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Opposition to a bill extending the power of the Government Communications Security Bureau filled the Auckland Town Hall last night, with Māori concerns highlighted.
Human rights activists and Green Party Ikaroa-Rāwhiti candidate Marama Davidson said agencies like the GCSB are being used to spy not just on supposed terrorists but on environmental groups, human rights and social justice advocates and on indigenous rights groups.
She said the alliance between environmentalists and indigenous peoples who saw themselves as guardians of land and water was seen as a threat by governments.
Mana leader Hone Harawira said the controversy over the GCSB highlighted the sort of invasion of privacy Maori and the poor face every day.
"Beneficiaries in this country are already spied upon, their life details checked, cross-checked, amended, deleted, debated, destroyed, without their knowledge and without their consent by a network of computers run by Work and Income, Housing New Zealand, Accident Compensation, Child Youth and Family, Inland Revenue, the Justice Department, the Department of Corrections, police and no doubt other departments and agencies I forgot to list," he says.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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