These are all questions that any person contributing towards keeping it going should be asking. These are all questions that any elected democratic government representative of the people should be answering.

Instead, we are told that the information is classified. In order to access that key information, people have to slip silently into spy bases at night, jump fences, get arrested, and pay the price for seeking what should be, but is not, public knowledge.

David Lange, former Prime Minister admitted he knew less than what really went on at the GCSB and claims, “It is an outrage that I and other ministers were told so little, and this raises the question of to whom those concerned saw themselves as ultimately answerable.”

Duncan Campbell, an award winning spy journalist from the UK, wrote the first story on Britain’s intelligence agency, GCHQ. As a special award for the goodness of his work, he was subsequently charged with illegally obtaining official information.

Nicky Hager, New Zealand’s own intelligence researcher and author of Secret Power writes in his book “there is ample evidence that the intelligence alliance has contributed to the destruction rained upon innocent people in wars since 1945, and that most often it has been assisting powerful interests at the expense of the vulnerable. Numerous examples are given of officials withholding information from governments and the public and, at times, actively deceiving them.”

In January 1997, I made a choice to join the protest. I went up to Waihopai and was arrested for trespassing in my own attempt to gain that knowledge. Over that January weekend I was shown evidence of how easy and possible it is for the GCSB to listen to international private communications such as email, fax and telephone. To me this was wrong. People’s speech and ideas should not be monitored with no control or accountability. People in a democracy should have every right to express themselves via communication without having to worry who is listening in and why.

I was also shown evidence to suggest that the intelligence information gathered was for a 1940’s UK/USA intelligence agreement. That agreement meant that the United States was the primary benefactor of such information. A United States Naval Intelligence Bulletin from 1990 released under the Freedom of Information Act states coherently that New Zealand is a ‘Second Party’ producer. It then continues to state that the National Security Agency (America’s supreme spy organisation) “controls all SIGINT [signals intelligence] product dissemination, including that of field reporting sites and Second Party producers.”

Given the discovery of this document it is interesting to hear the Prime Minister, Rt. Hon. Jenny Shipley’s response to the question of who controls the signals intelligence information gathered at Waihopai. She claims “The Waihopai Station is a New Zealand Government facility, wholly under the control of the Government Communications Security Bureau.” Of course, the facility is under New Zealand control - the Government built the base and continues to fund it. However, she does not deny that the information is controlled by someone other than New Zealand.

While New Zealand people die on hospital waiting lists and cannot afford tertiary education, the government should have no right to spend 20 million dollars with no or little explanation of what it is being used for. To me, that is worth getting arrested for.

For more information, or copies of a petition on the Waihopai Spy Base, write to: Yani, PO BOX 13-874, ChCh, New Zealand.

This article is reprinted from Presto magazine (available on dead tree in Christchurch) with permission.