This evening the new members of Parliament’s committee on the security and intelligence will meet for the first time. John Key, Rodney Hide, Tariana Turia, Phil Goff and Russel Norman have a rare chance to transform one of Parliament’s most embarrassing pieces of tokenism into a oversight committee that is fit and willing to deal with 21st century realities in security gathering and analysis.
To date, this committee has been a joke that meets for only about an hour a year. It lacks the powers of a select committee, and has essentially served as a mechanism by which the SIS and the Prime Minister can keep senior parliamentarians on board with their own agenda on security. In return for being sworn to secrecy, the MPs on the committee get absolutely nothing in return. They don’t get to scrutinise the SIS Director’s version of reality or check his files for accuracy, they can’t summon other witnesses, and they can’t publicly divulge what they have been told.
Such restraints are the relics of a bygone era. Around the world, the events of 9/11 and the Iraq invasion have exposed the shoddiness of much intelligence information and the extent of its overt politicization. At the same time, more and more domestic legislation is taking on a security dimension. Therefore, Parliament needs to play a far more active role in querying the security and intelligence dimensions of legislation. If it was properly resourced - and if it made contact with similar committees in Canada, the UK and Australia – this committee could play a very useful role as one of the state’s few oversight mechanisms on the performance of the security services.
The immediate task before the committee though, is how to handle the SIS spying on Members of Parliament. In his recent report to the Prime Minister, the SIS Inspector-General Paul Neazor recommended - as Scoop had advocated - that such files should be closed once an MP is elected. However, Neazor went on to say that a formula was needed if and when the actions of an MP required such a file to be opened.
Subsequently, Prime Minister John Key – in his capacity as Minister of the SIS – has indicated that he could arrange this in consultation with the Speaker.
This is really not good enough. Plainly, neither the public nor Parliament would be happy if any Prime Minister was allowed to arrange SIS surveillance of his fellow parliamentarians on the simple say so of a Speaker whom he has appointed. Because such spying would infringe on the work of Parliament – and especially on the constituency work of parliamentarians - it needs a much wider, multi-party mandate.
Therefore, the committee members should press tonight for it to be the body that considers and validates any such action. It should not be left to the Prime Minister in a secret arrangement with the Speaker, to give the greenlight to such surveillance. Robert Muldoon, during the Colin Moyle affair, stands as evidence of how a Prime Minister can abuse his access to secret information in order to destroy an opponent’s political career.
Being an MP is a unique occupation, and it requires special treatment. Parliament is the heart of our democracy and should be placed beyond SIS scrutiny. In the normal course of their work, MPs are required to be in contact with people from all walks of life. Their role as arbiters in community disputes and between the public and the bureaucracy requires them to be free to do that work unfettered by being spied upon by the security agencies.
In turn, members of the public need to know they can bring issues to an MP’s attention, without fear of such contact tainting their case by placing them under SIS suspicion. After all, the SIS is free to open a file on private persons of concern, but it should not be allowed to maintain a file on an MP directly - except under quite exceptional conditions that Parliament itself, via its multi-party committee on such matters, has mandated on the basis of evidence placed before one of its meetings.
The new committee is stacked 3 :2 with government appointees. Fittingly though, Tariana Turia has the swing vote. Domestically Maori activists have received an undue degree of SIS attention. As a result, Maori MPs are more likely to be in contact during their constituency work, with people whom the SIS view with concern. For both those reasons, Turia should be at pains tonight to ensure that it is the committee – and not the Prime Minister and Speaker – who gets to authorise any future spying on parliamentarians in general, and on any members of her caucus in particular. An assurance needs to be sought by the committee that any files on current MPs will be closed, immediately.
In future, security and intelligence issues are likely to play a far more important role in legislation. As soon as next week, the Immigration Bill may return to a House that is far different from the one that dealt with this legislation last year. Labour is in opposition, and the Maori Party are now in government. Turia and her caucus will have to decide whether they want to back and to own legislation that will give immigration officers far wider powers of search and detention of Pacific Islanders and Maori, while allowing the bureaucracy to operate under a much thicker blanket of secrecy.
Can Labour credibly oppose this immigration legislation that it fashioned and shepherded through Parliament – despite the misgivings of some in its caucus about the draconian powers it bestows on officials and the state? Since then of course, the Immigration Service has been its own worst enemy. There has been a cascade of revelations about the Immigration Service and its lack of accountability – especially within its Pacific division. This alone should require and justify a rethink by Labour about the wisdom of this Bill, and the desirability of Pacific Island, Maori and migrant communities to the state’s arbitrary exercise of power.Turia of course, should be especially concerned about the Maori Party choosing to rubber stamp this particular government Bill. Only a few years ago, Turia drew attention to the perils of using secret information against an accused – and at the time, she likened the treatment of Ahmed Zaoui to the treatment of Te Whiti in the 1880s. In both cases, Turia argued, people were being denied due process, with their fate decided by an Executive that had ‘necessarily….been influenced by political and economic considerations. That was precisely the case with Te Whiti. He was denied access to the courts. The parallels are strong.”
How can Turia now possibly turn arounbd, and support a Bill that will give immigration officers enhanced powers of detention and search, when she knows so thoroughly the content of the West Coast Protection Act of 1882, and the way that piece of legislation was used against her people ? “ The said Te Whiti and Tohu, or either of them, shall not be tried…[but] it shall be lawful..to keep the said Te Whiti and Tohu, or either of them, in custody at such place as the Governor thinks fit.,..” And to be re-arrested at will.
Maori and Pacific Island communities may need to remind the Maori Party about the content of the Immigration Bill, and the lessons of past and recent history.
The security threat over Afghanistan
The security concerns do not begin and end simply with immigration issues. Thanks to Helen Clark, New Zealand’s role in the war on terrorism has been cleverly tailored to minimize the security threats to this country. We did not take part in the invasion of Iraq, and our role in Afghanistan – once the UN forces had displaced the Taliban government – was limited to reconstruction work in the country’s most peaceful region, and to providing a few desk officers in Kabul.
That may now be about to change. The UN has signalled it wants troops from a wide spectrum of member countries to help with the August election in Afghanistan, and President Obama is switching his military and nation-building focus from Iraq to Afghanistan. Australia has already publicly stated that it expects to be asked to contribute more troops. Are we expecting a similar call –from the US for our special forces, and from the UN for a regular troop contingent to police the Afghan elcction ?
If so, what do the SIS and GCSB consider would be the security repercussions for New Zealand of our more active and visible role in the wider war within Afghanistan ? Tonight, the committee should be readying an invitation to SIS chief Warren Tucker for him to give them a briefing on this situation. Party leaders need to have such a perspective – preferably before the call for such a deployment decision arises, and not afterwards.
Other issues the committee should address ? The availability of personal files. Under a general policy of greater openness, what steps are the SIS taking to make personal files more fully accessible ? Can the public – and archivists and historians – expect that the SIS will release its files into the public domain more quickly and thoroughly ? In other jurisdictions like the US, files from the 70s and 80s are being released. Here, the SIS is only grudgingly and partially releasing information from the 1950s and 1960s. Why is it dragging its feet ?
In other words, there is plenty for the committee to seek from the security agencies – that is, if it wants to be more than just a passive audience whenever the SIS decides to pop in for a cup of tea. Patently, the SIS need close oversight. It was only when foreign experts, like Colonel Mohammed Samraoui came here to testify for Ahmed Zaoui that the outright errors and shoddy analysis carried out by the SIS were exposed - at the cumulative cost of millions to the taxpayer, much damage to the country’s reputation and considerable suffering to all involved. Someone needs to hold these people to account.
All, in all, it should be an interesting committee meeting tonight. Even Rodney Hide, who paints himself as such a staunch foe of waste and unfettered state power, should be willing to give the committee some teeth.
Showing posts with label SIS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SIS. Show all posts
More SIS Files - this time Trade Unionist Paul Corliss
Transport Worker (Rail and Maritime Workers Union), March 2009
Our esteemed ex-industrial officer, Paul Corliss, has just been “gifted” most of his SIS files. They make interesting and revealing reading – most of which comes as a surprise to Paul.
Apparently the SIS have not just taken a cloak-and-dagger, and boring, interest in my activity within the wider trade union movement (e. g. the FOL and the NZCTU) and in my political protest activity (e. g. opposition to foreign ownership in NZ or the 1981 anti-apartheid arrests) but have closely followed my alleged ‘career’ with the constituent unions of the later RMTU – over some two decades from 1974 to the 1990s.
It appears bizarre but clear that among earlier railway workmates there was at least one SIS ‘informant’ (possibly called “LAWRENCE” - whether Christian name or surname is unknown to me) reporting me as a “troublemaker to railways management” when working as a shunter and an official of the National Union of Railwaymen. That explains why I never got promoted to Station Agent at Opua!
It additionally alleges then National President of the NUR, George Finlayson, had claimed SUP influence in the Canterbury NUR.
Whacko, I say.
Among a wide range of material, the files note our most excellent protest when, in 1983, we (some 250 rail workers) physically prevented Minister of Railways George Gair’s attempts to enter the Christchurch railway station and demanded his ministerial resignation.
Much of the declassified material (most stamped ‘Secret’) relates to union activities, all of which were publically discoverable to anyone with a subscription to the daily papers or an ear on the radio.
They then followed me onto the wharves at Lyttelton when I took up my job as secretary of the Harbour Workers Union, but don’t appear to have pursued my industrial officer activity with the Rail & Maritime Union from 1995 onward. Perhaps I had become ‘too establishment’, not making enough trouble?
Dr Tucker advises, in his pleasant and personalised 4 page covering-letter, that the SIS are with-holding a further six reports on me, on the basis that their release could “enable the identification of secret sources of information”.
Access to my file occurred as a result of a ‘user-friendly’ PR campaign, (including declassification of historical files) entered into by recent appointee to the SIS directorship, Dr Warren Tucker. To become a “subject of interest” to our spy agency, the Security Intelligence Service, I believe one of the pre-requisites is to “pose a demonstrable risk to the security of New Zealand”. The debate about Big Brother and freedoms in a democracy require more space than the Transport Worker provides.
As far as I am aware, I have never been a member of any organisation that has plotted to overthrow or terrorise New Zealand … though I must admit to having been occasionally tempted! I have been a member of several legal organisations that have attempted, sometimes successfully, to dissent with and change many aspects of the way New Zealand operates politically and industrially.
Perhaps surprisingly, I am not, and have never been, a member of any political party. While there are surely one or two people who don’t particularly like me, I am not an ‘enemy of the state’. I can only just manage to spell ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘Osama’. Are these sufficient reasons to make me subject to covert surveillance and monitoring as a “suspect” individual?
Apparently so.
Our esteemed ex-industrial officer, Paul Corliss, has just been “gifted” most of his SIS files. They make interesting and revealing reading – most of which comes as a surprise to Paul.
Apparently the SIS have not just taken a cloak-and-dagger, and boring, interest in my activity within the wider trade union movement (e. g. the FOL and the NZCTU) and in my political protest activity (e. g. opposition to foreign ownership in NZ or the 1981 anti-apartheid arrests) but have closely followed my alleged ‘career’ with the constituent unions of the later RMTU – over some two decades from 1974 to the 1990s.
It appears bizarre but clear that among earlier railway workmates there was at least one SIS ‘informant’ (possibly called “LAWRENCE” - whether Christian name or surname is unknown to me) reporting me as a “troublemaker to railways management” when working as a shunter and an official of the National Union of Railwaymen. That explains why I never got promoted to Station Agent at Opua!
It additionally alleges then National President of the NUR, George Finlayson, had claimed SUP influence in the Canterbury NUR.
Whacko, I say.
Among a wide range of material, the files note our most excellent protest when, in 1983, we (some 250 rail workers) physically prevented Minister of Railways George Gair’s attempts to enter the Christchurch railway station and demanded his ministerial resignation.
Much of the declassified material (most stamped ‘Secret’) relates to union activities, all of which were publically discoverable to anyone with a subscription to the daily papers or an ear on the radio.
They then followed me onto the wharves at Lyttelton when I took up my job as secretary of the Harbour Workers Union, but don’t appear to have pursued my industrial officer activity with the Rail & Maritime Union from 1995 onward. Perhaps I had become ‘too establishment’, not making enough trouble?
Dr Tucker advises, in his pleasant and personalised 4 page covering-letter, that the SIS are with-holding a further six reports on me, on the basis that their release could “enable the identification of secret sources of information”.
Access to my file occurred as a result of a ‘user-friendly’ PR campaign, (including declassification of historical files) entered into by recent appointee to the SIS directorship, Dr Warren Tucker. To become a “subject of interest” to our spy agency, the Security Intelligence Service, I believe one of the pre-requisites is to “pose a demonstrable risk to the security of New Zealand”. The debate about Big Brother and freedoms in a democracy require more space than the Transport Worker provides.
As far as I am aware, I have never been a member of any organisation that has plotted to overthrow or terrorise New Zealand … though I must admit to having been occasionally tempted! I have been a member of several legal organisations that have attempted, sometimes successfully, to dissent with and change many aspects of the way New Zealand operates politically and industrially.
Perhaps surprisingly, I am not, and have never been, a member of any political party. While there are surely one or two people who don’t particularly like me, I am not an ‘enemy of the state’. I can only just manage to spell ‘Afghanistan’ and ‘Osama’. Are these sufficient reasons to make me subject to covert surveillance and monitoring as a “suspect” individual?
Apparently so.
SIS spying on MP's
Below is an article about the spying on MP's by the SIS
Editorial: MPs are not above suspicion
The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 23/03/2009
Green MP Keith Locke should be used to intelligence agencies taking an interest in his activities. One of the Security Intellligence Service's predecessors first opened a file on him in 1955 when he was 10 years old. Nevertheless, Mr Locke is entitled to feel aggrieved about the SIS's scrutiny, The Dominion Post writes.
Mr Locke, the son of well-known communists Elsie and Jack Locke, has a long history of championing dubious causes. Even he admits he was wrong to hail the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
But there is nothing on the public record that shows Mr Locke has ever presented more of a danger to the public than to himself.
The material added to his file since he became an MP in 1999 suggests there is little, if anything, in his private affairs for the public to be concerned about either.
According to Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Justice Paul Neazor, it includes: a note of a discussion he and another MP had with the service, a reference to a parliamentary speech, four newspaper clippings which Judge Neazor found to have no security significance, a document related to an overseas trip taken by the Green MP and the programme of a symposium at which Mr Locke spoke.
Judge Neazor also reported that he had found one "certainly unprofessional" notation that lent weight to Mr Locke's belief that at least some of the material on his file had been gathered because of his critical stance in Parliament towards intelligence issues.
That is a bigger cause for concern than Mr Locke's misplaced sympathies. The SIS has powers denied other organs of the state because of the serious nature of its responsibilities, but it is not entitled to use its resources to gather intelligence for political purposes in this case to embarrass or belittle a critic.
An outraged Mr Locke says the service should be prohibited from holding files on sitting MPs, that there should be no surveillance of MPs, except to support a criminal investigation, and that MPs' communications with constituents a broad concept that encompasses every New Zealand resident for list MPs such as him should be off-limits to the security services.
He goes too far. The SIS may have wasted time and resources monitoring his activities, but there is no reason why MPs should be treated differently from the rest of the population.
As Judge Neazor rightly points out, any regime has to take account of the "unpalatable" possibility that an MP might involve himself in activities that endanger national security.
Judge Neazor's suggestion that the security services be required to seek the permission of Parliament's Speaker before collecting information on MPs strikes the appropriate balance between parliamentary independence and security.
Parliamentarians should be free to go about their duties uninhibited by the security agencies, but the law has to guard against all eventualities.
Mr Locke should consider whether he would want members of an extreme Right-wing organisation given the protections he advocates, should it gain representation in Parliament.
Editorial: MPs are not above suspicion
The Dominion Post
Last updated 05:00 23/03/2009
Green MP Keith Locke should be used to intelligence agencies taking an interest in his activities. One of the Security Intellligence Service's predecessors first opened a file on him in 1955 when he was 10 years old. Nevertheless, Mr Locke is entitled to feel aggrieved about the SIS's scrutiny, The Dominion Post writes.
Mr Locke, the son of well-known communists Elsie and Jack Locke, has a long history of championing dubious causes. Even he admits he was wrong to hail the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
But there is nothing on the public record that shows Mr Locke has ever presented more of a danger to the public than to himself.
The material added to his file since he became an MP in 1999 suggests there is little, if anything, in his private affairs for the public to be concerned about either.
According to Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Justice Paul Neazor, it includes: a note of a discussion he and another MP had with the service, a reference to a parliamentary speech, four newspaper clippings which Judge Neazor found to have no security significance, a document related to an overseas trip taken by the Green MP and the programme of a symposium at which Mr Locke spoke.
Judge Neazor also reported that he had found one "certainly unprofessional" notation that lent weight to Mr Locke's belief that at least some of the material on his file had been gathered because of his critical stance in Parliament towards intelligence issues.
That is a bigger cause for concern than Mr Locke's misplaced sympathies. The SIS has powers denied other organs of the state because of the serious nature of its responsibilities, but it is not entitled to use its resources to gather intelligence for political purposes in this case to embarrass or belittle a critic.
