, which decided in 2019 that the spy agency had unlawfully obtained and used two months of Hager’s phone data.
The SIS, which first apologised in 2019, agreed this month to the monetary settlement –
$40,000 in compensation and $26,400 for legal fees – and conceded it ‘‘unlawfully requested and collected two months of Mr Hager’s home telephone [data], and that doing so breached Mr Hager’s rights’’.
Hager had been seeking documents from the SIS related to the use of his phone data. Yesterday, he said he was ‘‘pleased with the result’’ but more was needed ‘‘to prevent unlawful actions by bodies such as the NZSIS’’.
‘‘Our intelligence services repeatedly claim they have become more transparent and more careful to obey the law. But when I requested information from the NZSIS director Rebecca Kitteridge about the suspected NZSIS help to find my sources, she refused to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of the information. Ms Kitteridge went on to deny any wrongdoing before the inspector-general.
‘‘She claimed the NZSIS was justified in using its powers as it was investigating espionage and that my actions prejudiced national security.’’
The SIS sought Hager’s phone records after he published a book, Other People’s Wars, in September 2011. The book contained details of New Zealand’s involvement in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, obtained from confidential sources.
A particular Defence Force officer was suspected of being Hager’s source but sufficient evidence could not be found and the Defence Force asked the SIS to assist. It gathered metadata from the officer’s home phone and cellphone, and tried to link it with two months of metadata from Hager’s home phone. This was unsuccessful, and both the SIS and the Defence Force pursued the investigation no further. Acting InspectorGeneral of Intelligence and Security Madeleine Laracy later determined the SIS had no lawful power to investigate.
The SIS, in a public statement that was part of the settlement, said it ‘‘apologises unreservedly for breaching Mr Hager’s rights’’ and that its ‘‘conduct fell short of its own expectations’’.