New Zealand Cyber Spies Win New Powers

caeos writes "New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced in New Zealand giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life. The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand. The New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS or SIS) is an intelligence agency of the New Zealand government."

Comments

Warrants

[Nerdfest]

At least in New Zealand they still need a warrant.

Re:Warrants

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed they do. This simply extends the existing wire tapping laws to internet/mobile comms

Re:Warrants

[wizardforce]

Police and SIS must still obtain an interception warrant naming a person or place they want to monitor but, compared to the phone taps of the past, a single warrant now covers phone, email and all internet activity.

In other words, they no longer have to specify which form of electronic communication they wish to monitor; one blanket warrant covers them all...

Re:Warrants

[sopssa]

Doesn't that kind of make sense? Before phone was the only possible electronic communications device. If there's a need (real need) to tap on to someones phone, it should include all electronic communications.

Re:Warrants

[wizardforce]

In the USA, search and seizure powers were specifically limited by the fourth amendment for among other reasons, reducing the liklihood of fishing expeditions. Here you can't use the power to search something specific eg. someone's car to justify searching someone's house, mail etc. as well.

Re:Warrants

[digitalunity]

Maybe so, but over the last 10 years the government has made some changes to it's interpretation of the 4th amendment. Specifically, what constitutes an expectation of privacy as defined by Rawlings v. Kentucky, 448 U.S. 98, 104.

Beyond even the 4th amendment and 5th amendment, the US government has shown a willingness to ignore the constitution and even international law altogether if they feel national security interests are at stake. The somewhat recent case of an extraordinary rendition of a Canadian citizen while on US soil to Syria poses significant opposition to commonly held beliefs about constitutional protection. After being tortured and returned to Canada, in 2007 he came back to the US to testify before congress about his experience and as far as I know, nothing has ever come of that hearing.

The Alien Terrorist Removal Provisions of the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 allows for the FISA court to deport an alien suspected of terrorism based solely on classified evidence, to which the target cannot try to suppress evidence or intervene in any way including having representation at any hearings. Whether they are deported or not, they receive very little(if any) information about the proceedings or how any decision was reached. Oddly enough, after reading the entire bill, I could not find any reference anywhere describing where the persons can be deported to. In essence, our government formally legalized extraordinary rendition 15 years ago, although I doubt in many cases of extraordinary rendition that they follow the appropriate steps(however rudimentary they may be) through the FISA court. All they have to do is call it a deportation instead of rendition. And since the target cannot intervene in any proceedings of the process, they cannot suppress any evidence gathered via illegal means.

If anyone was hoping for "change", you didn't get it the way you thought you would. The Alien Terrorist Removal Provisions of this bill were sponsored by your very own Joe Biden. Clinton formulated the bill but it wasn't until the Oklahoma bombing that the political will to pass it existed.

So here we sit, 15 years later. The government now has the PATRIOT act on top of what was considered in 1995 to be necessary to stop terrorism. We have broad spectrum warrantless wiretapping without FISA approval based on a shady interpretation of an AG. Are we safer? In some respects maybe. Would any of these laws prevent a bomber such as Timothy McVeigh from repeating what he did? Probably not. Would these laws prevent someone from hijacking a plane and ramming it into a large bulding? Perhaps.

But at what cost? It seems to be the question that no politician has the fortitude to ask. Where do we draw the line? Terrorism is evil, but at what point do we say "this is the line we can't cross". If we enact further privacy and liberty restrictions every time someone manages to strike America, what will be left in 20 years? 50 years?

Good grief.

[Frosty Piss]

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced in New Zealand giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone's online life.

Who in the world thinks their "online life" can be kept secret from anyone? Good grief, you don't need to be the New Zealand Secret Service to dig around online to see what people are up to. Once again, if you don't want people to know what your doing, don't put it online for everyone (including the spooks) to see. The Interwebs are by their nature not private. And really, no one really cares what's on your Facebook except your uptight potential employer.

Re:Good grief.

[wizardforce]

Encrypted communication such as that between your self and your bank would be considered private. Do you really believe that the government tapping someone's communications is no big deal?

Re:Good grief.

[ickleberry]

I always think that privacy went out the window for a large percentage of the population (though more for young people) once they realised they could exchange privacy for attention or the illusion of getting attention on sites like Facebook

there is also a distinct lack of support for good old shared secret and one-time pad encryption in modern email/IM standards so that isn't helping either. maybe even if things like PGP and 'off the record' plugins were standard then it might be used outside the realm of nerds.

