Author and Investigative Journalist
INQUISITIVE MARLBOROUGH locals have outsmarted government attempts to keep the targets of the Waihopai spy station secret – and have discovered that it is eavesdropping on Asian satellites carrying the communications of New Zealand’s friends and trading partners in that region.
GO TO the heart of one of Telecom or Vodafone’s mobile phone exchanges and you’ll find the whole system – covering a quarter of the country – is run by a single computer, no bigger than a small freezer.
Cables lead off to all the company’s cellphone towers and other parts of the network. A main cable, connecting all those phone users to the world, comes out the top of the computer and passes directly into a unit in the rack above. One cable goes into the unit but two come out: one continuing out to the world, the other coiling off to secret equipment marked “LI” on the system diagrams. “LI” stands for “lawful interception”.
New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone’s online life. The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.
When three Christian protesters deflated a radome at the Waihopai intelligence base 12 days ago, citing the base’s support for the US War on Terror, a chorus of voices ridiculed the suggestion….
What information led the police to smash the Urewera ‘terrorist’ training camps? Nicky Hager investigates the intelligence trail which led from cafe conversations to the armed police response. TWO YEARS ago a man quite similar to central characters in the Urewera “terrorism” case purchased a pistol holster on TradeMe for $66. Officers at the Otahuhu […]
The Police “terrorism” case against Maori, peace and environmental activists has its origins long before Operation Eight began last year….
MICHAEL KING’S excellent Penguin History of New Zealand tells us intelligence sharing between the United States and New Zealand ended in 1985 as part of retaliation for this country’s nuclear-free policy. Thanks to the discovery last week of a secret intelligence report detailing events at that time, we can at last, hopefully, lay this tired old myth to rest.
Don’t expect the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to be named in an apology about the Israeli spy scandal, but it was indeed Mossad at the centre of the affair. (This story solved the mystery of two Isreali men caught attempting to obtain false New Zealand passports. Nicky Hager traced them to the Isreali intelligence service, Mossad.)
AUSTRALIAN intelligence officials knew the man at the centre of the Kiwi Israeli spy scandal was a long-time Mossad agent well before he began the New Zealand passport operation…
The Interrogator’s War, Inside the secret war against al Qaeda, Chris Mackey with Greg Miller, John Murray
review by Nicky Hager