Category: Parliament

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Crying wolf on terrorism for political gain.

The merit of a proposition can be judged by the strength of the argument in support or defense of it. In the case of the proposed changes to the GCSB and TICS Acts, the government’s argument has basically reduced to claims that terrorists will strike if the bills do not pass, perhaps even using weapons of mass destruction. More than an argument in favor of the bills, it is a sign of desperation on the part of a government unwilling to level with the public on its real intent.

To begin with, counter-terrorism is a very small part of what intelligence agencies do. Ninety percent of intelligence collection and analysis, to include its sub-set of electronic espionage and counterespionage, is focused on traditional corporate, diplomatic and military intelligence gathering. That is true for the Five Eyes/Echelon signals intelligence network and even more so for countries that are not on the front lines of the so-called War on Terrorism.

Yet countering “terrorism” has become the buzz word used by politicians to justify the expansion of the security apparatus in all its forms, to include the militarization of police functions and extension of powers of search and surveillance. It is the fig leaf that covers a multitude of sins perpetrated by the state in the name of national security.

This is an important point because as nasty as it is, terrorism is not an existential threat to any established state, much less a consolidated democracy. Viewed objectively, it can be properly seen is a crime of violence most often carried out as an irregular warfare tactic for ideological reasons. In the hands of non-state actors it is a weapon of the militarily weak that cannot be used regularly and systematically against a broad array of targets in the face of state enforced counter-measures. Although impossible to eliminate in its entirety, especially in its small cell or lone wolf application, this type of terrorism (i.e. in John Key’s airport bomb hypothetical) is a type of criminal violence best handled by the police using the intelligence made available by human as well as signals and technical intelligence agencies.

That may or may not involve electronic eavesdropping of a targeted sort. What is not needed to counter terrorism is blanket adoption of draconian security laws that restrict individual and collective freedoms, including the right to privacy. Oppressing the majority out of fear of an extremist few is counter-productive for no other reason than doing so plays into the hands of the aggressor.

In any event New Zealand is not on the front line of the War on Terrorism. Its threat environment is different than that of Australia, the UK and the US. It is more akin to (yet less than) that of Canada, and it is telling that Canada has resisted moves to closely align its domestic intelligence gathering powers with that of its Northern Hemisphere partners. The Canadians well understand the hierarchy of threats confronting them, and in light of that have shied away from the type of legislation currently being proposed in New Zealand.

If anything, the Canadian government knows that closer public alignment with the US and UK on security issues invites greater risk of attack from those engaged in armed conflict with them. It also understands that what irregular threats exist for Canada, they are more likely to be internal and related to domestic policy issues than external in origin or manifestation. New Zealand is similar in both regards.

What this means is that the specter of terrorism raised by John Key is a dark chimera that has little connection to New Zealand’s real threats, but which is used to defend the passing of security legislation that is more appropriate for the threat environment in Pakistan or Yemen than that of the South Pacific.

In recent years cyber espionage has become the predominant form of signals intelligence threat, to include that in New Zealand. The focus of attention of Five Eyes and other signals intelligence agencies is increasingly on fiber optic cables, routers, switches and the computers that use them, as opposed to radio and satellite intercepts (even if the latter remains a priority for Echelon). In pursuit of effective counter-measures, the Echelon partners have developed sophisticated labor-savings software such as PRISM and XKeyscore that filter the first cut on zillions of bytes of electronic data (the so-called meta-data), thereby making it easier for human analysts to target specific communications based upon keywords, phrases and usage patterns.

This mass trawling through personal as well as institutional electronic communications is indeed efficient, and not problematic for countries under non-democratic rule, but poses a problem for liberal democracies where the right to privacy and presumption of innocence go hand-in-hand as the bedrocks of citizenship.

Cyber espionage in New Zealand is mostly but not exclusively perpetrated by foreign state and non-state actors seeking to access sensitive corporate, political and security information. This includes back-door access via personal computers and electronic devices into work computers of targeted sectors. Since New Zealand has the most porous internet security of the Five Eyes partners and because its economic and political decison-making elite is relatively small in comparison, it is considered to be the weak link in the network by adversaries and allies alike.

Be it by groups such as Anonymous or by state agencies such as Chinese military intelligence (and there are many others), it is estimated that New Zealand computer networks are probed dozens of times a year (at least as far as what has been publicly admitted by the government). Thus the interest in increasing the GCSB’s cyber-securty function in order to bolster the defensive aspect of local cyber intelligence (targeted hacking of foreign networks being the offensive side).

The hard fact is that cyber espionage and counter-espionage is the newest and increasingly most pervasive form of spying and is here to stay, so New Zealand has to lift its game in that field of play.

This is the real reason why the Bills have been introduced. The trouble is that they contain a very strong offensive aspect to them, in part owing to the blurred nature of cyber espionage that does not conform easily to the foreign versus domestic dichotomy traditionally used to partition internal from foreign intelligence gathering. Threats now are seen as “glocal” or “intermestic,” and thus offensive cyber intelligence operations are run side-by-side with domestic counter-intelligence (defensive) work. That includes meta data mining on home soil, and the sharing of that data with Echelon partners.

Rather than honestly reveal the true reasons why the amendments to the GCSB and TICS Acts are being proposed, the National government has resorted to the old canard about terrorism. It may be doing so because it is undiplomatic to point out that its second largest trade partner has been accused by New Zealand’s strongest security and intelligence partners of being the source of most cyber attacks on their respective and shared computer networks. It may be doing so because it assumes that most people simply do not care about issues of security and intelligence, and it might be right. But whatever its rationale, its proposals are way over the top given the realities of New Zealand’s position in world affairs and its history as a democratic polity.

