Spying debacle raises more questions

MOUSE: kiore key-or-rare

TOO many questions remain about the Kim Dotcom spy scandal for the inquiry by Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Paul Neazor to be the final word. The issues Prime Minister John Key asked him to address were far too limited to restore public confidence in the running and oversight of the Government Communications Security Bureau.

The GCSB has been exposed as so inept it was unable to verify something as basic as whether people it had been asked to spy on were legitimate targets. If it could not get something that basic right, what else has it got wrong?

The public also does not know why it took nearly eight months for the bureau to realise its surveillance of Dotcom – off-limits because he qualifies as a permanent resident – was illegal when his immigration status was the subject of extensive media reports and political debate for weeks after his arrest.

The public also deserves to know whether Deputy Prime Minister Bill English questioned the GCSB operation last month, when it asked him to sign a certificate keeping it secret. He acts for the prime minister – who has responsibility for the GCSB— while he is overseas, and should know the law forbids it from eavesdropping on New Zealand citizens and permanent residents.

Those questions were not addressed in Justice Neazor’s report because Mr Key did not ask him to inquire that far. Rather, his letter requesting the inquiry limited it to the facts of the case, an assessment of any errors made by the GCSB and what measures might be needed to prevent a repeat.

Justice Neazor says the GCSB failed to appreciate that Dotcom’s Investor Plus resident’s visa, granted in November 2010, classed him as a permanent resident under changes to the Immigration Act in 2009. When those changes took effect on November 29, 2010, the GCSB Act was also changed.

The bureau’s claim that the change caused confusion hardly inspires confidence. The ban on spying on citizens and resident visa-holders is one of the few legislative controls under which it operates, and all its officers should have a crystal-clear understanding of the law.

Mr Key told Parliament this week that the GCSB realised it had broken the law about a week before it told him on September 17, but there has been no explanation of how the penny suddenly came to drop after so long. Until that is cleared up, there will be a lingering suspicion that the bureau came clean only when it became obvious that its operation would be made public during Dotcom’s High Court battle against extradition to the United States.

Separate to Justice Neazor’s inquiry is the serious matter of what Dotcom’s lawyer, Paul Davison, described in the High Court this week as inconsistencies in evidence Detective Inspector Grant Wormald gave the court last month, when he said there was no other surveillance of Dotcom.

Mr Wormald is a member of the police’s Organised and Financial Crime Agency, and led the raid on Dotcom’s mansion. The agency had asked the GCSB to spy on Dotcom in the first place, to ascertain if he posed a potential threat to arresting officers.

Mr Wormald and the GCSB appear to have some explaining to do.