An outraged Mr Locke says the service should be prohibited from holding files on sitting MPs, that there should be no surveillance of MPs, except to support a criminal investigation, and that MPs' communications with constituents a broad concept that encompasses every New Zealand resident for list MPs such as him should be off-limits to the security services.
He goes too far. The SIS may have wasted time and resources monitoring his activities, but there is no reason why MPs should be treated differently from the rest of the population.
As Judge Neazor rightly points out, any regime has to take account of the "unpalatable" possibility that an MP might involve himself in activities that endanger national security.
Judge Neazor's suggestion that the security services be required to seek the permission of Parliament's Speaker before collecting information on MPs strikes the appropriate balance between parliamentary independence and security.
Parliamentarians should be free to go about their duties uninhibited by the security agencies, but the law has to guard against all eventualities.
Mr Locke should consider whether he would want members of an extreme Right-wing organisation given the protections he advocates, should it gain representation in Parliament.
And more on the SIS
A number of activists have requested their SIS files. Here is an article sparked by yesterdays one about CAFCA.
Spied on since she was 10
By MARTIN VAN BEYNEN -
The Press Thursday, 29 January 2009
JOHN SELKIRK/The Dominion Post
I SPY: Activist Marie Leadbeater, 63, discovered that she has had her own SIS file since was 10-years-old.
You are never too young to be regarded as a potential subversive, a Security Intelligence Service file shows.
Maire Leadbeater, now 63 and a long-time activist on peace issues, was an early target because of her Christchurch parents, Elsie and Jack Locke, who were prominent members of the New Zealand Communist Party and community activists.
Elsie Locke left the Communist Party in 1956 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, but her husband stayed.
One of Leadbeater's siblings is Green MP Keith Locke, a former Trotskyist and member of the Socialist Action League who has also received his SIS file.
Leadbeater's file, which she received late last year, begins when she was 10, with a note that she delivered the Communist Party newspaper, the People's Voice, to the mother of twins in Bangor St, in central Christchurch.
The next item refers to her membership of a junior drama group that the file says was connected with the William Morris (a Fabian socialist) Group, regarded by the SIS as a front for the Communist Party. Elsie Locke performed in the group.
The file continues to track Leadbeater's life, although the SIS lost track of her when she married and took her husband's name. "They lost me for about 13 years," she said.
Her file, like most of the others released, contains material from private meetings.
"I find that the hardest to accept," Leadbeater said. "That small groups of people gathering together in private homes and offices should have someone planted in the meetings.
"It's pretty shocking really. It's potentially very bad for democracy because it makes people anxious about involving themselves in free discussion of ideas and has a big impact on trust if you have to think to yourself `one of us could be a source'."
She was surprised to find her file contains a list of every member of the Palestine Human Rights Committee.
Her file contained references to the state of her parents' marriage, which the SIS thought would be strained by Elsie's departure from the party.
``It's all wrong anyway,'' Leadbeater said. ``It's unpleasant, inaccurate speculation about highly personal family issues.''
The most recent item on her file is a reference to a member of the South Auckland Muslim Association who said she would be taking part in a march on September 28, 2002.
Leadbeater's activities on behalf of the Fiji Coalition for Democracy, the anti-bases campaigns and the Ahmed Zaoui campaign are not mentioned in the file.
"Does this mean that snooping is less or done in a different way?'' she said.
Keith Locke confirmed he had received his own file, which was thick, and his mother's biographer was in possession of his mother's file. He had yet to view his file and was not prepared to comment.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who was once prominent in a number of radical movements, said he would be travelling to Wellington to uplift his file as part of a TV3 news programme.
He was not sure the SIS kept a file on him, but said he would feel a bit insulted if it did not.
"It will make interesting reading. I suspect they would have got a lot more detail if they had just read my book Bullshit and Jellybeans,'' he said.
Shadbolt said he had led at least five radical organisations, including the Radical Students Association and Auckland University Students for the Prevention of Cruelty to Politically Apathetic Humans.
"If they figured out what [the latter organisation] was about, then good luck to them because we never could,'' he said.
Spied on since she was 10
By MARTIN VAN BEYNEN -
The Press Thursday, 29 January 2009
JOHN SELKIRK/The Dominion Post
I SPY: Activist Marie Leadbeater, 63, discovered that she has had her own SIS file since was 10-years-old.
You are never too young to be regarded as a potential subversive, a Security Intelligence Service file shows.
Maire Leadbeater, now 63 and a long-time activist on peace issues, was an early target because of her Christchurch parents, Elsie and Jack Locke, who were prominent members of the New Zealand Communist Party and community activists.
Elsie Locke left the Communist Party in 1956 when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary, but her husband stayed.
One of Leadbeater's siblings is Green MP Keith Locke, a former Trotskyist and member of the Socialist Action League who has also received his SIS file.
Leadbeater's file, which she received late last year, begins when she was 10, with a note that she delivered the Communist Party newspaper, the People's Voice, to the mother of twins in Bangor St, in central Christchurch.
The next item refers to her membership of a junior drama group that the file says was connected with the William Morris (a Fabian socialist) Group, regarded by the SIS as a front for the Communist Party. Elsie Locke performed in the group.
The file continues to track Leadbeater's life, although the SIS lost track of her when she married and took her husband's name. "They lost me for about 13 years," she said.
Her file, like most of the others released, contains material from private meetings.
"I find that the hardest to accept," Leadbeater said. "That small groups of people gathering together in private homes and offices should have someone planted in the meetings.
"It's pretty shocking really. It's potentially very bad for democracy because it makes people anxious about involving themselves in free discussion of ideas and has a big impact on trust if you have to think to yourself `one of us could be a source'."
