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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.

14 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 DiSKiLLeR · · Score: 4, Informative

      Btw, the NZ Herald Articles:

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/n...

      The key point also:

      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.

      --
      You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
    2. 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.

    3. Re:What I find unbelievable... by NostalgiaForInfinity · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

      What exactly do you expect spy organizations to do? Why do you think we sink so much money into them.? As long as each organization spies on other countries and they don't exchange data, they are doing their job. The problem is domestic spying, or trying to circumvent rules against domestic spying by exchanging data.

    4. 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.

    5. Re:What I find unbelievable... by ckatko · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://www.mcclatchydc.com/201...

      >In personal testimonies about their work made available to McClatchy, veterans of the unit described pervasive and unfettered intrusion into the private lives of ordinary Palestinians, including use of information about sexual preferences and medical conditions to coerce people into becoming informers.

      Do enjoy being put in your place? Or are you going to backpedal and say, "Oh, that's just Israel. They only work with the NSA. The NSA wouldn't stoop to that level."

    6. 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.
    7. Re:What I find unbelievable... by chihowa · · Score: 3, Informative

      So they're going to destroy your reputation at a moments notice, by disclosing that they illegally spied on you and open themselves up to law suits.

      Sounds great. I could do with a few million to retire on.

      Please NSA, disclose who I send text messages to.

      You will never get evidence to use against them.

      --
      If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
  2. Ob by Hognoxious · · Score: 4, Funny

    Probably on the hunt for some Rugby talent.

    Again.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  3. 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.

  4. Snowden threads: first few comments, same disinfo. by Rujiel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Every single time, like clockwork.
    "This isn't new information!"
    "Well they're a spy agency, what do you expect?"
    "I don't care who reads all my text messages!"

    Even though this isn't representative of what most users will post later on in time.
    It's almost as if a bunch of people are employed to squat on Snowden threads and post the same old reheated bullshit!.. Oh wait, that's totally what's happening.

  5. Re:Every Nation. by Fire_Wraith · · Score: 3, Funny

    "In God We Trust... ...All Others We Monitor."

  6. 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
  7. 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.