New Zealand launched a covert surveillance operation targeting candidates vying to be director general of the World Trade Organization, a top-secret document reveals.
In the period leading up to the May 2013 appointment, the country’s electronic eavesdropping agency programmed an Internet spying system to intercept emails about a list of high-profile candidates from Brazil, Costa Rica, Ghana, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mexico and South Korea.
New Zealand’s trade minister, Tim Groser, was one of nine candidates in contention for the position at the WTO, a powerful international organization based in Geneva, Switzerland that negotiates trade agreements between nations. The surveillance operation, carried out by Government Communications Security Bureau, or GCSB, appears to have been part of a secret effort to help Groser win the job.
Groser ultimately failed to get the position.
A top-secret document obtained by The Intercept and the New Zealand Herald reveals how GCSB used the XKEYSCORE Internet surveillance system to collect communications about the WTO director general candidates.
XKEYSCORE is run by the National Security Agency and is used to analyze billions of emails, Internet browsing sessions and online chats that are vacuumed up from about 150 different locations worldwide. GCSB has gained access to XKEYSCORE because New Zealand is a member of the Five Eyes surveillance alliance alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
The WTO spying document shows how the New Zealand agency created an XKEYSCORE targeting “fingerprint,” a combination of names and keywords used to extract particular information from the vast quantities of emails and other communications accessible through the system. The document reveals that a fingerprint was specially tailored to monitor the WTO candidates and was “used to sort traffic by priority,” looking for “keywords [as they] appear in the email_body.” It is stamped with a “last modified” date of May 6, 2013, about a week before the new director general was to be announced.
Two different intelligence searches were carried out by the GCSB staff as part of what they termed the “WTO Project.” First, they looked for emails referring to Groser, the WTO, the director general candidacy and the surnames of the other candidates: Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen (Ghana); Amina Mohamed (Kenya); Anabel González (Costa Rica); Herminio Blanco (Mexico); Mari Elka Pangestu (Indonesia); Taeho Bark (South Korea); Ahmad Thougan Hindawi (Jordan); and Roberto Carvalho de Azevêdo (Brazil).
Second, they zeroed in on the Indonesian candidate, Pangestu, that country’s former minister of trade and a professional economist. A separate XKEYSCORE fingerprint was created, headed “WTO DG Candidacy issues — focus on Indonesian candidate.” This was presumably because the New Zealand government was particularly concerned that the job might go to another Pacific candidate ahead of Groser.
The surveillance of Pangestu appears to have targeted all Internet communications (not just email) containing the name “Pangestu,” the words “Indonesia,” “WTO” and “candidacy,” and the other candidates’ names.
The searches had keyword instructions in English, French and Spanish — for instance “zealand,” “zelande” and “zelandia” — in order to catch communications from more countries. The intercepted messages were to be passed to the GCSB’s “trade team,” which would likely have had the job of collating intelligence for people in government involved in Groser’s bid for the WTO role.
The Intercept and the New Zealand Herald attempted to contact each of the named targets prior to publication. Several were not reachable or did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the WTO had not responded to multiple requests for comment at time of publication (update below).
Bark, the South Korean candidate, said he had no inkling that he was the focus of surveillance during his bid for the director general role. He told the New Zealand Herald he had received no intelligence agency support as part of his own campaign. “It’s a different world for very advanced countries,” he said.
Bark, now an academic at Seoul National University and South Korea’s ambassador-at-large for international economy and trade, added that he was not “offended” by the spying because he didn’t think it had any impact on the outcome of his effort to get the WTO job. But he predicted others would be stung by the eavesdropping revelations. “The Indonesian candidate would be very upset,” he said.
International economic law expert Meredith Kolsky Lewis, who specializes in the WTO, said she was “a bit shocked” at the allegation New Zealand had spied on emails about the director general candidates.
“I’m a little surprised that New Zealand used the surveillance power available to it for this purpose,” Lewis said. “It’s possible those who ordered the surveillance wanted to know who other countries in the region supported.”
Andrew Little, leader of New Zealand’s Labour Party, criticized the surveillance and described it as “completely out of order.”
“It just seems outrageous,” Little said. “I would have thought that [to be] a misuse of our security and intelligence agencies. It seems to me right outside the mandate of the GCSB. It’s nothing to do with security threats.”
It was in late 2012 that Groser was nominated for the position at the WTO.
The New Zealand trade minister launched a lobbying campaign as part of his candidacy bid, traveling to Europe, the United States, Africa, the Caribbean and around the Pacific Islands in an effort to win support from members of the WTO’s general council, which includes representatives from 160 countries.
However, his campaign was unsuccessful. Brazil’s Azevêdo (pictured above) was appointed the WTO’s new director general on May 14, 2013.
Three weeks earlier, when it had become clear that Groser was not going to make the final shortlist, New Zealand’s prime minister, John Key, expressed his disappointment. “At the end of the day it was always going to be a long shot — so he gave it his best go with the support of the government,” Key said.
What the public didn’t know was that this support had included deploying the GCSB to spy on communications about the competitors.
At the time of the surveillance, Prime Minister Key was the minister in charge of the GCSB, raising the question of whether he knew about and personally sanctioned the electronic eavesdropping to help Groser.
A spokesman for Key declined to answer any questions about the WTO spying and instead issued a boilerplate response. “New Zealand’s intelligence agencies have been, and continue to be, a significant contributor to our national security and the security of New Zealanders at home and abroad,” the spokesman said.
Groser, reached by New Zealand Herald reporters late Saturday, said the government wouldn’t discuss “such leaks” because he claimed they were “often wrong, [and] they are deliberately timed to try and create political damage.” Asked if he knew the GCSB was conducting surveillance for him, he said: “I’ve got no comment to make whatsoever.”
GCSB also declined to comment on any of the specific revelations. In a statement, the agency’s acting director, Una Jagose, said: “The GCSB exists to protect New Zealand and New Zealanders. We have a foreign intelligence mandate. We don’t comment on speculation about matters that may or may not be operational. Everything we do is explicitly authorized and subject to independent oversight.”
Last week, The Intercept revealed that GCSB used XKEYSCORE to target top government officials and an anti-corruption campaigner in the Solomon Islands.
Earlier disclosures, which were based on documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, have exposed how New Zealand is funneling data into XKEYSCORE from a surveillance base in the Waihopai Valley and is spying on about 20 countries across the world, predominantly in the Asia-Pacific region, among them small Pacific islands and major trading partners including Japan, Vietnam and China.
The Intercept is reporting details about New Zealand’s surveillance operations in collaboration with the New Zealand Herald, the Herald on Sunday and the Sunday Star-Times.
Update, March 22, 2015 at 17:30 ET: Reached by phone Sunday, WTO spokesman Keith Rockwell told The Intercept he was “learning about this for the very first time” and said he would not comment on the New Zealand spying until he had looked closer at the details. “Tomorrow morning I’ll go into the office and we’ll discuss it and we’ll try to figure out what’s going on,” he said.
Update, March 23, 2015 at 14:00 ET: Rockwell, the WTO’s spokesman, says the WTO will not be commenting further on the revelations and he refuses to explain why. “We will not have any comment on this story today or in the future,” he told The Intercept in an emailed response.
Photo: Martial Trezzini/Keystone/AP
Hopefully, this article is not a shill, although, it might be.
One big question it poses, but doesn’t explicitly answers, is “How eavesdropping on other WTO General Director candidates would help Mr. Groser to win the job?” One of the answers came from Meredith Kolsky Lewis, who said “It’s possible those who ordered the surveillance wanted to know who other countries in the region supported.” Which is just an “innocent” collection of information, isn’t it?
However, I wonder whether GCSB may have collected information to find anything to discredit other candidates, particularly, Pangestu.
WTO is useless ..it is like spying on a homeless person sleeping on a park bench.. sho cares
The great irony is that in recent years, while this spying and more like it was going on, NZ regularly featured in the top three on lists of the least corrupt countries in the world. That bubble’s been well and truly exploded now. NZ is a fake moral Rock of Gibraltar. “New Zealand 100% Pure”. Yeah, right. Father Xmas exists too.
Another fine article, Ryan G. – please keep them coming.
