Intelligence review - a rubberstamp

14 May 2015

"The appointment of Michael Cullen and Patsy Reddy to review the GCSB and NZSIS ensures that the review will be a rubberstamp for the government's mass surveillance and participation in the US's endless 'war on terrorism.' Cullen is not an objective bystander as he was Deputy Prime Minister while a whole suite of repressive spying legislation was passed including the 2003 GCSB Act, and he oversaw both of these agencies massively expand their budgets and personnel. Patsy Reddy's only experience is as a government lawyer and corporate board member - she has no history in human rights or intelligence oversight whatsoever,” said OASIS member Valerie Morse

"At a time when the people of New Zealand are learning the true story about the work that the GCSB does - thanks to Edward Snowden and Nicky Hager - the government is ensuring that this review will be totally meaningless. What we have learned in the past couple of months is really alarming - complicity in human rights violations across the Pacific and Southeast Asia, along with a government willing to use these services to help their mates get jobs and attack their political enemies."

"This review should go to the very basics and ask why we even have these agencies in New Zealand. The GCSB is demonstrably part of the US's National Security Agency apparatus, and the SIS has an equally disturbing history of spying on political dissidents and vulnerable refugee communities. These agencies are a dangerous threat to the security of ordinary people. We don't need a review to tell us what we already know. OASIS calls for the disestablishment of both."

ENDS

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