Snowden: New Zealand’s Prime Minister Isn’t Telling The Truth About Mass Surveillance

Kevin_Kennedy

Defend Liberty
Aug 27, 2008
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Like many nations around the world, New Zealand over the last year has engaged in a serious and intense debate about government surveillance. The nation’s prime minister, John Key of the National Party, has denied that New Zealand’s spy agency GCSB engages in mass surveillance, mostly as a means of convincing the country to enact a new law vesting the agency with greater powers. This week, as a national election approaches, Key repeated those denials in anticipation of a report in The Intercept today exposing the Key government’s actions in implementing a system to record citizens’ metadata.

Let me be clear: any statement that mass surveillance is not performed in New Zealand, or that the internet communications are not comprehensively intercepted and monitored, or that this is not intentionally and actively abetted by the GCSB, is categorically false. If you live in New Zealand, you are being watched. At the NSA I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders in my work with a mass surveillance tool we share with GCSB, called “XKEYSCORE.” It allows total, granular access to the database of communications collected in the course of mass surveillance. It is not limited to or even used largely for the purposes of cybersecurity, as has been claimed, but is instead used primarily for reading individuals’ private email, text messages, and internet traffic. I know this because it was my full-time job in Hawaii, where I worked every day in an NSA facility with a top secret clearance.

The prime minister’s claim to the public, that “there is no and there never has been any mass surveillance” is false. The GCSB, whose operations he is responsible for, is directly involved in the untargeted, bulk interception and algorithmic analysis of private communications sent via internet, satellite, radio, and phone networks.

If you have doubts, which would be quite reasonable, given what the last year showed us about the dangers of taking government officials at their word, I invite you to confirm this for yourself. Actual pictures and classified documentation of XKEYSCORE are available online now, and their authenticity is not contested by any government. Within them you’ll find that the XKEYSCORE system offers, but does not require for use, something called a “Five Eyes Defeat,” the Five Eyes being the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and yes, New Zealand.
Snowden New Zealand s Prime Minister Isn t Telling the Truth About Mass Surveillance - The Intercept

Yet another politician caught lying about their government spying on the citizens they purport to represent.
 
Snowden gets the Bjornson Prize from Norway...

Edward Snowden receives Norwegian freedom of expression award
Sept. 8, 2015 | Former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden received the Norwegian Academy of Literature of Literature and Freedom of Expression Bjornson Prize in Molde, Norway on Saturday. A statuette and diploma were put on an empty chair in his honor during the award ceremony.
Snowden, who sought asylum in Russia two years ago, and is wanted by the U.S. government on espionage charges, accepted the award via a live video link, The New York Daily News reported. "We will honor you as the most important whistleblower of our times," said Hege Newth Nouri, head of the board of the Bjornson Academy. Despite his absence at the ceremony, Snowden was given a standing ovation by those in attendance. The prize includes 100,000 Norwegian kroner, about $12,000. Snowden exposed extensive telephone and data-collection programs used by the NSA. Detractors say he compromised national security, while his supporters view him as a whistleblower who exposed government overreach.

During his speech, the former U.S. intelligence contractor criticized Russia for its crackdown on human rights and online freedom. He also reiterated that he would prefer to not live in exile. "I've been quite critical of (it) in the past and I'll continue to be in the future, because this drive that we see in the Russian government to control more and more the Internet, to control more and more what people are seeing, even parts of personal lives, deciding what is the appropriate or inappropriate way for people to express their love for one another...(is) fundamentally wrong," he said. Snowden also said that he had "never intended to go to Russia, that was never my plan. I applied for asylum in 21 countries. They were all silent. Russia was actually one of the last countries in that sequence that I applied for," he added.

Edward-Snowden-receives-Norwegian-freedom-of-expression-award.jpg

Former National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden received the Norwegian Academy of Literature of Literature and Freedom of Expression Bjornson Prize in Molde, Norway. A statuette and diploma were put on an empty chair in his honor during the award ceremony. He addressed the audience via a live video link.

The suggestion to go to Russia was made by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. "I think [Assange's] intention was good. He was focused primarily on my safety as a publisher, and having a source, he was interested in the source protection angle," said Snowden. "But for me, the problem is I wasn't interested in my own safety, my own protection. I never expected to be free today. I expected to be in prison." The White House rejected a petition in late July to pardon Snowden, saying he should return to the United States and "be judged by a jury of his peers" for leaking US government secrets. "I knew the consequences of my actions when I took them," Snowden also said during his acceptance speech. Snowden, an Oliver Stone film, is scheduled to be released in North American theaters on Christmas Day.

Edward Snowden receives Norwegian freedom of expression award
 

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