I found Mr. Bark’s remarks – well sort of astonishing. Were it me, I’d be offended all right. Maybe he feels he can’t really state his feelings because of his position, but we all should be offended – for him if necessary.
It’s time this spying – on all of us – STOPS!!!
Candidate: Hey, how do we stay in power when election time comes around?
Advisor: Simple. We spy on the opposition party and its candidates. Gather their private information. Then use it against them so we win the election.
Candidate: Great idea! You wanna be chief of staff after election?
I would like to nominate Glen Greenwald for United States President. Seriously. With Jesselyn Radack as V.P. Or Visa Versa. Both are qualified Totally. Boy what a great campaign that would be, I’d love to be a part of it. Why not? It is the only way we are going to really get our country straight. Who do we have to chose from? Hillary or Jed? No choice at all. How can we even know about others who want to run? Please pass it on to Glen to consider it. He’d be like President Kennedy and Attorney Radack is amazing.
When election time comes around I’d like to be on Glen Greenwald’s Campaign to run for President with Jesselyn Radack as running mate. They are both qualified. It is the only way we are really going to turn this country around, get some new thinkers in there. It would be like the Kennedys again! I nominate Attorneys Greenwald and Radack for President and Vice President. What a great campaign that would be/ will be?! Pass it on!
Department of Homeland Security= Ministerium für Staatssicherheit
I bet ten bucks the Abbot government has used Keystone to intercept comms from Indonesia especially durings its general election so it could jockey for position when dealing with the new regime.
Keystone? You must be a Cannuck! You guys have worse things going on up there.
It’s obviously a pipeline of information.
With leaks.
It’s rather amusing when the justification for all this spying is that it’s vital for the war on terror. Can’t be too careful about terrorist plots originating in the WTO. Or Petrobras. Or Mrs. Merkel’s office.
Thanks for the reporting.
More please.
If anyone thought that these capabilities are used only, or even primarily, for existential security threats, then this one case should change lay that silly idea to rest. (As if it had not already been shown before!)
These invasive techniques must be removed.
Agree 100%. Revelations such as this and the MOA tracking activists stories should indeed show that “security” is certainly not the main task of this massive surveillance. Now we just a) have to keep trying to get that idea across and b) work on solutions to eliminate such spying; the ideas you mentioned down thread would be a pretty good start…
You should take them to court!
And you will be making a sizable donation to my legal fund, correct?
The spokesman and others involved would be wise to fully include Ryan Gallagher and The Intercept in their conversations leading up to trying “to figure out what’s going on.”
This is a silly story. It’s a given that all means to spy will be employed, if available. So where is the problem using those methods? People like Keys and Locks are not hermits sworn to celibacy and truth. They are as crooked as they come, and if they find unguarded chastity belts here and there then they will surely pick them regardless of whether they own the keys or not.
Silly? I think not.
General,
I am Capt. Sherwin. Please command me to stop laughing else my sides will burst. I can’t otherwise.
I am reminded of Archbishop of Canterbury discovering he was the custodian of the wrong key when King Arthur was about to set sail for France.
Thanks.
So they must not be available. They must be outlawed.
And how, Sir?
1. Encryption prevents access to message contents except at source and destination.
2. Legal government access to telecom servers has to be prevented by legal means; that is new better laws.
3. Cyber attacks by governments must be prevented by better security on all computers; in the long run this means new operating systems.
Numbers 1 and 3 are what “we” need to do, not Keys. Number 2 is meaningless, unless you can find a way to define jurisdiction and enforceability.
So then Keys can still pick locks that won’t otherwise open, which is what he is doing right now and succeeding because we have been lazy enough not to cover up properly. Outlawing anything helps you in no way.
No, 1., 2., and 3. are what we need to do. If the law means nothing, why does so much effort go into trying to make this spying legal? Special government ports into telecom servers need to be outlawed and a mechanism for assuring that they are gone must be found. The government can get information legally requested with a warrant over the same lines everybody else does, you know, the internet. Obviously special lines are for taking everything they want whenever they want.
You realize that this article deals with things that are happening across international boundaries. What Keys does with his own hardware in his own territory is no concern for anyone else. The laws can at best define how Keys needs to stay off Kim Dotcom, and not the other Kims like the Jonguns and the Kardeshians.
And so the real issue emerges.
Governments exploit their secret surveillance capabilities to benefit those in power.
For all their protestations of propriety and attention to civil rights (and the rest of the BS they spout), spymasters know full well they act with impunity … which means there cannot be accuracy, transparency or recourse for ordinary proles.
State surveillance creates a totalitarian state.
Inevitably.
“It’s a different world for very advanced countries”
This is a great remark, diplomatic on the surface but darkly deadpan humorous upon reflection.
Does the WTO document come from the Snowden archive or somewhere else?
It’s interesting that the article states that the document was “obtained” by the Intercept and the NZH and that earlier “disclosures, which were based on documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, have exposed how New Zealand is…” That’s different to this document being from Snowden.
Yes, the World Trade Organization is a known terrorist group and candidates for the top job will be carrying bombs onto airplanes when they travel to meetings. **irony alert**
Edward Snowden was right. The surveillance system is much more about spying on commercial competitors and private lives than it is about preventing terrorist attacks.
Nice reporting, Ryan. One wonders just how much egg on the face these governments can take.
A bit off topic: I am seeing more encouraging signs regarding the impact that accurate reporting and fact-checking has had on some main stream media. One example is a report by KSBW, an ABC affiliate, on a recent lawsuit regarding a lawsuit which makes claims of excessive arsenic in some wines. The video report plays initially like any other: providing the unsubstantiated claims that make up the lawsuit, and a few ‘man in the street’ reactions to this ‘news.’ What was surprising (and refreshing) is that after this initial explanation of the lawsuits claims, the news anchor then follows up with actual facts about the claims being made, going as far as to chastise other media outlets for failing to actually read the report and the claims that were made, and rebutting some of the claims with evidence that other news outlets failed to cover. In other words, actual factual information rather than click-bait journalism. The news anchors rebuttal starts at three minutes:
http://www.ksbw.com/news/lawsuit-claims-high-arsenic-levels-found-in-wine/31940252
I wonder if this had anything to do with the TPP trade agreement. How much of this surveillance was shared with the US and UK?
Those are very good questions! Was definitely wondering about the first myself…
Ditto.
This is undoubtedly one of their many methods of getting people into office around the world to push their disgusting policies. Ha! They trumpet “Democracy” while enabling wars of aggression and subvert the very institutions of democracy with their multi-billion dollar systems of war.
From the beginning of the Edward Snowden documents, there have been indications that there was a major effort in the area of trade and corporations in the surveillance efforts.
This article is another piece of the puzzle to show that this is true.
It would be interesting to find out what Key knew and when he knew it. Will we ever find out?
I log onto several sites daily, and always begin with The Intercept.
From the beginning of the Snowden affair, and especially after I became aware of the NSA breach of the Petrobras computers, as the NSA sought to steal proprietary deep well drilling technology, for an American paying customer, I then understood that The Five Eyes Alliance, was for the most part, all about gaining commercial advantage.
They know we know this now, and they still are not fully aware of the extent of what Mr. Greenwald has yet to release; they must be in a tizzy, and this latest expose clearly shows that their operations are all about commercial advantage.
One of two things will soon occur, the Americans will be forced to provably reduce the massive nature of the surveillance, or more than likely, they will go for broke, and go all out to deploy all of their programs.
Congress and corporate America are in the game with them, so success is all but guaranteed.
Privacy, as we used to know it, is dead, buried, gone forever.
Just finished reading “Data and Goliath”, by Bruce Schneier, an enlightening read.
I’m sure most are aware; I now know there are two larger groups of surveillance nations, one being “The Nine Eyes Alliance”, and the other, “The Fourteen Eyes Alliance”.
Several articles ago the NSA, in exerpted docs, kept using the word customers in reference to those who would use the intelligence gleanings. Although I had my suspicions that the spying was being done for commercial reasons, and asking who these customers were, no answer was forthcoming at the time. Obviously, my suspicions(shared by many, I’m sure) were accurate as revealed by this article. Seems I must have missed the article about Petrobras so thanks Mel for pointing that out. Thanks to you too Ryan for continuing to expose the truth. Speak up people.