March 22, 2024
Spy hosting embarrassing for Government
Labour’s security spokesperson Priyanca Radhakrishnan says revelations the Government Communications Security Bureau hosted a foreign spy operaition under both National and Labour-led Governemnts is alarming.
The Inspector General of Intelligence and Security has revealed the results of an investigation into the seven-year operation, which only because known to senior management when a piece of equipment failed in 2020.
It says when the GCSB it agreed to host the signals intelligence system, it knew it could be used to support military operations by foreign partners – which needed to be approved by senior management and ministers.
Ms Radhakrishnan says Labour passed the 2017 Intelligence and Security ACT in an attempt to make the service more accountable to Government.
“It is worrying there was a lack of transparency and that’s why there was a move to fixing it. As a Government you would wan to know what your security agencies are doing and inadvertently or direcly supporting,” she says.