There is much more that is wrong with the New Zealand intelligence community–the lack of effective and independent oversight, the political manipulation of intelligence flows, the overly broad definition of national security and threats to it being foremost amongst them. It is therefore not surprising that in the very framing of the debate about the GCSB and TICS Bills, the government has resorted to bluster and fear-mongering rather than outline the real thrust of its changes.

That is a pity. Had it done so it might have been able to reach a compromise on cyber security more appropriate for a small liberal democracy on the periphery of the major conflicts of our times. However, as things stand New Zealand is about to be saddled with a cyber-security apparatus apparatus more similar to that of Singapore than those of Belgium, Norway or Uruguay.

That pretty much says it all about how National views the world.

 

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The political logic behind National’s proposed GCSB reforms.

This weekend there will be national protests against the National government bills amending the 2003 GCSB and 2004 TICS Acts. Although the protests have garnered broad support across the political spectrum, they are likely to turn into generic rant fests against capitalism, imperialism, colonialism, and assorted other maladies rooted in the war-mongering Zionist 9/11 insider white corporate propertied Trilateralist patriarchy rather than a focused argument against the extension of the GCSB’s domestic spying powers. That is because the organizers, in Auckland at least, are the usual suspects seen at pretty much every protest, and who have agendas that supersede concerns about espionage.

The dress code will largely be black, with Vendetta masks optional.

In a way it is natural for the so-called rent a mob to take charge of the anti-GCSB protests. After all, they have the organizational capability, collective commitment and personal experience in doing such things, so who can blame them if they attach a few other grievances to the major subject of the protest? Who else can pull together major rallies on short notice, including the logistics of using public spaces, channeling marchers, making banners, supplying audio equipment and providing speakers? Most of those who have comparable skills are not exactly the types who would want to be part of such a “progressive” demonstration, and certainly would not want to be associated with the organizers of these protests (I am thinking of church and conservative groups here).

Having said that, this post is about what is likely to be a very effective National strategy for getting its proposed reforms passed in spite of the groundswell of opposition to them. It works like this:

National introduced reforms that grossly expand the GCSB’s powers of domestic espionage, using changes to the TCIS Act and the need for “infrastructure protection” as part of that new charter. It threw in some very minor cosmetic changes using the Kitteridge Report as a point of reference. It went for the overreach, proposing to allow, with cabinet approval, the GCSB to spy on behalf of agencies that have nothing to do with national security as well as conduct warrantless espionage on foreign entities and persons, to include NZ citizens employed by foreign firms and agencies (be they diplomatic missions, NGOs or private firms). It demands that telcos provide apriori backdoor access to their cable infrastructure for the purposes of both targeted and meta-data mining.

There is much more but this is the gist: it no only retroactively legalizes the illegal spying done on Kim Dotcom. It extends the scope of that type of spying much further. And as before, all of the domestic data collected under the new Acts can and likely will be shared with foreign intelligence partners, particularly those grouped in the 5 Eyes network.

National knew that Labour and the Greens will oppose the Bills for political and principled reasons, respectively, but does not care because it knew that it only had to win over Winston Peters or Peter Dunne to secure passage of the legislation. Since both of these one man shows are political opportunists at best, a few bones thrown their way in exchange for minor concessions was seen to do the trick.

As it turns out, Dunne leapt/caved first. In exchange for more cosmetic changes in oversight and reporting (none of which fundamentally alter the way in which the NZ intelligence community operates or the scope of its operations), the setting of a 2015 date for a general review of the NZ intelligence community and one significant backdown (the removal of cabinet authorization for GCSB assistance to agencies other than the Police, SIS and NZDF, which will now have to be authorized via legislation), Dunne has pledged his vote for the Bills. They can now pass essentially intact.

A brief aside: It would have been worth considering allowing the GCSB to render assistance by charter to agencies such as Customs and Immigration as well as the SIS, Police and Defense because they clearly have a national security role. Moreover, it may not be widely understood but the GCSB offers more than equipment and technicians to its counterparts. It has linguists, interpreters, engineers and other specialists in its ranks who can be of use to domestic security agencies on a case by case basis. The Dunne concessions do not address the how, why and when of any of this.

Getting back to the main theme, National knows that by pushing a maximalist line with regard to the expansion of GCSB powers it could accept something moderately less without discernible harm to its overall intent. Besides Dunne’s and Peters’ venality, it relies on generalized public apathy regarding the issue (although it must have been surprised by the extent of opposition that eventuated, especially from high-profile groups and persons), and it knows that it can dismiss any opposition as naive, politically motivated or both (which John Key has now done, and which this week’s protests will confirm in the minds of those supportive of or undecided about the proposed changes).

National also knows that should there be change of government in 2014, it is unlikely that a Labour/Green coalition will have intelligence community reform as a priority. If its modern history is any indication Labour will be quite comfortable with the amended legislation. Recall that it was under the 5th Labour government that most of the dubious GCSB spying on 88 NZ citizens and residents was done, and Labour will be able to use the revamped GCSB powers for its own purposes should it feel the need to. It is naive to believe that different governments do not have different intelligence priorities, something that is manifest in intelligence agency tasking.

