Prime Minister John Key last night announced a series of sweeping changes to the laws governing the Government Communications Security Bureau that will allow it to legally spy on New Zealand citizens, as well as engage in two-way sharing of surveillance information with consumer affairs television show Target.
A report leaked by media last week revealed that as many as 88 New Zealanders may have been illegally spied upon by the GCSB during surveillance conducted in conjunction with agencies like Target, the NZSIS, and police.
The Prime Minister now wants what he calls a “clarification” of the law to make that spying legal, and to ensure that those four agencies can share and acquire intelligence for the domestic and consumer security of the country.
Key confirmed that the GCSB had a working relationship with Target – which regularly features a segment where tradespeople are secretly filmed to assess their job competency – similar to those it has with police and the SIS. He said that the relationship was vital to ensuring that Target provided consumers with the “best available information,” and also helped the GCSB to ascertain which electricians were “rubbish.”
Some have questioned the need for the GCSB to have such wide-ranging powers, but Key said it was important that intelligence-gathering operations were able to help one another and to communicate freely.
“It is absolutely vital that groups like the SIS and Target have open lines of communication with the GCSB,” he said. “While the risk of terrorism or other malicious activity in New Zealand remains relatively low, we are aware of people with links to terrorist organizations, and of people who’ve cleaned half the carpet and left the rest completely untouched.”
“I cannot stress how important it is that other agencies are able to employ the resources available to the GCSB, so that they can work more effectively to thwart domestic threats and to make sure carpenters have only one lunch break.”
Key added that he had seen “this one thing” on Target where a tradesman aggressively masturbated into a female client’s underwear while she wasn’t home.
“It was pretty yuck,” he said. “I think most New Zealanders would agree that we don’t want that in our underwear, and that’s what this is all about, really.”
Labour Party deputy leader Grant Robertson has chastised Key for wanting to change the law purely for the convenience of the GCSB.
“So the Prime Minister finds out that at least 88 New Zealand citizens have been spied on by the GCSB, which is not allowed to spy on New Zealand citizens, and his solution to that is not to make sure that it stops, but to change the law so they can keep doing it,” he said. “How is that not a case of corruption?”
Key said it was easy for Labour to throw stones when they weren’t the ones responsible for peoples’ safety.
“We’ve got people who we know have been trying to obtain materials for weapons of mass destruction, and people we know who have, frankly, done a really shoddy job on the drapes, and what the opposition is basically asking me to do is leave New Zealand completely open to those threats,” he said. “As Prime Minister I am simply not willing to do that.”
Key hoped that legislation containing the changes would be passed by the end of the year, and is considering proposing an amendment that would stop requiring Target to blur the faces of people it secretly filmed, which he said most viewers find “stupid and boring.”