Snowden: NZ Spying on Pacific Islands
Local Editor
Based on the documents leaked by US whistleblower Edward Snowden, New Zealand was conducting mass surveillance over its Pacific neighbors.
According to the report, calls, emails and social media messages were being collected from Pacific nations.
The data was shared with other members of the "Five Eyes" network - the US, Australia, Britain and Canada.
Snowden leaked a large cache of classified NSA documents in 2013.
Furthermore, the published documents revealed that New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau [GCSB] used its Waihopai base in the South Island to spy on allies in the region.
Targets included Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati, New Caledonia, Tonga and French Polynesia.
The US website The Intercept, which published the documents in conjunction with the New Zealand Herald, cited that thent and metadata of all communications rather than just of specific targets.
The data collected was then available to be accessed by analysts from the US's National Security Agency [NSA] via the agency's controversial XKeyscore computer program, revealed during the original leak in 2013.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key declared the reports contained errors and false assumptions, but did not elaborate.
He mentioned the GCSB gathered "foreign intelligence that is in the best interests of New Zealand and protecting New Zealanders".
Andrew Little, leader of New Zealand's opposition Labor party, stated that he accepted the need for security agencies to protect the country but was "stunned at the breadth of the information that's been collected".
Little added GCSB seemed to be gathering information and "supplying it to the United States".
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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