Author and Investigative Journalist
In November last year PM Helen Clark released a new policy on access to our Security Intelligence Service’s old files. The press release said it was to encourage “greater openness”, but in fact she had just instituted possibly the most restrictive intelligence archives policy in the western world… .
I am writing this preface as the United States begins its invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It is a disturbing time to be thinking about the role of intelligence operations in world politics and what it means for those of us who live in countries within the US intelligence alliance. During a war, […]
A recent story in Britain’s Observer newspaper revealed that US intelligence agencies have been spying intensely on UN Security Council members as the US worked to secure backing for the war in Iraq. You might imagine that New Zealand would disapprove of these high level dirty tricks…
THE war in Afghanistan was fought by intelligence analysts sitting at computers and special force commandos roving in mountains and lowlands…. (This feature was the first expose of New Zealand military activities in Afghanistan and surrounding countries in 2001-2003, activities which until then had mostly remained secret.)
As soon as the Labour-Alliance Government offered soldiers for the orwellian-sounding “War on Terrorism”, declaring “total support for the approach taken by the United States”, it began drawing New Zealand into the hidden agendas not only of the Afghanistan War, but also of what are, in effect, the early days of a renewed cold war.
There is nothing surprising about the US intelligence agencies failing to detect and stop the September 11 hijacking attacks. The main role of US intelligence agencies is not defence against threats like terrorism, but advancing US interests elsewhere in the world . . .
Intelligence agencies can appear hopelessly impregnable. The information is inside the walls and we are on the outside. But security is usually more impression than reality. In every government agency (and private companies), no matter how strict the security, the secrets walk in and out of the doors every day as people go to and from work.
ECHELON Committee, European Parliament 23 & 24 April 2001 Chairman: Mr Hager, you have the floor. Nicky Hager Good morning. I am very pleased to be with your committee, and I think I should have to appear here as one of the people who produced the information about Echelon. I think it’s very important that […]
Body of Secrets – anatomy of the ultra-secret National Security Agency from the Cold War through the dawn of the new century, James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001, 721pp.
Book review by Nicky Hager
The Big Breach – Inside the Secret World of MI6 by Richard Tomlinson, Harper Collins, 2001
Book review by Nicky Hager