The program was ended only after John Key was told that news concerning it could be released as part of the Edward Snowden dump of information.Īnd the Human Rights Foundation has released research showing that SIS agents used dubious techniques to try and infiltrate Muslim communities.įrom Phil Pennington at Radio New Zealand: There was still funding for its development. Basic conclusion, it was not canned in 2013 when Key said it was. I did this post two years ago drawing on excellent work done by Dave Fisher at the Herald. “So I think there is some urgency to revisit the legislation and deciding where the line between privacy and safety is – I’m for moving it towards safety.”īridges’ claims about the Speargun need to be taken with a serious amount of salt. “We have seen what ISIS is saying, we have seen the Turkish President playing the massacre at rallies, we know there is a risk of copycatting,” he said. “My view is everything has changed – I’m not pretending it’s easy – but where the line is now drawn has to be reconsidered. He would not, however, say if the Government’s decision to abandon the programme was a mistake. He said Speargun would have “given an extended degree of protection to all New Zealanders”.Ī system called Cortex is now in place in New Zealand, but Bridges said it was much narrower and designed to protect institutions. He added that this was because many of the critics were prioritising privacy over safety. Project Speargun – a programme which would have scanned internet traffic coming into New Zealand – was abandoned in 2013 by the then-National Government after “vocal views against it”, Bridges said. New Zealand’s security legislation needed to change as well, Bridges said. Simon Bridges was quoted in the Herald as supporting a Royal Commission of Inquiry but was then reported as saying this:
National agrees with the review but its focus seems to be to increase the SIS’s powers, not hold it to account. She said trying to get public officials to meet them was incredibly difficult, and even when they got in the door, no action was taken and they got little support. The Islamic Women’s Council has said it told the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet at a January 2017 meeting of the ‘extreme urgency’ of its concerns about rising racism and the alt-right, and also alerted the SIS.įormer Race Relations Commissioner Dame Susan Devoy said the response of officials to Muslims over what they see as a growing threat to them had been “diabolical”. The government will hold a high-level inquiry into whether security agencies ignored warning signs, or put too much focus on the threat of Islamic extremism as New Zealand is left reeling in the wake of the terrorist attack, carried out against Muslims at two Christchurch mosques. There is not one specific mention of the threat posed by white supremacists or right-wing nationalism in 10 years of public documents from the Security Intelligence Service or the GCSB.
From Jane Patterson at Radio New Zealand: The problem appears to be they do not see white supremacists as being potential terrorist threats. But couldn’t they spend some resource investigating someone active on 4chan who buys high powered weapons over an extended period of time? Sure they cannot be expected to catch everyone. One area where there needs to be an intense review is the performance of the Security Intelligence Service. The effects of the Christchurch Mosque massacre are going to be considerable and ongoing.