March 05, 2015
Pasifika spying alarms Maori Party
Maori Party MP Marama Fox says revelations the GCSB is spying on New Zealand’s Pacific neighbours on behalf of the United States show the party’s concerns about the spy agency are justified.
The latest batch of documents from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden analysed by journalist Nicky Hager and the Intercept web site indicates that since the National Government was elected the GCSB switched to full-take collection.
That means the spy agency sends the US National Security Agency all phone calls, emails and internet data from the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Tonga, Vanuatu, Nauru and Samoa, as well as the French overseas territories of New Caledonia and French Polynesia.
Mr Hager says snooping on its neighbours is something New Zealand is doing to be a member of the Five Eyes club.
Ms Fox says it looks like an abuse of power.
" Any extraordinary powers that allow surveillance of this sort to be carried out, obviously they negatively impact on our people and on Pacifika people. So I'll be very interested to see whats coming out today. And if those sorts of things are being done without the same scrutiny that we're able to give it or pressure that we're able to give within this country then we need to be advocating for our cousins," she says.
FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH MARAMA FOX CLICK ON THE LINK
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