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New Zealand Spied On Nearly Two Dozen Pacific Countries

Posted by samzenpus on from the keep-your-eyes-on-your-own-paper dept.

An anonymous reader writes New documents from Edward Snowden indicate New Zealand undertook "full take" interception of communications from Pacific nations and forwarded the data to the NSA. The data, collected by New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau, was then fed into the NSA's XKeyscore search engine to allow analysts to trawl for intelligence. The New Zealand link helped flesh out the NSA's ambitions to intercept communications globally.

9 of 129 comments (clear)

  1. What I find unbelievable... by DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Is the general attitude of the public simply not giving a shit. This is currently front page news in the New Zealand Herald but it'll quickly be gone and forgotten, and nothing will change.

    What is the deal with the general public's apathy when it comes to NSA/GCQH/GCSB/etc ?

    Are we really at the point where it's too late to do anything about this and just admit defeat?

    --
    You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    1. Re:What I find unbelievable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most of us would have been surprised if the GCSB *wasn't* spying on the various Pacific Islands. Valid or not, it's rather assumed to be their job to do so. Let's face it - the only reason Fiji and Samoa aren't spying on NZ is because they don't have the funds to pay for it.

    2. Re:What I find unbelievable... by Rujiel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, the NSA probably isn't proactively spying on you. What they ARE doing is building up a retroactive database of our information, so that its friends can comprehensively destroy us or our reputation at a moment's notice. Hooray for you that you want your own privacy to be destroyed--feel free to hop right off that cliff, I'm sure everyone else will follow.

      Pretty sure I've explained all this to you before, alen, but I suppose that doesn't matter since you're reading from someone else's script.

    3. Re:What I find unbelievable... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Really? I call BS on you right there.

      Well, while I am not surprised, I do think it is a pathetic and embarrassing situation.
      Who exactly do we feel these countries are a threat to? Let along why do we feel the need to assist the damn USA to spy on them.
      Why do we feel we should spend money to spy on countries that at the same time we actively support with financial aid and other
      forms of support? And the only reason I can think of is the government is quite happy to treat their own people like this, so I guess
      it should be no surprise that their treat their neighbors like this.

      Once upon a time NZ actually had some independence and balls.. We stood up to the US on moral grounds and told them that because we
      were nuclear free we would not accept their warships in our ports. We were told their would be all sorts of dire consequences, which of course
      there were not.

      These days we seem to be bending over backwards to lick their boots where ever possible. Aout every 12 months we seem to lead the world
      in passing some new US developed legislation to maximise the real of the US into our own country, at no advantage to ourselves (except
      possibly the same advantage you get by not looking the bully in the eye...)

      I do wonder just how much dirt the US global information vacuum cleaner has managed to suck up on the politicians.. As it is hard to see why
      they would be selling out their own people quite so deeply unless it was to protect their own arses.

      It is yet another sad step down the walk from a proud independent country to a boot licking embarrassment.

    4. Re:What I find unbelievable... by grcumb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But the Snowden papers show that counter-terrorism is at most a minor part of the GCSB's operations. Most projects are assisting the US and allies to gather political and economic intelligence country-by-country around the world.

      That's what is going to give this story legs. If it's proven that the information was used to affect domestic policy or international relations, or if there's strong evidence that it was used to exert economic leverage over Pacific island nations, then New Zealand's credibility in the neighbourhood drops drastically.

      In years past, a lot of the voice and data traffic in the South Pacific was handled by a company named Pacific Teleports. They resold bandwidth on an Intelsat bird. The ham-fisted monitoring there was almost a joke. You could actually see an additional 80-100 ms lag introduced at the exact point where the traffic left their earth station in Australia and entered the terrestrial networks there. SSL sessions would break continually.

      But people more or less expected this kind of behaviour from Australia. They've never really thought of the Pacific islands region as anything more than an undeclared territory, and ever since George W. Bush appointed Australia the 'sheriff' (his word) in the region, they've been even more ham-fisted in their approach.

      New Zealand, on the other hand, has always portrayed itself as a Pacific island country, perhaps the first among equals, but a peer to its neighbours. Its aid programme was more engaged, and it welcomed Polynesians and Melanesians much more warmly than Australia. The difference is similar to the difference between the USA and Canada. Now, imagine Canada being revealed as the primary source of intelligence gathering in the Caribbean.

      Australia has always been somewhat brazen in its attempts to influence events in the Pacific islands. New Zealand, in contrast, has (until now) appeared to be the more reasonable of the two. If that changes, then it has the potential to drive these strategically important nations closer to China. I'm not suggesting it would be 1941 all over again, but if it ever came to that, you'd think Australia and NZ would want friends on the islands here, rather than strangers.

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  2. The sky's blue to human vision. by BLToday · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Every government tries to spy on every other government. Don't be surprised by it. Don't be surprised when they get caught doing it. How many Israeli spies have the US caught in the last 30 years? And the US is suppose to be Israel's BFF.

  3. Ten comments in and the shills are here by Rujiel · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Already two guys playing the "welp that's what they're supposed to do!" card. Very useful fallback when you can't use the tired old "We knew about this before Snowden!" line, huh?

  4. Re:New Zealand spies... by mikaere · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Most likely an understanding of China's intentions / deals with various Pacific states, such as their support for post-coup Fiji.

    Given the undemocratic nature of UN representation (Tuvalu's population of 10,000 has the same level of representation is India's 1.24 billion), the Pacific's developing nations are prime targets for vote-buying by China, US and other regional players.

    I am a kiwi, and I have campaigned against this government and find this kind of spying to be very much against my country's values.

    --
    It's good luck to be superstitious
  5. Re:Snowden threads: first few comments, same disin by mean+pun · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course this is what spy agencies do, nobody disputes this. The point is that they are overdoing it, and that is dangerous.

    And there is always a platoon of commenters that use the same worn-out arguments to muddy the discussion. Personally I'm not convinced these people are professionals rather than amateurs, but the distracting effect is there all the same.