[asia-apec 1114] Apec critic to boycott 2nd SIS Amendment Bill process

[Gatt Watchdog]

Aziz Choudry
PO Box 1905
Christchurch

                                  MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE

7 May 1999

 APEC critic to boycott submission process for second SIS law change  

Aziz Choudry, the GATT Watchdog organiser whose ongoing legal case against the
NZ Security Intelligence Service has prompted two legislative amendment bills
will not be making a submission to the Prime Minister's Intelligence and
Security Committee.  Mr Choudry boycotted the submission process for the
first legislative amendment earlier this year.  Written submissions on the SIS
Amendment Bill (No 2) close today (7 May).

"This bill is a bone which the Shipley government and its compliant buddies in
Labour have thrown out in the hope that the public will be too busy chewing on
it to realise that these amendments substantially extend, rather than rein in,
SIS powers.  They hope that it will divert us away from asking hard questions
about the role of state intelligence agencies in 1999 - not to mention their
role in spying on opponents of APEC in the run-up to the Auckland Leaders
Summit."

"The timing of this bill will give Jenny Shipley a chance to deliver another
"critics of APEC have nothing to fear from the SIS" statement in the lead-up
to the Auckland APEC Leaders Summit and the election.  Yet she, Helen Clark,
and other senior politicians of the parties that support the SIS's right to
home invasion have explicitly linked the law change to the hosting of this
year's APEC meetings." 

"This week in Canada, during hearings into complaints about the heavy-handed
security crackdown in Vancouver for the 1997 APEC Summit, documents outlining
the extent of a massive intelligence operation aimed at non-violent anti-APEC
groups and organisers in the weeks prior to the 1997 APEC Summit are now being
released for the first time."  

"This year's SIS Amendment bills have drawn on a number of aspects of the
legislation governing the Canadian security intelligence agencies.  Just as
many groups and individuals were subject to "threat assessments" and
surveillance in Canada in relation to the Vancouver APEC Summit for
legitimate, lawful political activity, the New Zealand government will be
following suit." 

"The cosmetic amendments in this bill won't allay the well-founded concerns
about SIS powers in relation to lawful dissenters.  It is a mixture of luck,
hard work and court action which has brought us to where we are now in
relation to both uncovering the 1996 SIS bungled operation at my house and
the wider debate about the activities of the SIS - not any of the supposed
checks and balances enshrined in statute."

"The Intelligence and Security Committee is a kangaroo court.  Despite the
fact that an overwhelming number of submissions on the SIS "break-in" bill
opposed the expansion of SIS powers, the Prime Minister's committee had
already made up their minds on the matter and pushed the legislation through
as fast as it could."
 
"Having sat through a day of the February hearings in support of friends and
colleagues who were making submissions on the recently passed SIS Amendment
legislation I saw that many of them - and others opposed to the expansion of
SIS powers - were treated with contempt by most, if not all of the senior
politicians who sit on this committee. This committee, the amendment bill and
the submission process are all flawed beyond redemption".

"Long before the controversial "international wellbeing and economic
wellbeing" was added to the definition of "security",  the SIS had been spying
on - and no doubt breaking into the houses and offices of - people involved in
entirely lawful political activities on the premise that the targets were
involved in "subversion".  Who defines that?  That word is yet another charter
for abuse by an overzealous, unaccountable spy agency like the SIS"

"The proposed further tinkering with the definition of security, the
involvement of a retired High Court judge to jointly issue "domestic"
interception warrants and other such clauses in the bill are designed to give
the impression of the committee having listened to people's concerns about the
SIS  - but they obscure the real issues," he said.

For further comment, contact Aziz Choudry, ph (03) 3662803 or 021
217 3039