One only needs to think of the role of the SIS in the Zaoui case and the suspected role of both the SIS and GCSB in the Urewera case to understand the concept as well as Labour’s disposition when it comes to such things. With National the shift in intelligence priorities is seen in its focus on commercial relations, to include patent and copyright issues that have little to do with national security but all to do with alliance relationships. Either way, governments call the shots when it come to intelligence priorities.

Labour and the Greens will have reversing other National policy reforms as the first order of business, be it the Holidays Act, aspects of the Employment Relations Act, issues connected with Health, Education, WINZ beneficiaries, public sector employment, economic use of public lands, etc. That list has far more immediate domestic political impact than revisiting the GCSB and TCIS Acts, especially if the expanded powers granted the GCSB are used with a modicum of discretion and selectivity.

Should Labour and the Greens assume government in 2014, they are saddled with running the 2015 general inquiry about the NZ intelligence community. That will take public time and political capital, which leaves less of each for the promotion of other initiatives. This could leave a Labour/Green government spread thin when it comes to imposing legislative and policy agendas, especially when considering that the partner’s priorities do not universally coincide in the first place (less so when other minority parties are involved). That could undermine the stability of the coalition, wreak their overlapped policy platforms, make for internecine conflict and set the stage for a National return to government in 2017.

Barring some unexpected reversal of fortune in the next few weeks, when it comes to domestic espionage and the GCSB’s expanded role in it, what we have here is a done deal. The Bills will pass. There will be more spies amongst us.

National’s short-term political logic looks to have proven correct, so far. Time will tell if its longer-term strategy will pay off as well.

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Better to pause than to rush.

The Parliamentary Select Committee hearings on the Bills to amend the 2003 GCSB Act and 2004 Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) Act have begun this week. There is much interest in the hearings not only because of the content of the Bills under consideration, but also because they are open to the public. The cast of characters scheduled to present is as colorful as it is deep: Kim Dotcom, the CTU, the Law Society, Internet NZ and several telecommunications firms are among those representing.

Even so, some of the public discussion surrounding the proposed reforms has been stunningly stupid. In recent weeks the Herald featured two editorials supporting the proposed changes. The first claimed that the changes would help prevent a Boston Bombing scenario (a claim that the Prime Minister has parroted; Winston Peters prefers to use the train station bombing hypothetical). That ignores the fact that US intelligence agencies could not do so even with their massive meta data-mining schemes and a tip from Russian authorities. Nor could they prevent the Fort Hood massacre even though the perpetrator was in regular email contact with an al-Qaeda leader in Yemen prior to the shooting.

Worse yet, the Prime Minister and others such as this editorial writer make it seem as if counter-terrorism is the primary function of intelligence operations. It is not. Traditional inter-state espionage, no matter what the technologies used, remain the major part of intelligence work. The counter-terrorism angle provides a convenient fig leaf for the expansion of intelligence networks and the scope of their authority, but in reality occupies a relatively small amount of intelligence resources and attention. This is particularly true for countries that are not on the front lines of the so-called “war on terrorism.”

The second editorial, by a supposed former intelligence officer, claimed that those who oppose the Bill are scaremongers and uninformed, even though the Law Society, Internet NZ and several other professional groups have registered their opposition on legal as well as technical grounds. The author also asserted that because civil servants drafted the proposed changes, we should accept them in good faith. Yeah right.

I beg to differ. There is clearly a need to “tidy up” the legal framework governing GCSB activities on home soil because under the current Act the role of the GCSB in domestic espionage is murky. But civil libertarians and privacy rights activists have legitimate reason to oppose the GCSB Bill in its present form.

The Bill expands the terms and conditions under which the GCSB can engage in domestic espionage, including reasons that have nothing to do with national security and for agencies unrelated to it. Those responsible for issuing the warrants under which the GCSB would “assist” domestic agencies would be those who currently do so, in a cross-signed fashion in the case of spying on New Zealand citizens and residents. If the targeted entity falls under the foreign intelligence collection mandate of the GCSB (which targets “foreign entities,” in New Zealand, including private firms as well as diplomatic missions), warrantless intercepts can be authorized even if they extend to New Zealanders.

In light of past excesses and mistakes it is evident that leaving warrant issuance to the Prime Minister and a retired judge (the Commissioner for Security Warrants) is pure folly even when done in combination. These are the individuals who were on watch during the Dotcom raid and, in the case of the Prime Minister, claimed ignorance after the fact as to how and why the GCSB became unlawfully involved in it.

The definition of threat to national security under which the GCSB would act is too nebulous and broad to prevent mission creep into common law enforcement and encroachments on individual and group privacy. For example, under the proposed legislation the GCSB could assist the Department of Primary Industries to spy on environmental activists on behalf of fishing, logging or mining interests if their protests were deemed injurious to the economic well-being of the nation, which can be construed as a threat to national security under current definition of the term.

The oversight mechanisms proposed by the Kitteridge Report are a veneer on what currently exists. Even if bolstered by a Deputy and some additional clerical staff and funding, the Inspector General of Intelligence and Security is simply too dependent and too powerless to effectively serve as the overseer of the New Zealand intelligence community. Absent effective independent oversight such as that which could come by making the Inspector General’s office a Department of Parliament responsible to a Parliamentary Committee with powers of compulsion under oath, the room for unaccountable manipulation of intelligence flows and analysis remains great.

