30 November 2010

Key must condemn United States directives to spy on Clark

The Prime Minister must condemn the United States for its spying on United Nation’s leaders, Green Party Foreign Affairs spokesperson Keith Locke said today.

The Prime Minister has declined to comment on reports that top United Nation’s officials – which would almost certainly include UN Development Programme head Helen Clark – were spied upon by the US State Department.

Documents released yesterday by the Wikileaks organisation show the United States Government issued directives for their spy agencies to obtain the computer networks used by UN officials, including personal passwords, credit card numbers, and biometric information.

“The 1946 UN Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations explicitly prohibits the sort of activities the US has been engaged in,” said Mr Locke.

“Wikileaks documents contain a US directive to incept the communications of UN officials, from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon down.

“Mr Key helped Helen Clark get theUN Development Programme job, and should now be condemning the US for its spying directives.

“It is possible some of Helen Clark's communications could have been intercepted here at the Waihopai spy base, which feeds information to the US National Security Agency.

“This would be ironic as Helen Clark was a staunch defender of the Waihopai base during her nine years in office,” said Mr Locke.

ENDS

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