Watchdog Starts Second Spy Probe / Spy Review Hobbled Before It Begins

NewZealandHerald / DominionPost | May 21 2015

Herald story triggers look at agency’s role in minister’s bid for top world trade job +
Is it a whitewash from the outset?

A new inquiry into NZ’s electronic surveillance service is being started as the country’s intelligence watchdog tries to find out if it makes good decisions about who to spy on, and how it stays politically neutral.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Cheryl Gwyn, linked the inquiry to claims the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) spied on foreign diplomats competing against Trade Minister Tim Groser to lead the World Trade Organisation.

Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Cheryl Gwyn

But she said it was unlikely she would be able to probe the allegations. Instead, she said, the inquiry would study the way the GCSB chose its targets, what its decision-making process was and how it stuck to its duty to be neutral in cases where there might be political advantage.

The Groser claims were among a string of stories broken by the Herald in a collaborative reporting project with investigative journalist Nicky Hager and The Intercept, the US news site with access to the trove of secret documents obtained by intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Tim Groser

It is the second inquiry to be started after the Herald published stories based on top-secret GCSB and National Security Agency documents. The first inquiry was into New Zealand spying in the Pacific.

Ms Gwyn said the new inquiry was instigated by her office;

“I consider the issues raised about the process followed when the GCSB considers undertaking particular intelligence activity are of sufficient public importance to warrant an own-motion inquiry.

“While it is unlikely I will be able to publicly confirm or deny the specific allegations relating to this process, I can inquire more generally into how the GCSB determines, within its statutory constraints, what intelligence activity to undertake and what policies and procedures are in place to regulate its activities.”

Ms Gwyn said the inquiry would study how the GCSB established whether a proposed spying job fitted its legal role and New Zealand’s needs.
It would also look at the GCSB analysis of benefits and risks, and how it handled situations in which there could be perceptions of political advantage.
It would also consider how the GCSB kept its minister informed in situations where there was a “potentially contested assessment” of the justification for the spying.
The Herald reported that the GCSB set up search filters to extract online references to those competing from other countries for the WTO job.
Criticism was voiced after the story appeared over how this served New Zealand’s interests as the WTO job is meant to be administrative and neutral.

Dom Post Editorial: Spy Review Hobbled Before It Begins?

The new committee carrying out a wide-ranging review of intelligence oversight is not equipped for the task.

Sir Michael Cullen is part of the committee carrying out a review of intelligence oversight

Sir Michael Cullen served while an MP on the Intelligence and Security committee, a toothless watchdog which meets for only a few hours a year and has no power to hold the spies or their political masters to account.

This committee is a constitutional monstrosity: it meets at the pleasure of the prime minister and he controls it. It is not a select committee that can test the executive.

Cullen showed no inclination to question the role of the committee. He was, it seems, perfectly happy to serve on a hollow and useless institution.

The Labour Party, in fact, [also] has in general been uninterested in reform of the spy services and their oversight.

The appointment of Dame Patsy Reddy as the other inquirer is even stranger. Reddy is a lawyer and businesswoman who serves on many boards. She has no experience in the field of intelligence. She might, perhaps, have been a useful lay member of a larger inquiry.

She certainly does not have the firepower to be one of only two investigators.

Dame Patsy Reddy, DNZM with the Governor-General of New Zealand, Lt Gen The Rt Hon Sir Jerry Mateparae

Intelligence pundit Paul Buchanan says the committee needs truly independent members, preferably from overseas, and far more than two.

He is right. This matters a great deal, because there have been successive scandals in the spy services and the public is in desperate need of reassurance about the democratic accountability of those services. They won’t get it from this committee.

It is true that the Inspector-General of Security, Cheryl Gwyn, has shown a genuine independence in her inquiries. Her investigation of the spies’ role in the Phil Goff affair was truly damning.

Phil Goff

She has also rightly launched an inquiry into the scandalous revelation that the GCSB spied on the overseas rivals of Trade Minister Tim Groser in his failed bid to head the World Trade Organisation.

But the inspector can’t do an independent investigation of the role of the politicians who appointed her and whom she serves. For that, another agency is needed.

The best approach, as former prime minister Geoffrey Palmer has argued, is to set up a parliamentary select committee, similar to the congressional oversight committees in the United States.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer

For too long the spies have used the mystery of their profession to avoid proper democratic oversight. The various abuses uncovered by Edward Snowden should have shattered this mystique forever. The spies have enormous powers and their oversight has been lamentable.