The Telecommunications (Interception Capability and Security) BIll that accompanies the GCSB Bill is more draconian than similar legislation under the US Patriot Act. It compels telecommunications companies to provide access to their source and encryption codes (that is, provide warrantless access before the fact to private accounts when no threats are evident). It authorizes GCSB espionage operations without the consent of affected private entities as part of its “information assurance and cyber assurance” function, which is designed to safeguard a broadly defined information infrastructure consisting all forms of telecommunications emissions, systems and networks. In other words, one way or another the GCSB would have the ability to surreptitiously monitor all New Zealand based telecommunications regardless of whether or not they involved clear threats to national security.

Since New Zealand is not a major target of inter-state cyber espionage or in the so-called war on terrorism, that is an overreach. India, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Canada, Germany and many other democracies who arguably are much more at risk for espionage and terrorism do not have such legislation. In most the separation of foreign and domestic espionage is made quite clear in law, with the latter carried out mostly by the Police, national gendarmes or local investigative agencies with help from foreign-focused intelligence agencies only in the most exceptional circumstances (even then, agencies like Interpol exist as the first line of recourse used to facilitate international crime investigations).

What is the problem in requesting voluntary telecommunications company cooperation with national security investigations, particularly when they are clearly focused on clear and present threats? What telecommunications provider would refuse such a request, especially if issued under warrant specifying the reasons? If such a system works for the countries mentioned above, why can it not work here?

The official presumption in the T(ICS) bill that telecommunications firms need to be compelled rather than be allowed to voluntarily cooperate with intelligence agencies on matters of national security says more about the disposition of the government than it does about that of the firms involved.

By expanding the GCSB’s domestic “assistance” role in two capacities (information assurance and cyber security to public and private entities as well as technical assistance to sister agencies), the proposed changes run the risk of deviating it from its main foreign signals intelligence and counter-cyber espionage efforts. It will add a further burden to it’s already stretched staff of analysts, engineers, linguists and cryptographers. Since increased funding and recruitment are circumscribed by the present climate of fiscal austerity, it does not appear likely that resources for the GCSB will be increased commiserate with the increase in its domestic assistance authority.

Interestingly, the GCSB and T(ICS) Bills were proposed soon after issuance of the Kitteridge Report on the GCSB, which was driven by the unlawful electronic monitoring of Kim Dotcom and associates by that agency. Given the level of detail in the Bills, that suggests that they were drafted before Ms. Kitteridge’s findings and recommendations were finalized. This contradicts the government’s claim that the Bills came in response to the findings of that report.

In a world in which threats are increasingly “intermestic” or “glocal” in nature and in which the boundary between national law enforcement and international security is increasingly blurred, there is reason to adjust the legislative apparatus governing the role, scope and functions of the New Zealand intelligence community, including its international commitments. At present the GCSB and sister agencies appear rudderless, unsure of who and what purpose they serve, much less how they should prioritize their essential responsibilities.

This is why a full inquiry into the New Zealand intelligence community is needed before any reforms are made to its legal architecture, especially given that the last review of New Zealand intelligence operations occurred in the 1970s.

The inquiry could well start with exploring what New Zealand’s threat environment consists of now and in the near to medium future, including proximate and distant threats of a physical (environmental and epidemiological), economic, military, diplomatic and criminal nature. It could then turn to outlining the specific meaning of “national security” in light of these threats (with the balance between minimalist and expansive definitions of national security needing to be debated and precisely defined).

It might consider how current policy decisions or orientations can set the stage for the emergence or facilitation of future threats (such as by trying to play off trade and security relations with competing great powers as a form of hedging or strategic balancing act). Having done that, it could proceed to review the way in which the intelligence community operates so as to offer prescriptions for its better tailoring to the threat environment extant and foreseeable.

Much has happened since the last intelligence review, both in terms of the nature of national security threats as well as the technologies they employ and those used to counter them. It is therefore prudent to pause and review how New Zealand intelligence operations are conducted rather than rush to pass legislation that retroactively exculpates past unlawful behavior by the GCSB while expanding the reach of those who authorized it.

 

A short version of this essay appeared in the New Zealand Herald on July 2, 2013 under the title “GCSB bill going too far too fast.”

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Improving intelligence oversight.

Now that the Kitteridge and Neazor reports have been tabled, discussion can more fully proceed to the issue of intelligence oversight. The government has proposed bolstering resources for the Inspector General of Intelligence, and adding a Deputy Inspector General to what until now has been a one man shop. That is a step in the right direction, but it falls very short of the mark when it comes to robust, independent intelligence oversight mechanisms. Here I outline one way of achieving them.

Currently the IG is dependent on the NZSIS and GCSB for resources and cooperation and answers to the Prime Minister. That puts him at the interface between politics and operational matters in a chain of responsibility, which reduces his freedom of action.

The IG’s office should be strengthened in terms of staff and moved to become an agency of parliamentary services. It will answer to the Parliamentary Committee on Security and Intelligence, although its staff and funding source will be independent of the Committee. The Committee will have powers of compulsion under oath that allow it to force intelligence managers to release operational details or classified information to it upon request. It would meet at least once a month and receive scheduled classified briefs from the directors of the SIS and GCSB as well as senior managers in the DPMC handling intelligence flows. At any time the Committee would be able to order the appearance in special session of officials from the Police, Customs, Immigration, Treasury and other agencies that employ intelligence collection and analysis services.

All of this would require that the staff of the committee as well as that of the IG have security clearances akin to those of personnel employed by the agencies being overseen. That will require background checks and security vetting of staff. Members of the Committee would be required to sign secrecy oaths under penalty of law.

