Dotcom Affidavits: GCSB, Police And Knowledge Of Illegal Surveillance
Documents regarding the GCSB and police's surveillance of Kim Dotcom and others, and their knowledge that Dotcom was a
NZ resident – meaning that the surveillance was illegal.
The include the September court affidavit from GCSB, the affidavit of Grant Wormald from OFCANZ (Organised and Financial
Crime Agency New Zealand) and emails that were attached to Wormald’s affidavit. These documents were obtain by the
Labour Party by making an application to the Court.
They show the agencies discussed of the residency of Dotcom and Bram van der Kolk and their families in February 2012.
The affair was officially made public in September, seven months later.
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7. Prior to the Bureau agreeing to undertake interception operations, I was informed by OFCANZ that all persons listed
in paragraph 5 were foreign persons (as the expression “foreign person” ‘is defined in section 4 of the G CSB Act).
8. Accordingly, and in reliance on this information (which throughout the period during which our interception
operations were conducted I believed to be accurate), communications from and between those individuals were
intercepted...
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15. This advice subsequently proved, however, to be incorrect. In response to a query made by a GCSB colleague at my
direction to OFCANZ on 20 February 2012, after interception operations had been completed, and I had become aware of
media reports that Mr Dotcom was aNew Zealand resident, I learned on 22 February that Immigration NZ had advised OFCANZ
(who had not passed on the information to GCSB), that Mr Dotcorn and his family and Mr van der Kolk and his family were
in fact persons holding residence class visas under the Immigration Act 2009.
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[9 December 2011 Police request to DoL for immigration information on suveillance subjects attached to Wormald
affidavit above.]
22 Feb Email from OFCANZ:
With respect to Op DEBUT, it is becoming apparent that there are some serious issues that might need to be addressed.
We have some xhecks under way with Immigration to satisfy your request regarding residency status and dates for the
DEBUT targets. The likelihood is that these checks will show that all three have NZ residency status.
There are some important (but subsequently incorrect) assumptions and apprehensions from our end that I wish to spell
out...
22 Feb from OFCANZ:
That certainly does help to put my mind at ease. It was not so much a witch-hunt we were concerned about – the process
is the process and we will accommodate whatever form that takes. We just wanted you to be assured that we had been
ethical and proper in our dealings re this whole RFI and not a bunch of clowns walking roughshod over the law and sound
practice.
27 Feb from GCSB:
Thought you'd like to know that the paper that I submitted to our Lawyers re Debut met their need. They agreed that as
the families only had Residence there was no inadvertent targeting of NZSID7 protected persons - who are only protected
when they have Permanent Residency So all done and dusted.
Thanks for your help in pulling the facts together. Bring on the next case!
28 Feb from GCSB:
[GCSB redaction] wrote up a brief document, to catalogue the nationality issues encountered and submitted it to [GCSB
redaction]. [GCSB redaction] was pretty relaxed, and has stored this away in case we need to give an account to the IG.
Absolutely no further action required... People here have been very relaxed about it all.
28 Feb from OFCANZ:
... talked to [police analyst] and he said [GCSB redaction] happy, so it turned out ok. More luck than good management,
but all good all the same.
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ENDS