She was surprised to find her file contains a list of every member of the Palestine Human Rights Committee.
Her file contained references to the state of her parents' marriage, which the SIS thought would be strained by Elsie's departure from the party.
``It's all wrong anyway,'' Leadbeater said. ``It's unpleasant, inaccurate speculation about highly personal family issues.''
The most recent item on her file is a reference to a member of the South Auckland Muslim Association who said she would be taking part in a march on September 28, 2002.
Leadbeater's activities on behalf of the Fiji Coalition for Democracy, the anti-bases campaigns and the Ahmed Zaoui campaign are not mentioned in the file.
"Does this mean that snooping is less or done in a different way?'' she said.
Keith Locke confirmed he had received his own file, which was thick, and his mother's biographer was in possession of his mother's file. He had yet to view his file and was not prepared to comment.
Invercargill Mayor Tim Shadbolt, who was once prominent in a number of radical movements, said he would be travelling to Wellington to uplift his file as part of a TV3 news programme.
He was not sure the SIS kept a file on him, but said he would feel a bit insulted if it did not.
"It will make interesting reading. I suspect they would have got a lot more detail if they had just read my book Bullshit and Jellybeans,'' he said.
Shadbolt said he had led at least five radical organisations, including the Radical Students Association and Auckland University Students for the Prevention of Cruelty to Politically Apathetic Humans.
"If they figured out what [the latter organisation] was about, then good luck to them because we never could,'' he said.
CAFCA's SIS file
CAFCA recently requested and was given it's historical file from the Secret Intelligence Service. Whilst in Christchurch over the summer I was able to read this file from start to finish. What I found to be the most astonishing was the lack of anything that would warrant their on-going surveillance. The interest in the personal lives of those involved and disturbing and comments made about individuals behaviour in meetings or there personal views was predictable from such an organisation - but none the less irritating. It serves as a an example of the constant surveillance anyone will be under who questions government, capitalism or adheres to anything but the status quo. Apart from the obvious 'why on earth were they doing this' reaction I actually found the file fascinating as historical reading. It gave in places almost a day to day account of what activists were up to. Of particular interest to me was the numerous pages committed to the 1975 Resistance Ride, which saw activists congregate from around the country for a tour of the south island stopping off at points of interest and at small towns to talk to local people. I had heard accounts of the Resistance Ride before but it was helpful to read the newspaper articles that were generated at the time. So there we go - our SIS - glorified newspaper clippers.
Here is an article that appeared in the Christchurch Press on Wednesday 28th January regarding the CAFCA SIS file.
SIS reveals secret files
Article 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Martin van Beynen
The release of Security Intelligence Service (SIS) files on individuals has revealed for the first time
how far the shadowy service reached into the lives of activist and non-activist New Zealanders.
In response to the SIS relaxing its approach to redundant files, the word has got out.
A flood of files is reaching the people spied on, with most of the clandestine reporting referring to
legitimate protest and political activity.
In November, Murray Horton, a former railway worker, applied for the file on the Campaign Against
Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca), an organisation he helped found.
He received 400 documents, including a cover letter from SIS head Dr Wayne Tucker. It said the
spying had stopped.
The file presented a ‘‘fascinating and disturbing pattern of systematic covert state surveillance of
many, many organisations and many hundreds, if not thousands, of people over decades’’, Horton said.
He had seen other files. One showed the SIS had started monitoring an activist when she was 10.
An SIS spokesman said the service had adopted an archives policy in 2003 to aid ‘‘the proactive
declassification of historical records’’.
‘‘A key element of the archives policy is that the SIS will deal impartially with information, regardless
of whether it reflects unfavourably on the service or shows the service in a good light,’’ he said.
‘‘Subsequent publicity has led to an increase in requests for access to personal information . . . The
service has made every endeavour to be forthcoming.’’
The greater openness had been well-received, with 26 people being sent their personal files last year.
‘‘Recipients of declassified SIS reports have generally viewed them in their historical context and
realised that the service’s methods and informationcollection priorities have altered over the years as the
nature and perceptions of threats to security have changed.’’
The identity of agents and sources of information was deleted from the files, the spokesman said.
So much for democracy, Horton said.
‘‘Our own little country has been proven to behave towards its dissidents in much the same way as
the Communist police states that it used to rail against,’’ he said.
The worst of it was that the Cafca file and others released indiscreet and personally damaging
material about named third parties who were not the subject of the surveillance but simply caught up in
its net, he said.
‘‘A lot of it is salacious gossip, with analyses of named people’s marriage problems, drinking habits,
etc, etc,’’ Horton said.
‘‘Some of it is laughable, like a report dedicated to the likely impact of feminism and different gender
views on abortion on the marriages of named couples.’’
One report contained this reference to Horton: ‘‘He likes the sound of his own voice and keeps
interrupting the other speakers.’’
Bill Rosenberg, 57, who is a member of Cafca, told the Press he had received his personal file, some
of the file kept on his late father, Canterbury University economist Wolfgang Rosenberg, a refugee from
Nazi Germany, and also the file on his mother.
The deputy director of the centre for teaching and learning at Canterbury University said he had
never been a member of a political party but had been in several anti-war protest groups since his youth.
His father’s file showed he had been followed when he went around the country giving talks to
groups. His mother was also monitored because of her membership of the New Zealand Communist
Party in her youth and her involvement in organisations such as the Housewives Union.
His father’s application for a professorship at Victoria University was noted, and he wondered if the
SIS had intervened to ensure it failed.
The files reflected the paranoia of the McCarthy era but also the particular views of SIS staff,
Rosenberg said. ‘‘The release of the files marks a significant change in that degree of paranoia and that
view of the world.’’
His file contained mainly comments about him by Socialist Unity Party and Communist Party
members at private meetings. Most disturbing was the car registration numbers taken when people
visited his house after he had returned from overseas.
The picture emerging from the files was a ‘‘huge mixture of time-serving stuff’’ and reports about
innocuous events, Rosenberg said.
The lack of sophistication was startling and little analysis was done on why activities were suspicious.
The vast majority of reporting was about ‘‘perfectly legitimate political activity by people who had a
different view to the status quo’’, Rosenberg said.
SIS dossiers detail dalliances, dances and very little drama
Article rank 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Organisations and individuals throughout the country are finding out whythey
attracted the attention of the Security Intelligence Service as files no longer
regarded as live are released. MARTINVANBEYNENblows the dust off two
Christchurch files
Keeping files for the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) must have been a boring job. The file on the
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca, formerly Cafcinz, the Campaign Against Foreign
Control in New Zealand) contains about 400 mostly mundane documents, and goes back to its earlier
incarnation in 1965.
It consists mainly of newspaper clippings, Cafca publications and newsletters, press releases and
internal SIS memorandums providing reports on Cafca’s annual meetings. It also contains briefings to
the prime minister on Cafca and notes that some material was passed on to the United States
government.
Much of the information stems from the SIS’s District Office, Christchurch (DOC).
The SIS would not have needed to employ its full resources to garner the information. Most of it
would have been easily obtainable by subscription, and Cafca has always correctly assumed addresses
on its mailing list contained either post office boxes belonging to the SIS or the police Criminal
Intelligence Service.
SIS reports of meetings always identify the attendees, as do reports on pickets and protests. Other
happenings at such protests are recorded, including anti-government statements.
A record of a demonstration in 1980 notes an individual calling the government a ‘‘ripoff’’ and saying
the ‘‘Marxist way of life’’ was better.
Finances are often mentioned as links with other organisations.
By the mid-1980s, the SIS had almost lost interest in Cafca, regarding it as of ‘‘minimal security
interest’’.
A covering letter accompanying the released file by current SIS director Dr Warren Tucker says the
service would have been less interested in the organisation after 1977 if it had not continued with
protests against US bases and naval visits and with protests to abolish the SIS.
The SIS’s interest appears to have peaked in a period between 1975 and 1978 when Cafca or its
predecessor was involved in protests against the visit of US navy secretary J. W. Middendorf, the
berthing of Russian trawler Yunost at Lyttelton and the Pacific Basin Economic Council meeting in
Christchurch.
These followed the involvement of Cafca members in a protest and winning-hearts campaign called
the South Island Resistance Ride in 1975.
The Cafca file included a list of everyone on the ride, with their address and telephone number.
Preparations for the tour, such as ferry bookings, are documented.
The interest cranked up in 1976 when an attempt was made to sabotage a communications mast at
Weedons in Canterbury, and increased again in 1977 when seven .303 bullets were fired into an oil
tanker in protest against the visit of the US Union Oil chairman to the Pacific Basin meeting.
No evidence suggested any link with Cafca, but clearly it was strongly suspected, the file shows.
The prime minister was briefed on the organisation by then SIS director Paul Molineaux.
After skirmishes at the demonstration against the Pacific Basin meeting, the SIS notes on the file
appear to lament a ‘‘well-placed source’’ in Cafca who should have been able to ‘‘forewarn’’ the
authorities.
Although the file suggests a degree of infiltration of Cafca by the SIS by 1978, it did not go to the
trouble of planting a mole.
The main reason for the SIS’s curiosity about Cafca was the organisation’s suspected links and
shared personnel with the New Zealand Communist Party (CP), its youth arm, the Progressive Youth
Movement (PYM), the Socialist Unity Party of New Zealand (SUP) and various offshoots.
From the Cafca file it is clear the SIS had a mole within the Christchurch branch of the CP and as
early as 1975 the party source is reporting how the party regards Cafca as a good testing and recruiting
ground for converts.
The SIS took a much closer interest in CP members, which involved intercepting mail.
In 1986, its source reports on a meeting at which the perilous finances of the Christchurch branch are
discussed and the need to persuade Marion Lesley Hobbs (who later became a Labour Cabinet minister)
to pledge $10.
CP cadres did not always do Cafca any favours. In 1980, B, attending a CP meeting, is reported to
boast when drunk that Cafca had been responsible for the Weedons aerial sabotage on directions from
the CP. Cafca stalwart Murray Horton says the organisation was not involved.
The SIS expresses, in one memo, its satisfaction at the Cafca protest against the Russian trawler
visit, suggesting the protest would create a rift between Cafca and the ‘‘People’s Union’’.
The Cafca file, with its broad compass, contrasts with the file on Christchurch unionist Paul Corliss,
formerly the secretary of the Harbour Workers Union and convener of the Council of Trade Unions in
Canterbury. He is now a part-time union organiser.
He first came to the attention of the SIS in 1974 through his association with Horton and another
Cafca stalwart, Brian Rooney.
He worked with Horton as distribution manager for the Canterbury University student newspaper
Canta, and both men later worked in the traffic branch of New Zealand Railways in Christchurch.
Both are noted in Corliss’s file as ‘‘troublemakers to railways management’’.
Suspicions Corliss might be a member of SUP (he was never a member of the grouping) are also
noted. Corliss’s file tracks his rise up the ranks of the trade union movement and starts with his involvement
in the South Island Resistance Ride, for which he was in charge of food.
In the end, he could not be bothered going, he says.
His file mentions his attendance at a protest in 1980 in Lyttelton against the sale of coal to Japan and
also his arrest in a protest against the Springboks rugby tour in 1981.It records his promotion to Canterbury secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen and his part in a protest against minister of railways George Gair.
It notes his appointment to the executive of the Council of Trade Unions and reports his attendance at a May Day social organised by the CP at the Trade Union Centre in Christchurch on May 2, 1986. The report notes the gathering was entertained by a blind man playing an accordion and a tin
whistle.
Corliss is tracked attending a meeting of SUP in 1986 and in the same year is said not to have turned
up at a Committee for a Worker Front meeting where he was supposed to speak.The committee was trying to come up with a manifesto to provide an alternative to the Roger
Douglas reforms.
His file then notes his invitation to a seminar by SUP and an advertisement giving notice of his
intention to speak at a series of public forums on ‘‘reconquering the Labour Party or a new workers’
party’’.
Corliss, who has never been a member of a political party, says he is not overly perturbed at finding
– to his surprise – that he is the subject of an SIS file.
But he finds it bizarre he should ‘‘feature in some official secret source’’.
‘‘I mean, I wouldn’t feel like that if I had some guilt or something, but this is a bit odd,’’ he says. ‘‘All
I did was belong to legal organisations.’’
He was not a career railwayman, but ‘‘if I had been, it [the note about being a troublemaker] could
have been a major influence on my future’’.
‘‘It seems clear they were talking with senior management about me and Murray, and that would
have leaked like a sieve,’’ he says. ‘‘To say I was causing trouble was a sign I was doing my job as a representative. But there were thousands of union delegates around the country doing what democratic unions are allowed to do.’’
Here is an article that appeared in the Christchurch Press on Wednesday 28th January regarding the CAFCA SIS file.
SIS reveals secret files
Article 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Martin van Beynen
The release of Security Intelligence Service (SIS) files on individuals has revealed for the first time
how far the shadowy service reached into the lives of activist and non-activist New Zealanders.
In response to the SIS relaxing its approach to redundant files, the word has got out.
A flood of files is reaching the people spied on, with most of the clandestine reporting referring to
legitimate protest and political activity.
In November, Murray Horton, a former railway worker, applied for the file on the Campaign Against
Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca), an organisation he helped found.
He received 400 documents, including a cover letter from SIS head Dr Wayne Tucker. It said the
spying had stopped.
The file presented a ‘‘fascinating and disturbing pattern of systematic covert state surveillance of
many, many organisations and many hundreds, if not thousands, of people over decades’’, Horton said.
He had seen other files. One showed the SIS had started monitoring an activist when she was 10.
An SIS spokesman said the service had adopted an archives policy in 2003 to aid ‘‘the proactive
declassification of historical records’’.
‘‘A key element of the archives policy is that the SIS will deal impartially with information, regardless
of whether it reflects unfavourably on the service or shows the service in a good light,’’ he said.
‘‘Subsequent publicity has led to an increase in requests for access to personal information . . . The
service has made every endeavour to be forthcoming.’’
The greater openness had been well-received, with 26 people being sent their personal files last year.
‘‘Recipients of declassified SIS reports have generally viewed them in their historical context and
realised that the service’s methods and informationcollection priorities have altered over the years as the
nature and perceptions of threats to security have changed.’’
The identity of agents and sources of information was deleted from the files, the spokesman said.
So much for democracy, Horton said.
‘‘Our own little country has been proven to behave towards its dissidents in much the same way as
the Communist police states that it used to rail against,’’ he said.
The worst of it was that the Cafca file and others released indiscreet and personally damaging
material about named third parties who were not the subject of the surveillance but simply caught up in
its net, he said.
‘‘A lot of it is salacious gossip, with analyses of named people’s marriage problems, drinking habits,
etc, etc,’’ Horton said.
‘‘Some of it is laughable, like a report dedicated to the likely impact of feminism and different gender
views on abortion on the marriages of named couples.’’
One report contained this reference to Horton: ‘‘He likes the sound of his own voice and keeps
interrupting the other speakers.’’
Bill Rosenberg, 57, who is a member of Cafca, told the Press he had received his personal file, some
of the file kept on his late father, Canterbury University economist Wolfgang Rosenberg, a refugee from
Nazi Germany, and also the file on his mother.
The deputy director of the centre for teaching and learning at Canterbury University said he had
never been a member of a political party but had been in several anti-war protest groups since his youth.
His father’s file showed he had been followed when he went around the country giving talks to
groups. His mother was also monitored because of her membership of the New Zealand Communist
Party in her youth and her involvement in organisations such as the Housewives Union.
His father’s application for a professorship at Victoria University was noted, and he wondered if the
SIS had intervened to ensure it failed.
The files reflected the paranoia of the McCarthy era but also the particular views of SIS staff,
Rosenberg said. ‘‘The release of the files marks a significant change in that degree of paranoia and that
view of the world.’’
His file contained mainly comments about him by Socialist Unity Party and Communist Party
members at private meetings. Most disturbing was the car registration numbers taken when people
visited his house after he had returned from overseas.
The picture emerging from the files was a ‘‘huge mixture of time-serving stuff’’ and reports about
innocuous events, Rosenberg said.
The lack of sophistication was startling and little analysis was done on why activities were suspicious.
The vast majority of reporting was about ‘‘perfectly legitimate political activity by people who had a
different view to the status quo’’, Rosenberg said.
SIS dossiers detail dalliances, dances and very little drama
Article rank 28 Jan 2009
The Press
Organisations and individuals throughout the country are finding out whythey
attracted the attention of the Security Intelligence Service as files no longer
regarded as live are released. MARTINVANBEYNENblows the dust off two
Christchurch files
Keeping files for the Security Intelligence Service (SIS) must have been a boring job. The file on the
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (Cafca, formerly Cafcinz, the Campaign Against Foreign
Control in New Zealand) contains about 400 mostly mundane documents, and goes back to its earlier
incarnation in 1965.
It consists mainly of newspaper clippings, Cafca publications and newsletters, press releases and
internal SIS memorandums providing reports on Cafca’s annual meetings. It also contains briefings to
the prime minister on Cafca and notes that some material was passed on to the United States
government.
Much of the information stems from the SIS’s District Office, Christchurch (DOC).