The transition from the current ineffectual oversight mechanisms to something more effective will take time and money. It will therefore be resisted not only by the agencies being overseen (who naturally will be discomfited by increased scrutiny from agencies unattached to the Prime Minister). It will also be opposed by political sectors focused on cost-cutting, quick results, or maintaining the current system because of the weight of institutional legacies and/or advantages it gives governments when it comes to the interpretation and implementation of intelligence priorities. But it is certainly worth doing.

The time is opportune for change. The sequels to the Dotcom case have exposed serious problems in the political management of intelligence issues as well as deficiencies in the conduct of intelligence operations. The government has proposed significant changes to the 2003 GCSB Act, particularly section 14, that will have the effect of strengthening the GCSB’s powers of internal (domestic) surveillance at the behest of other agencies–foreign and domestic. The justification for this rests on the increasingly transnationalized nature of security threats, whereby the intersection of local and international crime, foreign corporate and political espionage, irregular warfare networks and non-state actors makes much more difficult precise definition of what constitutes a domestic as opposed to foreign intelligence concern. These are grey area phenomena, and the response cannot be given in black and white.

I agree that the security threat environment has changed and is much more “glocal” or “intermestic.” I agree that it requires statutory revision in order to better account for the changing nature of intelligence operations under such conditions. What I am proposing here is a parallel revamp of oversight mechanisms that promote more independence, transparency, accountability and compliance at a time when the scope of intelligence agency authority is being redefined and expanded well beyond traditional espionage operations.

The issue is worth debating and therefore should be the subject of a larger inquiry such as proposed by Labour and the Greens. If nothing else the Kitteridge and Neazor reports can be used as the starting point for a more thorough discussion of the role, functions and purview of NZ intelligence agencies given the changed nature of the threat environment and the equally compelling need to maintain  a better measure of democratic accountability than has heretofore been seen.

 

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Gilmore’s ghosts

I disagree with Pablo’s post about media treatment of the Aaron Gilmore saga — but I only disagree a little. In my view the Gilmore case is “stuff that really matters”, but I do agree with Pablo that most of the coverage of it isn’t getting to the “stuff that really matters” elements of the case nearly well enough, and that it is displacing coverage of more crucial issues from the agenda. All the stories Pablo mentions are worthy of much more, and more in-depth reporting than they have received. Two other points Pablo makes are particularly valuable — that “blood in the water is not akin to developing real critiques of the way power is exercised”, and that “the problem of Gilmore’s unwillingness to resign stems not from MMP but from political party charters regarding their lists in an MMP environment.”

The Gilmore story is important, as are those others — but the coverage is so individuated to him that it makes the issues seem trivial, because ultimately, if you reduce the story to that of a drunken backbencher, it is. At the heart of the Gilmore saga is the abuse of power, and the problem is that the coverage is about Aaron Gilmore’s attempted abuse of his own power, not about a culture within the National Party and the government where the abuse of power is not merely acceptable, but routine and expected.

The deep questions — how such a megalomaniac got into an electable position on a party list; who, having been apprised of these born-to-rule tendencies after previous incidents of this sort, approved his position; and the implications of this for the health of our democracy — these are important questions. They haven’t really been asked, or answered, though Matthew Hooton, of all people, had a go at it early on.

The John Key National-led government has a lot of form for bad and self-serving appointments, and for the abuse of power. This has presented opportunities for the opposition to frame them as serial cronyists, which they haven’t been able to take. (I wrote a couple of things about this in the first term — it’s not new). And it’s still going: to hear locals tell it, how Gerry Brownlee and CERA are treating Eastern Christchurch isn’t all that different in its principles to how Aaron Gilmore treats waiters and public servants. (The difference is that they have real power.) Recent appointments on the basis of loyalty or malleability at the expense of quality or expertise include Catherine Isaac to implement charter schools, Ian Fletcher as head of the GCSB and Dame Susan Devoy as race relations commissioner.

This is a government which has been particularly unconcerned with even the appearance of due process, and this should be acknowledged in every story on this topic. There’s no credible argument they hadn’t done due diligence on Aaron Gilmore — he was already in Parliament once. Why do they appoint people like this, and why do they get away with it?

The hard truth is that political parties will overlook an awful lot if there’s a financial or electoral advantage to doing so, just as corporations will. Militaries will overlook almost literally anything, up to and including the mass murder of civilians. This is true of the “nice” guys as well as the nasty ones — the Obama administration’s continuing support of Guantanamo Bay and its increasing use of UAVs are two clear examples of this. Apple products are manufactured by the notoriously exploitative Foxconn (Apple is far from alone in this, but we’re supposed to think Apple is somehow better than others). For a recent local example, see the Labour Party’s dogged defence of Taito Phillip Field, whose abuse of vulnerable workers cut directly against everything a Labour party ought to stand for. There are many more.

The fundamental reason this sort of behaviour is endemic is that we — as voters, or in the corporate case, as consumers — reward it with our votes, or our wallets, or both. Parties and companies that eschew these methods tend to lose to those who accept them as an ethical cost of doing business because while we are happy to get outraged, when the chips are really down, we don’t actually care that much about this sort of thing. It doesn’t really change our behaviour.

The danger is that people start caring, and more importantly, start remembering, and changing their behaviour. If the Aaron Gilmore affair haunts the National party — and the other parties — such that they see a strong downside risk to appointing cronies, selecting megalomaniacs for their lists, and generally swaggering around as if they own the place, we’ll all be better off. If parties are forced to accept responsibility for their bad decisions, and as a consequence to select better people and implement better systems of accountability and conduct, cultures of power-abuse will abate. Incidentally, this is why I don’t favour a rule that allows parties to eject rogue MPs from Parliament* — the Nats bought Aaron Gilmore, they own him. We should judge the entire party by his actions.

