Questions remain after the Inspector-General's report found the signals intelligence system operated for nearly a decade without the government knowing.
The revelation by the Inspector-General of Intelligence of Security was not transparency. It was damage control.
Why suddenly reveal workings of the Realm's intelligence services which had been successfully kept secret for more than 15 years? Because there had been a leak, and the New Zealand government needed to swiftly frame the issue in a manner which suited its own colonialist purposes. The present and previous governments are claiming that this operation was “lawful” but clearly it was not. The system was installed in New Zealand because it was there to gather intelligence on New Zealand residents and citizens and to identify them as targets for assassination.
We now have a situation where the security services of New Zealand control its government, and not the other way around as would be normal in a democracy. The "security chiefs memo" of 2017 to Jacinda Ardern (not covered in the New Zealand media but leaked to the "Financial Times" of London) set to dictate the foreign and certain domestic policies of the then government. This policy coup by the SIS, GCSB and the military met with astonishing success. Then in 2022 the SIS placed its former Director-General Rebecca Kitteridge at the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. So in the space of six years the security services have managed to put themselves in the driver's seat of the New Zealand political system.
This will not just work to the disadvantage of those targeted for assassination (mainly "political extremists" but easily extensible to truculent journalists and errant politicians). It will also result in foreign and domestic policy decisions which while approved by the security services will have catastrophic consequences for the New Zealand economy and society.
The revelation by the Inspector-General of Intelligence of Security was not transparency. It was damage control.
Why suddenly reveal workings of the Realm's intelligence services which had been successfully kept secret for more than 15 years? Because there had been a leak, and the New Zealand government needed to swiftly frame the issue in a manner which suited its own colonialist purposes. The present and previous governments are claiming that this operation was “lawful” but clearly it was not. The system was installed in New Zealand because it was there to gather intelligence on New Zealand residents and citizens and to identify them as targets for assassination.
We now have a situation where the security services of New Zealand control its government, and not the other way around as would be normal in a democracy. The "security chiefs memo" of 2017 to Jacinda Ardern (not covered in the New Zealand media but leaked to the "Financial Times" of London) set to dictate the foreign and certain domestic policies of the then government. This policy coup by the SIS, GCSB and the military met with astonishing success. Then in 2022 the SIS placed its former Director-General Rebecca Kitteridge at the head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. So in the space of six years the security services have managed to put themselves in the driver's seat of the New Zealand political system.
This will not just work to the disadvantage of those targeted for assassination (mainly "political extremists" but easily extensible to truculent journalists and errant politicians). It will also result in foreign and domestic policy decisions which while approved by the security services will have catastrophic consequences for the New Zealand economy and society.