The SIS would not have needed to employ its full resources to garner the information. Most of it
would have been easily obtainable by subscription, and Cafca has always correctly assumed addresses
on its mailing list contained either post office boxes belonging to the SIS or the police Criminal
Intelligence Service.
SIS reports of meetings always identify the attendees, as do reports on pickets and protests. Other
happenings at such protests are recorded, including anti-government statements.
A record of a demonstration in 1980 notes an individual calling the government a ‘‘ripoff’’ and saying
the ‘‘Marxist way of life’’ was better.
Finances are often mentioned as links with other organisations.
By the mid-1980s, the SIS had almost lost interest in Cafca, regarding it as of ‘‘minimal security
interest’’.
A covering letter accompanying the released file by current SIS director Dr Warren Tucker says the
service would have been less interested in the organisation after 1977 if it had not continued with
protests against US bases and naval visits and with protests to abolish the SIS.
The SIS’s interest appears to have peaked in a period between 1975 and 1978 when Cafca or its
predecessor was involved in protests against the visit of US navy secretary J. W. Middendorf, the
berthing of Russian trawler Yunost at Lyttelton and the Pacific Basin Economic Council meeting in
Christchurch.
These followed the involvement of Cafca members in a protest and winning-hearts campaign called
the South Island Resistance Ride in 1975.
The Cafca file included a list of everyone on the ride, with their address and telephone number.
Preparations for the tour, such as ferry bookings, are documented.
The interest cranked up in 1976 when an attempt was made to sabotage a communications mast at
Weedons in Canterbury, and increased again in 1977 when seven .303 bullets were fired into an oil
tanker in protest against the visit of the US Union Oil chairman to the Pacific Basin meeting.
No evidence suggested any link with Cafca, but clearly it was strongly suspected, the file shows.
The prime minister was briefed on the organisation by then SIS director Paul Molineaux.
After skirmishes at the demonstration against the Pacific Basin meeting, the SIS notes on the file
appear to lament a ‘‘well-placed source’’ in Cafca who should have been able to ‘‘forewarn’’ the
authorities.
Although the file suggests a degree of infiltration of Cafca by the SIS by 1978, it did not go to the
trouble of planting a mole.
The main reason for the SIS’s curiosity about Cafca was the organisation’s suspected links and
shared personnel with the New Zealand Communist Party (CP), its youth arm, the Progressive Youth
Movement (PYM), the Socialist Unity Party of New Zealand (SUP) and various offshoots.
From the Cafca file it is clear the SIS had a mole within the Christchurch branch of the CP and as
early as 1975 the party source is reporting how the party regards Cafca as a good testing and recruiting
ground for converts.
The SIS took a much closer interest in CP members, which involved intercepting mail.
In 1986, its source reports on a meeting at which the perilous finances of the Christchurch branch are
discussed and the need to persuade Marion Lesley Hobbs (who later became a Labour Cabinet minister)
to pledge $10.
CP cadres did not always do Cafca any favours. In 1980, B, attending a CP meeting, is reported to
boast when drunk that Cafca had been responsible for the Weedons aerial sabotage on directions from
the CP. Cafca stalwart Murray Horton says the organisation was not involved.
The SIS expresses, in one memo, its satisfaction at the Cafca protest against the Russian trawler
visit, suggesting the protest would create a rift between Cafca and the ‘‘People’s Union’’.
The Cafca file, with its broad compass, contrasts with the file on Christchurch unionist Paul Corliss,
formerly the secretary of the Harbour Workers Union and convener of the Council of Trade Unions in
Canterbury. He is now a part-time union organiser.
He first came to the attention of the SIS in 1974 through his association with Horton and another
Cafca stalwart, Brian Rooney.
He worked with Horton as distribution manager for the Canterbury University student newspaper
Canta, and both men later worked in the traffic branch of New Zealand Railways in Christchurch.
Both are noted in Corliss’s file as ‘‘troublemakers to railways management’’.
Suspicions Corliss might be a member of SUP (he was never a member of the grouping) are also
noted. Corliss’s file tracks his rise up the ranks of the trade union movement and starts with his involvement
in the South Island Resistance Ride, for which he was in charge of food.
In the end, he could not be bothered going, he says.
His file mentions his attendance at a protest in 1980 in Lyttelton against the sale of coal to Japan and
also his arrest in a protest against the Springboks rugby tour in 1981.It records his promotion to Canterbury secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen and his part in a protest against minister of railways George Gair.
It notes his appointment to the executive of the Council of Trade Unions and reports his attendance at a May Day social organised by the CP at the Trade Union Centre in Christchurch on May 2, 1986. The report notes the gathering was entertained by a blind man playing an accordion and a tin
whistle.
Corliss is tracked attending a meeting of SUP in 1986 and in the same year is said not to have turned
up at a Committee for a Worker Front meeting where he was supposed to speak.The committee was trying to come up with a manifesto to provide an alternative to the Roger
Douglas reforms.
His file then notes his invitation to a seminar by SUP and an advertisement giving notice of his
intention to speak at a series of public forums on ‘‘reconquering the Labour Party or a new workers’
party’’.
Corliss, who has never been a member of a political party, says he is not overly perturbed at finding
– to his surprise – that he is the subject of an SIS file.
But he finds it bizarre he should ‘‘feature in some official secret source’’.
‘‘I mean, I wouldn’t feel like that if I had some guilt or something, but this is a bit odd,’’ he says. ‘‘All
I did was belong to legal organisations.’’
He was not a career railwayman, but ‘‘if I had been, it [the note about being a troublemaker] could
have been a major influence on my future’’.
‘‘It seems clear they were talking with senior management about me and Murray, and that would
have leaked like a sieve,’’ he says. ‘‘To say I was causing trouble was a sign I was doing my job as a representative. But there were thousands of union delegates around the country doing what democratic unions are allowed to do.’’
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