Mass data collection in NZ
It was inevitable that Edward Snowden's leaked document would eventually reveal that New Zealand too is involved in mass spying on civilians. As more and more came to light about the extent of spying by the NSA and their UK counterpart GCHQ, it would have been very surprising if as one of the 'five eyes' nations, we hadn't also joined in.
I like the way Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras and the other journalists have released the information from Snowden's archive of documents: releasing something, letting the relevant authorities deny it, try to twist and spin it, and then release more that reveals the outright lies and coverups for what they are. So far, everything they've claimed has turned out to be completely accurate. I hope they have more to come about NZ as well. The attempts at denial around the world have mostly relied upon deceptive statements that are technically true:
"Nobody is listening to your phone calls" --Barack Obama (via CNN)
He was technically right; the NSA is not actually listening to the calls in real time - it turned out that they are just recording them and storing them so they can listen to them afterwards if they want to.
It has been suggested that Skype made changes in its architecture at the behest of Microsoft in order to provide law enforcement with greater access to our users’ communications. False. -- Skype
They were right - it turned out that those changes were not made at the behest of Microsoft, they had already been made before the Microsoft purchase, probably at the behest of the NSA.
"We have never heard of PRISM. We do not provide any government agency with direct access to our servers and any agency requesting customer data must get a court order" - Apple (via The Guardian)
Of course they haven't heard of PRISM - that's the internal NSA code name. They don't provide "direct access" in the limited technical sense of giving direct server logins - but they almost certainly have an interface that NSA can use to obtain whatever data they want (direct access from NSA's perspective). And for the last point, either NSA can access the data data directly without having to 'request' it, or the FISA general rubber stamp court orders are considered sufficient. Likely both.
Let's look at what happened in New Zealand. The Snowden documents show that a project called SPEARGUN was developed for the purpose of collecting mass data about New Zealanders. It was in development over the last few years, and was noted as having had to wait for a new regulatory framework in the form of the new GCSB Act last year. Phase 2 was to be tapping into the Southern Cross cable late last year. John Key does not deny this - he just says that last year he cancelled Phase 2 in favour of a different program called CORTEX. So the fact remains that at the time he was advocating for the extra powers of the GCSB Act, his administration was planning and working towards a secret mass surveillance program and the GCSB Act was needed to make it legal. He knew all this while publicly denying the act would (or could) be used for any such thing. The Intercept has a good summary.
John Key said he would declassify and release documents that proved Snowden and Greenwald wrong. He hasn't. He instead released documents about a different program, called CORTEX that is supposed to provide cybersecurity. We have only the word of two people that Phase 2 of SPEARGUN was cancelled: John Key, and the head of the Southern Cross Cable organisation who denies that anyone has tapped into the cable. And his word doesn't amount to much because John Key later admitted that GCSB actually already has tapped into the Southern Cross Cable, but for CORTEX rather than SPEARGUN.
All of which is why I take John Key's denials of NZ conducting mass surveillance with a hefty grain of salt and a careful focus on the wording used. He has now said that Snowden is correct in that New Zealanders' information was available in X-KEYSCORE. What he has denied is that the GCSB is doing the surveillance for the program. Even he himself virtually acknowledges why that is: "But one thing I can say, we don't control what other agencies and other people collect". Since the Echelon system's operation in NZ was revealed by Nicky Hagar, we've known that NSA operatives are stationed here as part of the Five Eyes alliance. Snowden says he knew of two NSA groups here, one in Auckland and one up north somewhere. It's quite likely that they are officially responsible precisely so John Key can make these sort of denials.
Also, the security agencies have a particular definition of surveillance that doesn't quite match what us ordinary humans would think of. They define surveillance as real-time monitoring, and thus mass surveillance as real-time monitoring of all 4 million of us. Of course, they can absolutely deny doing that with (to them) a clear conscience, in exactly the same was as Barack Obama denied listening to phone calls (Sir Bruce Ferguson, former GCSB head, explains it in this Radio Live interview at 4:05). They can absolutely record every phone call, email, sms, Skype chat, search query and website visited by everyone in the country (and store it forever) and deny undertaking mass surveillance.
Here is a statement from John Key in the NZ Herald:
However, Snowden was mistaken in suggesting New Zealand agencies contributed large amounts of metadata about New Zealanders. "That's not true, we're not collecting wholesale information. We don't have the capability for mass surveillance", Mr Key said.
So the large amounts of metadata about New Zealanders was not contributed by New Zealand agencies. Instead, it was almost certainly contributed by the NSA, working here in New Zealand, at the invitation and cooperation of the New Zealand agencies.
Although I really would like to think that New Zealand's hands are clean on this issue, I can't be that optimistic anymore. I think John Key is a liar, and it is more likely that the government was so keen to be a nice helpful sidekick to the US that they did whatever the US told us to on this issue.