But for this sort of change to occur, we need media coverage to develop those real critiques of the exercise of power, rather than critiques of an obnoxious individual who is ultimately just a product of larger cultural systems. That would make this sort of wall-to-wall coverage worthwhile.

L

* Though I still believe any credible political leader should be resourceful enough to find ways to persuade rogue MPs to resign.

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Happy for Gilmore

National has to be delighted about the coverage of their drunken bully boy last on the list MP, Aaron Gilmore. Coalition partner John Banks is in court on issues of political corruption. National is trying to ram through under urgency a gross expansion of domestic espionage courtesy of the amendments to the GCSB Act. What does the media focus on? Not-so-happy Gilmore. If I were the PM, I would milk the Gilmore story for all its worth, always looking chagrined.

There are very serious issues being discussed this week. US Attorney General Eric Holder is currently in the country. This is the person who authorized the FBI extradition pursuit of Kim Dotcom that resulted in the over the top raid on Dotcom’s home and subsequent legal debacle that is the case against him and which resulted in the Kitteridge report that recommended the organizational and legal changes now being proposed. As I allude to in the immediately previous post, the findings of a military inquiry about major failures in command and training in Afghan deployments have been released but not made public (huh?). The Green/Labour attempt to disrupt asset sales could be a watershed political moment.

Yet all of these take a back seat to the habitual escapades of a dolt working hard at being a lout.

Note to the media: although the salacious details of an inconsequential politician’s idiocy might seem worth mining, especially if it seems that he could wound the government, the real stories are dead and centre in front of you. Smelling shallow blood in the water is not akin to developing real critiques of the way power is exercised.

Note to the PM and the media that take his ignorance or obfuscation at face value: the problem of Gilmore’s unwillingness to resign stems not from MMP but from political party charters regarding their lists in an MMP environment. The two things are quite different.

Contrary to what the government would hope and TVNZ would like to believe, Seven Sharp is an idiot echo chamber, not a news aggregator, and therefore should not be used as a model for selecting which stories deserve emphasis.

Time to get off of the shellacked curly-cued imp and onto the issues that actually matter.

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Recognising the enemy

Last night the New Zealand parliament voted 77-44 on the third reading of the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Bill, passing it into law. The strategy I wrote about after the first reading has been spectacularly successful, and marriage equality will be a reality as soon as the bill receives the royal assent.

There were many powerful speeches last night. Louisa Wall discussed the spectrum of cultural traditions around sexual and gender diversity, and called a huge roll of supporters from almost every corner of the political compass.

Maurice Williamson lampooned the supposed “gay onslaught”, celebrated the “big gay rainbow” that had appeared in his electorate this morning as a sign, and hilariously used his training in physics to calculate the amount of time a person of his mass and humidity would burn for in the fires of Hell. “I will last for just on 2.1 seconds — it’s hardly eternity, what do you think?”

Tau Henare gave his old party leader Winston Peters a lesson in political history, why referenda aren’t the answer to everything, and why exactly he is no longer a member of the New Zealand First party.

Mojo Mathers spoke of the pride she felt when her daughter attended the school formal with her girlfriend. And following the vote, in scenes that have been viewed all around the world, the House stood and broke into song.

There were others. But for me the heaviest work of the night was done by Kevin Hague, who got to the very heart of enmity to this bill, and to this cause in general. I’ve quoted him at length, emphasis mine:

“I remember travelling to Auckland’s North Shore to protest against one of our opponents, Pastor Richard Flynn, who called publicly for homosexuals like me to be put to death. Over the years I have campaigned hard for the right of our communities to not be outsiders any more, to assume a full place in New Zealand society. With every new reform, the same group uses the same strategy, raising fears of terrible consequences which always fail to materialise.”
[…]
“Mr Speaker, that’s why this bill is about so much more than achieving equality under the law, a basic human right that has been denied us until this day. It’s about saying ‘these lives matter: our society is big enough for us all.’ With this bill, our parliament stretches out its arms to my communities and says ‘our society is big enough for you, too — you belong, unequivocally, and without compromising who you are.’

“When the debate started, I thought all of the people like Richard Flynn had thankfully gone. The early comments from opponents were refreshingly free from fire and brimstone. There is no doubt that New Zealand has grown up over the past 27 years, as we have become a more modern, vibrant, and pluralistic society. But as the debate has worn on we have seen the re-emergence of a hard core whose opposition to this bill has lost its veneer of reasonableness. Their problem with this bill is that they believe that we gay and lesbian people are morally inferior. They don’t want to include us as as full participants in New Zealand society. They recognise — correctly — what full legal equality, what this signal means. And they don’t like it.“

Kevin Hague’s measured words and calm delivery obscure a stark and clear-sighted analysis: This is war. The enemy does not regard us as human, and they never will, so we must defeat them utterly. When it comes to GLBTI people, adherents to this creed of brimstone will be satisfied with nothing less than extermination and erasure: they are an existential threat. Although it is often couched in such terms, beneath the veneer theirs is not a rational objection founded in philosophy or pragmatism, in science or honest assessment of tradition; it is simply fear and hatred that burns like the fires they preach. This is not confined to the religious sphere — variants of the brimstone creed exist within secular society, and across a broad ideological spectrum, but they share extremism in common. Much of the discourse around marriage equality, and much of the discourse around related matters, rests on ignoring, minimising or mocking those who stand up for the brimstone creed, but the brilliance of Kevin’s analysis is that he meets them — and it — kanohi ki te kanohi, staring it in the face and recognising it for what it is.

