Phone tapping a red herring

In a number of other respects, however, the Bill is openly fascist in its implications. The phone- tapping and mail-opening bit is only one aspect and anyway, it is something of a red herring. It also proposed that the SIS extend its functions to include the surveillance of potential spies, terrorists, subversives or saboteurs ; that the publication by any medium of information about the SIS be made more difficult and even illegal ; that public servants may be coerced, without right of refusal, into working for or with the SIS ; that New Zealanders not 'ordinarily resident in New Zealand' may be refused right to complaint or appeal ; and that there is a further concentration of responsibility for the SIS in the hands of the Prime Minister. It is indeed, as Minogue keeps saying, the mechanism with which to establish a police state.

The so-called safeguards in the Bill amount to these provisions — that the Prime Minister table once a year a 'review' of the intercept warrants that have been issued (he issues them himself) ; that the Security Commissioner must consult the Minister, the head of the SIS and anyone else involved when investigating a complaint (but not, however, the complainant himself) ; that the Commissioner is allowed to consult what files the SIS allow him to see ; that when someone complains, the SIS must tell him what they think he needs to know about what they have on him ; and that the Commissioner must inform on any SIS agent he thinks is acting improperly. All of these 'safeguards' carry the proviso that they are not to operate so as to threaten security. The one further safeguard is that restrictions on the press are not to apply to the broadcasting and reporting of Parliament. I suppose that one depends on what you think of Parliament as an independent forum.

You can find a basis for many of these provisions in Sir Guy's public report. But it is evident that his recommendations have been treated selectively and very carefully. Most of the strategies he advised to make the operations of the SIS less secretive have been ignored — the so-called sunlight recommendations. For example, his report says that all intercept warrants should automatically expire after 90 days ; but the Bill provides such warrants will be valid 'for the period specified within'. Many of the safeguards that are proposed look rather thin on close examination. There is no strenuous effort anywhere in the Bill to overcome the initial contradiction between the use of illegal tactics to safeguard democratic freedoms.