The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security released their annual report today, and I've been busy reading through it. In amongst the usual review of what they've been doing all year, there's a few interesting bits. For example, a discussion on "agency retention and disposal of information", which points out that the clause of the Intelligence and Security Act which requires the destruction of "irrelevant" information is basicly a dead letter:
The application of s103 is more problematic, because judging when information collected for intelligence purposes is no longer relevant is not straightforward. If s103 means that information may only be retained so long as it is necessary, rather than merely desirable, to keep it, that is still a difficult test to apply in practice. The practical effect of s103 remains under discussion between our office and the agencies.
Reading between the lines, it appears that the current test for keeping irrelevant information - that is, information about people of no interest to the spies whatsoever, with no justification for retantion - seems to be whether it is "desirable" (that is, whether the spies feel like it, or feel they may be able to use it, somehow, in the future, despite no apparent use today). Which is a long way from what we were told when the law was passed, and basicly renders the clause meaningless. And that in turn creates an incentive for over-collection and mass-storage, just in case information becomes useful in future.
There's worse. One of the key safeguards in the Act is that any collection of intelligence about a New Zealander requires a Type 1 warrant, with enhanced safeguards. But (as mentioned in the IGIS's earlier report on warrants) the spies have been playing language games over anticipated "incidental" collection of New Zealanders' communications under less stringent, foreign intelligence Type 2 warrants - and they now have a legal opinion from the Solicitor-General backing up their view that this is OK. Which is part of the legal process and the back and forth of oversight, but as the IGIS points out, government agencies are bound to follow such opinions, so where they are issued, they are for all practical purposes the law. Which then raises a significant issue of there being a body of effectively secret law, shielded by legal professional privilege, which may differ significantly from the public understanding. Even more disturbingly, the spy agencies have "come close" to trying to use legal privilege to prevent the Inspector-General from stating their position on the law - effectively trying to keep it completely secret from the public.
But in a democratic society, the very idea of "secret law" is a nonsense. The law is, by definition, public. The government has to tell you what it is. And they should do exactly that with their interpretations of the spy laws. Otherwise, there will always be public suspicion that they mean one thing to the public, and something very different to the spies. And that is simply not sustainable in a democracy.
(If someone has the appetite for an OIA shitfight, there's a past Ombudsman's opinion supporting openness for such internal interpretive advice, so it may be worth trying to request it.
