Claims of cable access total nonsense
The claims made today by journalist Glenn Greenwald that the Southern Cross undersea cables have been tapped into or
accessed are total nonsense said the CEO Anthony Briscoe today.
The cables, which link New Zealand to Australia, the Pacific and the United States, are untouched, Mr Briscoe noted.
“I can tell you quite categorically there is no facility by the NSA, the GCSB or anyone else on the Southern Cross cable
network.”
“Let’s be quite blunt. To do this, we would have to take the cable out of service and I can assure you there’s no way we
are going to do that.
“It is a physical impossibility to do it without us knowing. There is just no way it can be done. I can give you
absolute assurances from Southern Cross – and me as a Kiwi – that there are no sites anywhere on the Southern Cross
network that have to do with interception or anything else the NSA or GCSB might want to do.”
He added, any breach of the cable would require temporarily shutting down its transmission for hours. Southern Cross has
monitoring systems built into its computers watching for any such break and they would be triggered as soon as any
attempt was made.
“There isn’t a technology in the world, as far as I am aware, that can splice into an undersea fibre optic cable without
causing a serious outage and sending alarms back to our network operation centre, that something’s wrong.”
Southern Cross is obligated to comply with the well-established and public lawful surveillance requirements in the
Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act and related laws in the United States. However there is no equipment
installed in the New Zealand or United States landing stations, or on the cable itself, which could result in mass
interception of communications.
We are very disturbed that such unfounded allegations have been made and feel that it’s important for all New Zealanders
to understand that this outrageous claim is totally untrue.