Wednesday protest for a spy-free country

From: Stop the Spies
Date: 14 July 2015

The country's top private and government spooks are holding their annual conference at the Rydges Hotel on Wednesday 15th July; the newly launched Stop the Spies campaign will be there at 5:30pm to protest the expansion of surveillance.

The theme for this year's NZ Institute of Intelligence Professionals (NZIIP) meeting is 'Protecting the Balance: Trust, Confidence, Privacy and Intelligence'.

“The theme highlights the current re-branding of surveillance been pushed by the government and private intelligence,” said Stop the Spies member Valerie Morse.

“There is no doubt now that New Zealand has an active role in the Five-Eyes and the global network of surveillance. Revelations have shown that NZ is actively involved in both spying around the world and the manipulation of communities and people for political ends,” said Valerie.

“The result is that the spies and their masters now know they need to ‘re-cloak’ themselves as open and transparent, and this is reflected in this year's conference.”

“It is also reflected in the ‘Review of Intelligence and Security’ announced in May this year. The review is nothing but a rubber-stamp for mass surveillance. Under the pretense of aiding debate, the series of leading questions given to submitters ensures the intelligence community is taken as a given.”

“The review is a whitewash,” said Ms Morse.

“We don't need a review to tell us what we already know – we need to abolish both the GCSB and SIS and get out of the Five Eyes. We need to discuss how we can become a 'spy-free space', not discuss how to become further embedded in surveillance.”

“The NZIIP may appear to be an independent non-government organization but it is a core link between both the private and government spy agencies.”

“One of its key founders in 2008 was Warren Tucker, then director of SIS. In the years since NZIIP conferences have been attended by prime ministers, the SIS, GCSB, NAB, and Defence Intelligence, as well as intelligence professionals from a range of other agencies and representatives from private industries such as Wynyard and Palantir.”

“NZIIP is an example of the network of dirty tricks.”

“We aim to be there for dinner time. The guest speaker is the Minister for Intelligence Chris Finlayson and we plan to use the opportunity to highlight the links between the many intelligence agencies and the NZ government.”

ENDS

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