Most surveys I have seen analyzing a country’s vulnerability to
terrorism place New Zealand at the ‘very low risk’ end of the spectrum. I wonder what percentage of the world's population even knows where it is. Nevertheless, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, John Key, seems convinced that the
country is in such danger from (unspecified) threats that his government has
passed, by one vote, new legislation permitting electronic spying.
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| NZ's PM John Key - democracy for the next generation |
New
Zealand passed legislation Wednesday allowing its main intelligence agency to
spy on residents and citizens, despite opposition from rights groups, international
technology giants and the legal fraternity.
The
bill to expand the power of the Government Communications Security Bureau
(GCSB) passed by 61 votes to 59 after impassioned debate, with Prime Minister
John Key acknowledging the move had left some people "agitated and
alarmed".
"This
is not, and never will be, about wholesale (?) spying on New Zealanders," Key
told parliament.
"There
are threats our government needs to protect New Zealanders from, those threats
are real and ever-present and we underestimate them at our peril."
The
push to change the law came after it emerged last year that the GCSB illegally
spied on Internet tycoon Kim Dotcom before armed police raided his Auckland
mansion as part of a US-led probe into online piracy.
At
the time Key publicly apologised to Dotcom, who is a New Zealand resident and
should have been off-limits to the GCSB under legislation preventing it from
snooping on locals.
However,
an official report found that Dotcom's case was only one of dozens in which the
GCSB had overstepped its bounds.
Key
then moved to change the law to let the GCSB spy on New Zealanders, arguing it
needed to cooperate more closely with agencies such as the police and military
in an increasingly complex cyber-security environment. Read
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