Anti-Bases Campaign Calls For Thorough Intelligence Review

It is looking more and more like the Government intends its forthcoming intelligence review to be undertaken with little or no public transparency, according to the Anti Bases Campaign. It is already May and no details have been made available about who will run this 2015 review or what the terms of reference are likely to be.

When the Government changed the laws governing the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in 2013, it did so in the face of strong criticism from the Law Society and Internet users' groups. The ABC says that the Government plan for this year is to run the review in a way that will avoid public discussion or input from expert sources outside Parliament.

The review has become much more vital according to the ABC because in the last two months the GCSB’s senior Five Eyes partners in the UK and USA have been found guilty of serious breaches of the law by the courts.

In the USA the National Security Agency has been told its entire telephone metadata collection is illegal, and the UK tribunal which examines intelligence cases has ruled the British Government Communications Headquarters interception of legally privileged information was unlawful.

Given ongoing controversy over surveillance and security, the Government owes the New Zealand public the opportunity for full and frank discussion of issues of privacy and security. Any effort to push through a meaningless report on the spies by the spies will be a serious undermining of democracy.

ENDS

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