But marriage equality won because it isn’t just an issue for GLBTI people. Ghettoising it as a “gay issue”, (as feminism for generations has been ghettoised as a “women’s issue” and racial equality has been ghettoised as a “black” or a “brown issue”) was a delaying strategy that worked for a time. But no longer. Marriage equality passed because a bill introduced by a gay Māori woman was supported not only by gay Māori women, but by men and women, young and old, homosexuals and heterosexuals and bisexuals, liberals and conservatives, socialists and libertarians, atheists and agnostics and Christians and Muslims, Māori, Pākehā, Pasifika, Chinese and Indians.

All of us who believe in a just society, and an equal society, who believe in a place where ancient prejudices, cultural inertia or the maintenance of privilege cannot justify erasure must fight these battles too. The brimstone creed isn’t just an existential threat to “teh gays” — it is an existential threat to a free and decent society, and we will not have won until we defeat them utterly. There are many more battles like this, and with the clear vision and fierce determination of people like Louisa Wall and Kevin Hague, I am strangely optimistic about fighting them.

L

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Spot the difference

Prime Minister John Key has released a statement expressing condolences at the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher:

The Government is today paying its respects to the family, friends and colleagues of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who passed away overnight.

“Baroness Thatcher was a passionate and formidable politician who loved her country. She was a strong and decisive leader with unwavering principles. She was Britain’s first and only female Prime Minister.

“We join with political leaders around the world in remembering Margaret Thatcher’s service to the people of Britain and her significant impact on the global political environment,” said Mr Key.

Labour leader David Shearer has also issued a statement:

Labour leader David Shearer has paid tribute to former British Prime Minister Lady Margaret Thatcher, who has passed away aged 87.
“This is an enormously sad time for her family. My thoughts are with them, and the people of Britain, at this time.”
Mr Shearer says he admired Lady Thatcher as fiercely determined leader, who stood up for what she believed in.
“Lady Thatcher will be remembered as a strong and determined leader.”
During her time as Prime Minister, from 1979 until 1990, she faced some real challenges – from the conflict in the Falklands to tremendous economic changes,” says Mr Shearer.
“She has left a strong and permanent legacy in Britain. Lady Thatcher believed passionately in what she was doing, and she will be missed by many.”
Mr Shearer says he had met Lady Thatcher once in Britain, prior to his entering politics.
“I met Lady Thatcher only briefly, and I remember being somewhat in awe of her, as such a well-recognised, well-known world leader.

(Both statements slightly edited.)

L

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Selections matter

Justice Minister Judith Collins has appointed Dame Susan Devoy as Race Relations Commissioner.

She replaces Joris de Bres, who has served two five-year terms and is very well-regarded in Māoridom (at least) because (in part) he understands the importance of his own Dutch whakapapa, and the complexity of his place as an immigrant in Aotearoa. As Bryce Edwards and Morgan Godfery have noted, he has also shown an unusual willingness to comment on issues related to his mandate of opposing racism.

No doubt this fact has informed Collins’ decision to appoint someone less feisty. Dame Susan has little or no high-level experience in the field, and I suppose the thinking is that she brings a clean slate to the role or, to put it another way, her thinking and the degree of her engegement with the issues will be more easily influenced by the prevailing governmental culture. But Dame Susan is not a blank slate. A week ahead of Paul Holmes’ now-infamous Waitangi Day a complete waste column, she wrote one of her own that, although it employed language more befitting a Dame, nevertheless expressed similar sentiments. One year ago our new Race Relations Commissioner wished that instead of Waitangi Day we could have “a day that we don’t feel ashamed to be a New Zealander” and pined after a holiday like that celebrated in Australia, where — a few recent and grudging obeisances aside — 50,000 years of history and the brutal facts of the settlement of that land are blithely ignored in a jingoistic celebration of Ocker Pride.

That would be bad enough, but it gets worse: Dame Susan doesn’t have a clue what she’s doing:

Jacob McSweeney: “She admits she doesn’t have a wealth of experience in race relations, but she says the job isn’t overly complicated.”
Susan Devoy: “I don’t think it’ll make it any more difficult than dealing with any other issues, I mean, you know, this is all under the Chief Human Rights Commission [sic], and so therefore whether it’s disability or gender or employment or race, you know, the issues are not dissimilar. This is just about making it right for every New Zealander.”

(From Checkpoint.)

This is a terrible appointment. Anyone who thinks Aotearoa’s race-relations culture isn’t complicated is by definition not equipped for the job of guiding and guarding it. Not only is our new Race Relations Commissioner ashamed of our national day, but as far as she’s concerned it’s just another ism — revealing how little she must know about disability, employment or gender issues into the bargain.

So as far as that goes, she looks like the perfect post-ideological, post-identity selection for such a job: a common-sense managerialist who, to the limited extent that she understands the issues in play, finds them distasteful.

What a good opportunity for Labour! The National government, at a time when racial and cultural tensions are a major issue, clearly doesn’t value race relations sufficiently to put anyone competent in the job. But the Labour party has selection problems of its own: an Ethnic Affairs spokesperson who is a former race relations commissioner (Rajen Prasad) so far down the list that he doesn’t get a ranking; and a Māori Affairs spokesperson — and former minister — Parekura Horomia, also unranked. Labour is perilously short on brown faces, with none in the top five and one — Shane Jones — in the top 10, and him only recently returned from purgatory. Morgan Jack McDonald has some advice on this topic.

