Deal details to remain secret

New Zealand’s spy agency is refusing to release a copy of its deal with a foreign agency to run a secret operation out of this country.

The operation – that the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) did not tell government ministers about – ran from 2013 to 2020, but was only exposed by an official watchdog last month.

Intelligence documents strongly suggest the bureau hosted – but exercised virtually no oversight over – a system run by the US National Security Agency to help acquire targets classified as terrorists for killer drones, bombs and raids using GCSB data. A key aspect of the deal document – called a memorandum of understanding (MOU), was that it dealt with concerns that arose within the GCSB about the system’s military capabilities.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security (IGIS) said the system was “largely controlled by the partner agency”, even though the bureau could have vetoed operations it did not like under the MOU. It chose instead not to keep track of them, the inspector-general’s report last month showed.

The public report did not identify the foreign agency, and the inspector-general later told RNZ he did not ask if the system was used for military operations. His report revealed the MOU was signed with the foreign agency in March 2012 by a GCSB deputy director.

An internal 2012 GCSB document showed it signed an MOU with the NSA that year to host the APPARITION system. RNZ requested a copy of the MOU under the Official Information Act, but the bureau withheld it, arguing that releasing the MOU would likely prejudice security or defence or international relations, and prejudice how information was entrusted to the Government “on a basis of confidence by the government of any other country or any agency of such a government”.

This latter ground was not often cited in OIA refusals.