Re:Good grief.

[wizardforce]

You may not realize it but your argument could also be used to justify massive surveillance programs outside of peoples' homes like that in London. After all, what you do outside isn't terribly private either; people can see you all the time but that doesn't make the surveillance mundane and not worth mentioning...

Re:Good grief.

[vux984]

Maybe you shouldn't be banking online if you don't want everyone to know what your doing?

So your theory is that people should have to physically go out in public if they want something to be private? I hope i don't have to point out the obvious flaw in this.

Online banking, and any other encrypted communication should be private by default.

NZIS?

[toriver]

I mean, you can't make that shit up. Didn't they at least consider the acronym before deciding on a name?

Re:NZIS?

[wizardforce]

Considering that the operations in Iraq were once referred to as Operation Iraqi Liberation, it shouldn't surprise you that another government put minimal thought into the naming process for its new surveillance program.

Re:NZIS?

[Cyberax]

It sounds threateningly close to 'nazis'.

Yours truly,
Captain Obvious.

And the burning eye on that tower ...

[meist3r]

Is just there to help light the streets at night.

Oh Welcome, my dear friends, to the future: Where even the worst crimes against humanity are "worth it".

Re:And the burning eye on that tower ...

[Nerdfest]

They need a warrant, just not multiple warrants. This is how it's supposed to work. They prove to a judge that they have reasonable grounds to monitor a persons communications, and only then to they do so.

Don't worry!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama will change everything!

Re:Don't worry!

[Trepidity]

I, too, am outraged at his failure to rein in New Zealand. Aren't they a subsidiary of Australia, which is in turn the Oceania subsidiary of the USA?

Re:Don't worry!

[MichaelSmith]

Aren't they a subsidiary of Australia

We don't want'em but they can have Tasmania if they want it. Come on guys. Its going cheap.

Re:Don't worry!

[Vinegar Joe]

Which means as soon as Obama solves the kangaroo problem in Oz, he'll take care of the hobbit humpers.

Same shit as always

[Anonymous Coward]

Police association vice-president Stuart Mills said ... that people who weren't committing criminal offences had little to fear.

That's what everyone says who wants to violate privacy. They forget that the privacy itself has value. I fear that my privacy will be violated, for no reason other than that I want privacy. Why do I want privacy? I don't have to justify that - wanting privacy is like wanting happiness. Why do you want happiness? There is no reason. Happiness and privacy are end-wants. People want other things, only because those other things provide happiness and privacy.

Well, it is for me anyway. Other people may have sensitive things that they want to do anonymously, without anyone finding out who they are, like criticizing a dictator. That's also a valid reason for privacy.

Re:Same shit as always

[Ethanol-fueled]

Right. Taking away privacy is not necessary, in fact it's damn dehumanizing.

It's like being in a zoo, where you know everybody is pointing and laughing at you while you shit behind a wall of glass.

Imagine this: you're a soldier serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. You may be a colonel with 20 years of service or a lowly grunt with 2. You're a married man who obviously can't have sex, so you and your wife arrange to have a little private "pillow talk" over the phone. NSA agents pull up your private conversation for the "lulz", laughing their asses off at you even though you might die tomorrow for the very same government who is paying for them to watch you like a zoo exhibit and e-mail each other details of your sex life just as office workers do the latest jokes.

Fuck that, man.

At least they don't have secret police

[mc6809e]

Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law?

Obama exempts INTERPOL from search and seizure on US lands

Re:At least they don't have secret police

[witherstaff]

Sesame street has a lot of real world politics subtly hidden within it. Kermit was the CIA's man that disposed of the democratically elected government of iran to put in a puppet government. People don't appreciate how much a geopolitical fan Henson must have been.

Robert Newman has a far funnier bit on Kermit and puppet governments.

Re:Oh please

[meist3r]

Would you rather that new frontiers to never be policed or surveilled ever?

I would rather people started fixing that fucked up thing we call a "society" instead of trying to stomp out the fire even harder. Our societies are at war with each other because we're still ruled by ignorance and greed. No one installs monitoring systems in the offices so why the hell wonder about terrorism? To take your "frontier" analogy a bit deeper into reality. Instead of building a fence thousands of miles long and trying to "monitor" what goes over it you could try to seolve the issues that drive people over such a barrier. But you're probably right, monitoring is way less dirty and can't be pinned to individual responsibility.

The fact is that criminals and other evildoers are using the internet and other technology for nefarious purposes as well as the good guys.

Oh come on, evildoers? Really? Where are we? Kindergarten? I had hoped that this word vanished with the imbecile who introduced it. There are more "evildoers" in public positions and among the ranks of history than ANY terrorist group will ever hire in the entire existence of the planet. Sure we all use the technology for what we can and to prevent our antagonists from beating us to it. The problem here is that we subject millions of people all over the world to ridiculously inept means of what we call "prevention" and "preemptive measures" that the tiny amount of actual victims is far outweighed by the hysteria riddled members of the public who are easily manipulated. How many Al Qaida operatives do they actually catch in New Zealand? Isn't this just another excuse to find means to control your population? I seriously don't know but as of late ... I'm more worried about the finding out the truth part than about what they claim to protect us from.

I for one am glad for police and law enforcement agencies having the same powers as they would have in the offline world.

Then you, for one, don't understand that there is a difference between the "powers" in the offline world and the ones in the "online" world. Even if you wanted you need to put lots of effort into pinpointing someone's location in real life. The combined data from all our real world tech appliances on the other hand seem to erradicate that effort and give us instant access to whatever you need to know. At least in the olden times to find someone's hidden stash you would at least have to actually go to his place and break it open.

I wish you a happy 2010 and hope that you'll take a lesson in what people call "sarcasm". Getting it makes life on the interwebz much easier you know?

I DID BEEN TROLLED ME

[meist3r]

Oh wow and everyone will see from your clear wording and the intricate responses you took to my writing what a superior and ultimately better person you are. May the Lord set a place in heaven for you good Sir, for you've made your point with such swift eloquence that I would be but a fool to argue with it. To hell with the hippies and man was that game good or what? Miss anything? Am I now right wing and "real America" enough for you now?

Can someone write me a more appropriate list to detect ignorance please? Mine just blew off the charts.

1. Don't answer to arguments no matter how easily they can be interjected with your own
2. Call your corresponding recipient a A) Leftist B) Liberal C) Nutjob or D) Tinfoil Hat or a combination of all
3. Use adjectives like "pathetic" or "whiny" to distract from you lack of discussion value or opinion
4. Calling an individual "You people" after having had one (in numbers 1 -ONE- O N E) written anonymous exchange over the internet underlines your differenciated approach to the world and people in General
5. Make a reference to a board game you probably never played but value because of it's binary black-and-white-ishness
6. Using the wrong board game analogy to imply an ultimate state of "decidedness" to superimpose your own self worth in spite of no mentionable arguments whatsoever
7. Post anonymously to give power to your non-researchable untraceable remarks
8. Consider the state of the world a "one sentence, you suck, I rule" kind-of-problem
9. Take pride in trolling, nothing is valued more online that someone giving his "honest-to-god-uninformed-you-liberals-will-all-burn-in-hell-agenda"

Modern Laws for a Modern Society

[pspahn]

I'm perfectly aware of the argument about privacy and why it's a good thing. I'm not sure others are aware of why privacy is a bad thing.

This kind of technology and power in the hands of a certain historical figure from 1930's Europe is indeed something that would worry many. In this day and age, conspiracy theorists aside, a majority of law abiding citizens should have no problem with this technology, provided they are educated and informed on its use.

This is no different than the conversation I had with my girlfriend's brother the other night. He recently got off probation and we were having the talk about cops and stuff while driving to a concert. He, of course, hates cops, and if he's doing things that are illegal, he should. If you aren't breaking the law, fear of law enforcement borders on irrational. And instead of a response coming back to me mentioning things like Rodney King, cli-Che Guevara, or some martyr of an oppressive militant dictatorship, why not spend some time reading about the countless times when some honest, moral, and ethical person's life was dramatically improved because of modernized laws in the hands of an honest, moral, and ethical society.

You see, there are idealists on the other side of the argument as well.

Waihopai spy base probably doing this already

[twosat]

New Zealand also has a major satellite communications spy base Waihopai, said to be part of ECHELON, a worldwide network of spy stations. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GCSB_Waihopai