The hard truth is that Labour isn’t in a position to criticise the government on race relations issues. This is due to their internal failures of strategy, not due to exigencies forced upon them. For all that the appointment of Dame Susan Devoy to Race Relations Commissioner is terrible, the Key government has done a lot more than expected in other areas of race relations, particularly with regard to progressing Treaty settlements. That gives them cover. They’ve gotten away with worse than this appointment, and they’ll keep getting away with it as long as the major party of opposition lets them.

L

(Thanks to James Macbeth Dann for drawing my attention to Dame Susan’s column, which was plucked from obscurity by Coley Tangerina.)

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With stereotypes, timing is everything.

Richard Prosser’s xenophobic and bigoted remarks about Muslims (which are not racist, since he was targeting a religion, not an ethnic or racial group) has rightfully met with wide-spread opprobrium. More than a comment about Muslims, his remarks say a lot about him on several levels. Let’s just leave it at this: That he was prompted to air his views by having his pocket knife confiscated at an airport security gate, then actually took the time to write out his thoughts in a magazine op-ed, make it clear that somewhere in Aotearoa a village is missing its idiot, and that idiot has been found spending lots of time in the Beehive.

However, the current repudiation of his views has not always been as wide-spread, and in fact his appeal to negative Muslim stereotypes was, if not all the rage, widely accepted just ten years ago.

Consider that when Ahmed Zaoui attempted to seek political refuge in New Zealand in late 2002, his arrival was met with official alarm and a chorus of exactly the sort of xenophobic invective that Prosser has voiced. The Fifth Labour government branded him an “Islamicst” with ties to al-Qaeda, then worked with the SIS to manufacture a “terrorist” case against him in order to justify his indefinite detention and eventual expulsion. It even changed domestic spying laws and created new anti-terrorist legislation (both still on the books and enhanced by National) so as to counter the Islamicist threat. The SIS went so far as to claim in its 2005 annual report that local jihadis and their sympathizers were a serious threat to New Zealand, only to drop the claim entirely in the 2006 report.

Zaoui was not the only Arab who got the heavy treatment. In 2006 Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali, a Yemeni-Saud flight school student overstayer, was summarily deported and handed over to Saudi security officials after he was caught (apparently following a tip-off to Winston Peters from a member of the public related to Ardmore Flying School). Despite concerns about his fate once he was turned over to the Saudis, he disappeared after being placed in their custody. The Fifth Labour government, through then-Immigration Minister David Cunliffe, refused to comment on his whereabouts or well-being and did not seek assurances from the Saudis regarding his treatment. As a justification for his summary deportation under escort, the Fifth Labour government claimed that he was a threat to national security, with his alleged “crime” being that he briefly flatted and shared pilot training with one of the 9/11 hijackers. No evidence has been produced to suggest that Abdullah Ali was aware of, much less involved in, the 9/11 conspiracy. Yet in the eyes of the New Zealand authorities at the time, relying in part on disputed FBI reports, he was guilty by association.

Shortly after Zaoui’s arrival Winston Peters, who now says that there is an element of truth to Prosser’s remarks but that his choice of words was unwise, demanded that Zaoui be expelled forthwith and went on to say that the NZ Muslim community was a “hydra” with extremist cells within it. Along with NZ First, National supported Labour on the Zaoui matter. Only the Greens questioned the official narrative (and Keith Locke needs to be congratulated for his staunch defense of Zaoui’s rights). Eventually, and with the help of some steadfast supporters and a few critical media types, the courageous work of Deborah Manning, Richard McLeod and Rodney Harrison destroyed the government attempt to frame and scapegoat Mr. Zaoui. After nearly five years the case against Zaoui was withdrawn and he was set free (he now runs a kebab place on K Road). For a good documentary overview of the case, see here.

My point is that timing is everything when politicians choose to stereotype so-called “out” groups. Back then Islamophobia ran rampant and it was fine if not fashionable to Muslim-bash, which the Clark government did adroitly and with aplomb. It did so by being subtle in its talk and thorough and focused in its actions. It publicly maintained it had nothing against Muslims or Islam, yet ordered its security apparatus to increase its surveillance of Muslim males (something that is ongoing) and enacted draconian security legislation with an eye towards the purported Islamicist threat to NZ (although truth be told, it first tried to use its new anti-terrorist legislation against the Urewera 18, and we know how that turned out).

Today all of that is water under the bridge although the laws remain on the books. NZ Muslims are no more of a threat today then they were a decade ago, but with the exception of the usual right-wing fanatics ranting in the blogosphere, the public mood is largely relaxed on the issue of the danger to NZ posed by Islamic extremism. Most politicians understand that even in election years scapegoating Muslims is now a losing campaign strategy. Thus Prosser is being made to wear a hair shirt over his contemporary remarks when he would have been applauded as a non-PC realist just a few years ago.

I would simply say that more than his stupid words, his timing if off. Politics is the art of hypocrisy disguised as righteousness, but the key to a successful disguise lies in the timing of the public posture. The Fifth Labour government timed its stereotyping just right, which allowed it to curry favor with its Western security partners in the anti-Islamic crusade by strengthening its anti-terrorism laws and internal security legislation. Zaoui was the precipitant and scapegoat used to that effect.

Prosser, on the other hand, is simply an uncouth political neophyte spouting rubbish at the wrong time. Had he made his remarks ten years ago he would have fared far better in the court of public and political opinion.