New Edward Snowden Documents Call Out New Zealand for Spying On its South Pacific Neighbours

The entirety of email, phone, and social media communications happening via satellite in several nations across the Asia-Pacific region are being "hoovered up" by New Zealand's electronic spying agency, according to secret documents jointly reported on by the New Zealand Herald, news site the Intercept, and investigative journalist Nicky Hager. They allege the information is then being shared through the NSA surveillance system XKEYSCORE.

The documents, obtained by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, detail New Zealand's contribution to Five Eyes, the alliance of electronic surveillance agencies from Australia, NZ, Canada, the UK, and the US. They show that countries such as Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, and the Solomon Islands – all friendly to New Zealand – have had their electronic communications gathered by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) and made available to the other members of Five Eyes.

Within the Five Eyes alliance, GCSB's geographic area of electronic eavesdropping is relatively small. But it involved monitoring of government ministers, officials, and agencies, as well as non-government and international organisations. This particular revelation concerns the work done at the intelligence base in Waihopai Valley, which focuses on capturing all the data and communications transmitted through the air via satellites. Once the information is gathered it is fed into the XKEYSCORE system so that it can be analysed by spies across the network.

In an interview on Radio New Zealand this morning Nicky Hager was asked what value this immense amount of information held for New Zealand. He explained the government's motivation this way, "The reason we spy on those little pacific countries and help the Americans… is not because New Zealand cares or takes any stand. It's just something we can take to the table to belong to the club."

"It's such a non-New Zealand system," he said, "that if a New Zealand intelligence officer in Wellington wants to look at the information that they're gathering on the Pacific they have to go onto a NSA database to look at the information they've collected."

This isn't the first time the GCSB has been identified with problematic spying. They were the agency named in documents reported on last year that, despite government assurances to the contrary, revealed New Zealand had initiated a metadata collection program targeted at its own citizens. At the time, in an op-ed written by Snowden, Prime Minister John Key was directly accused of of lying. "The Prime Minister's claim to the public, that 'there is no and there never has been any mass surveillance', is false." In the same post the whistleblower noted, "If you live in New Zealand, you are being watched. At the NSA I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders."

The spying might be seen as particularly jarring for the Asia-Pacific nations that were targeted, considering the support they gave New Zealand in its bid for a seat on the UN Security council. The slogan campaigned under was, "New Zealand stands up for the small states."

Information gleaned from Snowden documents released in 2013, regarding Australia's attempt to listen in on the personal phone calls of then Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, increased political tension between the two countries and proved highly embarrassing for the Australian government. Indonesia immediately recalled its ambassador, reviewed all areas of cooperation between the nations — including the politically sensitive issue of people smuggling — and hundreds of flag-burning protesters gathered outside Australia's embassy in Jakarta.

The type of backlash New Zealand will experience is as yet unknown. In the meantime the New Zealand PM has come out on the attack, focusing at first on the prospect of terrorist threats and the need for secrecy before shifting to Nick Hager and his 2014 election-time book Dirty Politics, "My very strong advice to New Zealanders is discount massively everything you hear from Nicky Hager. He was wrong last time, he's wrong this time. His interests are his own self-serving interests, not the interests of the country."

In comments made to the New Zealand Herald a spokeswoman for the PM dismissed Snowden's information as old and potentially faked. When pressed for evidence of fabrication the PM's office could not provide any basis for the claim.

Further reports on New Zealand's role in Five Eyes and mass surveillance are expected over the next few days.

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