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

[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?

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: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?

Don't worry!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama will change everything!

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...

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: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?

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.

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.

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