New Zealand Prime Minister John Key bowed yesterday to calls to examine procedures of the country’s top security agency after it was revealed that it had spied on opposition Green Party legislator Keith Locke.
Locke, a well-known left-winger whose parents were openly members of the Communist Party, said his Security Intelligence Service (SIS) personal file showed that spies had watched him from the age of 11 and continued to do so after he was elected a member of parliament in 1999.
After initially rejecting demands to review the SIS, Key told reporters he had asked the agency’s watchdog, retired judge Paul Neazor, to check that it was “acting appropriately” in maintaining its files on citizens.
Key said he was not starting a full review of the SIS by Judge Neazor, who is the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, but added: “I think it’s important for the confidence of everybody to understand what’s gone on here.”
DEMOCRACY?
Locke, who was given his file after he applied for it under the Privacy Act, said: “Monitoring a sitting member of parliament, purely because of the views he espouses, is an affront to our parliamentary system.”
“It is outrageous that the SIS kept my personal file going after I became an MP even though none of the file documents from 1955 show any intention to break the law or conspire with a foreign enemy,” he said.
“It was all about monitoring my legitimate political activities — commonly in anti-war groups and those concerned with international human rights,” Locke said.
Key, who is responsible for the SIS, told Radio New Zealand that the agency should be able to spy on anyone they deemed a risk, whether they were an MP or not.
He said Locke had not been spied on as an MP, but it was possible that things like newspaper clippings had been added to his file.
“Obviously it’s a file that’s been there for long period of time and I suspect there has been a slightly overzealous staff member that has been adding to that file over time,” he said.
An SIS spokesman told a newspaper over the weekend that it was “not actively investigating any current members of parliament.”
FITZSIMONS
The Green Party’s co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, who is also in parliament and has long been outspoken on environmental issues, said she would request her own file to see if she had been spied on.
“MPs are elected by the people of New Zealand to hold the government to account and for them to be treated as enemies of the state and spied on by the SIS is absurd,” she said.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS