Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 10. 22nd May 1975

[Introduction]

The Campaign to oppose the Security Service has been started as a result of the exposure of Security Service methods and politics during the Sutch trial, and also as a result of the concern which many New Zealanders feel over the activities of the Security Service in the day to day politics of the NZ community.

The Campaign intends through the publicising of the unsavory nature of the NZSIS to develop mass pressure on the government to take action on the service.

Recent overseas publicity has shown the insidious way in which socalled security organisations can become manipulators of government policy, and can take the power to decide .out of the elected government. We believe that, admittedly on a smaller scale, the NZSIS aims to do this here, and to some extent has already achieved this aim.

  • The NZSIS concentrates its domestic 'anti-subversive' work on spying on left-wing organisations including the Labour Party, and does not regard the Right as presenting a threat.
  • The NZSIS takes a political attitude on issues of the day. For example it cooperated with Ward against Mart during the 1973 anti-tour campaign, and it has been discovered spying on organisations opposing the former government's policy on the Vietnam war.
  • The NZSIS concentrates its 'anti-espionage' activities against the socialist countries, presumably because it has unilaterally decided that they are more likely to have interests contrary to NZ. This concentration has taken place despite government policies to the contrary, and led Dr. Finlay to comment in his announcement authorising the prosecution of Dr. Sutch:

'The encounters I referred to earlier in the memorandum were observed as the result of surveillance carried out,' not on Dr. Sutch, but on a foreign diplomat. This raises questions far outside my area of responsibility and I should probably make no comment but I feel obliged to say that if assaults on the integrity of the State are to be guarded against, theft seems to be no ground for assuming that they will emanate from any one, or any particular quarter.'

  • The NZSIS operates outside the control of even its minister and its director has said that he will only tell the Prime Minister what he thinks he should know.
  • The NZSIS vets 16,000 people each year, yet those people are not entitled to know what has been recorded about them, nor to correct any false information. There is no assurance that any information kept is relevant to security, and the question of relevance is entirely in the hands of the agents of the SIS.
  • On the admission of Brigadier Gilbert the NZSIS uses telephone tapping and electronic bugging equipment to obtain information.
  • The NZSIS actively co-operates with known subversive organisations such as the CIA and the South African Police organisation Boss.
  • We believe that the abolition of the Security Service would not be such a radical or irresponsible step as Mr. Rowling and Mr. Talboys would have us believe. We are told that the main work of the service is in vetting immigrants. That work can be done by the Labour Department. If any individual or group engages in overt criminal activity such as espionage or sabotage, surely it is the responsibility of the Police. Checking on Public Servants can be performed by the body best qualified — the State Services Commission. This leaves only the work of spying on nonconforming groups.

Policital change in a democratic society depends on critical and independent thinking. The activities of the Security Service cause fear and distrust among those who advocate change. Does the detection of three spies in 20 years justify the existence of such an organisation?

The immediate programme for the Campaign is as follows: