AUCKLAND, New Zealand—The New Zealand spy agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), worked in 2012 and 2013 to implement a mass metadata surveillance system even as top government officials publicly insisted no such program was being planned and would not be legally permitted. 
 
 Documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the government worked in secret to exploit a new internet surveillance law enacted in the wake of revelations of illegal domestic spying to initiate a new metadata collection program that appeared designed to collect information about the communications of New Zealanders. Those actions are in direct conflict with the assurances given to the public by Prime Minister John Key (pictured above), who said the law was merely designed to fix “an ambiguous legal framework” by expressly allowing the agency to do what it had done for years, that it “isn’t and will never be wholesale spying on New Zealanders,” and the law “isn’t a revolution in the way New Zealand conducts its intelligence operations.” 
 
 Snowden, in a post for The Intercept published today, accused Prime Minster Key of fundamentally misleading the public about GCSB’s role in mass surveillance. “The Prime Minister’s claim to the public, that ‘there is no and there never has been any mass surveillance’, is false,” the former NSA analyst wrote. “The GCSB, whose operations he is responsible for, is directly involved in the untargeted, bulk interception and algorithmic analysis of private communications sent via internet, satellite, radio, and phone networks.” 
 
 Snowden explained that “at the NSA, I routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders in my work with a mass surveillance tool we share with GCSB, called ‘X KEYSCORE.”” He further detailed that “the GCSB provides mass surveillance data into XKEYSCORE. They also provide access to the communications of millions of New Zealanders to the NSA at facilities such as the GCSB facility in Waihopai, and the Prime Minister is personally aware of this fact.” 
 
 Top secret documents provided by the whistleblower demonstrate that the GCSB, with ongoing NSA cooperation, implemented Phase I of the mass surveillance program code-named “Speargun” at some point in 2012 or early 2013. “Speargun” involved the covert installation of “cable access” equipment, which appears to refer to surveillance of the country’s main undersea cable link, the Southern Cross cable. This cable carries the vast majority of internet traffic between New Zealand and the rest of the world, and mass collection from it would mark the greatest expansion of GCSB spying activities in decades. 
 
 Upon completion of the first stage, Speargun moved to Phase II, under which “metadata probes” were to be inserted into those cables. The NSA documents note that the first such metadata probe was scheduled for “mid-2013.” Surveillance probes of this sort are commonly used by NSA and their partners to tap into huge flows of information from communication cables in real time, enabling them to extract the dates, times, senders, and recipients of emails, phone calls, and the like. The technique is almost by definition a form of mass surveillance; metadata is relatively useless for intelligence purposes without a massive amount of similar data to analyze it against and trace connections through. 
 
 The NSA declined to comment for this story. A GCSB spokesperson would only say: “We don’t comment on matters that may or may not be operational.” 
 
 Over the weekend, in anticipation of this report, Key admitted for the first time that the GCSB did plan a program of mass surveillance aimed at his own citizens, but claimed that he ultimately rejected the program before implementation. Yesterday, after The Intercept sought comment from the NSA, the Prime Minister told reporters in Auckland that this reporting was referring merely to “a proposed widespread cyber protection programme that never got off the ground.” He vowed to declassify documents confirming his decision. 
 
 But the documents indicate that Speargun was not just an idea that stalled at the discussion stage. It was a system GCSB actively worked to implement. One top secret 2012 NSA document states: “Project Speargun underway.” Another top secret NSA document discussing the activities of its surveillance partners reports, under the heading “New Zealand,” that “Partner cable access program achieves Phase I.” 
 
 Critically, the NSA documents note in more than one place that completion of Speargun was impeded by one obstacle: The need to enact a new spying law that would allow the GCSB, for the first time, to spy on its own citizens as well as legal residents of the country. As one NSA planning document put it, completion of Speargun was “awaiting new GCSB Act expected July 2013.” 
 
 That legislation arose after it was revealed in 2012 that the GCSB illegally surveilled the communications of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, a legal resident of New Zealand. New Zealand law at the time forbade the GCSB from using its surveillance apparatus against citizens or legal residents. That illegal GCSB surveillance of Dotcom was followed by a massive military-style police raid by New Zealand authorities on his home in connection with Dotcom’s criminal prosecution in the United States for copyright violations. 
 
 A subsequent government investigation found that the GCSB not only illegally spied on Dotcom but also dozens of other citizens and legal residents. The deputy director of GCSB resigned. The government’s response to these revelations was to refuse to prosecute those who ordered the illegal spying and, instead, to propose a new law that would allow domestic electronic surveillance. 
 
 That proposal was intensely controversial, prompting large public protests and a concerted campaign against the law. One news broadcaster called it “one of the most polarizing pieces of legislation in recent times.” It was of sufficient interest to the NSA that in March 2013, the director of Prime Minister Key’s Intelligence Coordination Group traveled to NSA headquarters to offer an update on the legislation. 
 
 To assuage the public, Key and other top officials repeatedly insisted that the real purpose of the law was merely to provide oversight and to clarify that targeted domestic surveillance which had long been carried out by the agency was legal. Key categorically denied that the law would allow mass metadata collection on the New Zealand public: “There have been claims this Bill offers no protection of metadata and allows for wholesale collection of metadata without a warrant. None of that is true.” 
 
 Key told the public that the new law would not permit mass, warrantless metadata surveillance: “So when the GCSB wants to access metadata, it is treated with the same level of seriousness and protection as if the GCSB was accessing the actual content of a communication. And there are protections around that.” 
 
 In response to Key’s claims, legal experts extensively documented that the new law would indeed provide “a major increase in the overall role and powers of the GCSB” and would allow the “very broad ‘wholesale’ powers” which Key denied. Yet the Key government, and the prime minister himself, steadfastly insisted that the law permits no mass surveillance. At one point, Key even promised to resign if it were found that the GCSB were engaging in mass surveillance. 
 
 Based on Key’s assurances, the New Zealand Parliament narrowly voted to enact the new law on August 21 of last year, by a vote of 61-59. Immediately prior to passage, Key acknowledged that the new law has “‘alarmed’ some people but blame[d] the Government’s opponents for stoking their fears” and again “rejected that by writing into law what the GCSB had already been doing meant an extension of its powers.” 
 
 But in high-level discussions between the Key government and the NSA, the new law was clearly viewed as the crucial means to empower the GCSB to engage in metadata surveillance. On more than one occasion, the NSA noted internally that Project Speargun, in the process of being implemented, could not and would not be completed until the new law was enacted. The NSA apparently viewed that new law as providing exactly the powers that Key repeatedly and publicly denied it would vest. 
 
 New Zealand’s national election will be held on September 20. Over the last several weeks, Key has been embroiled in a scandal that saw a top minister resign, after independent journalist Nicky Hager published a book, Dirty Politics, documenting ties between Key officials and a right-wing blogger known for attacking public figures and showing that Key officials declassified information for political purposes. 
 
 Revelations of illegal GCSB spying prompted the creation of the anti-surveillance Internet Party, which formed an alliance with the left-wing, indigenous Mana Party and is predicted to win several seats in Parliament. The party is funded by Dotcom, and has organized a “Moment of Truth” event for this Monday to discuss revelations of surveillance and other secret government actions. (Disclosure: Glenn Greenwald, one of the authors of this story, is scheduled to speak at that event pursuant to an invitation from the Internet Party, which paid his travel expenses to attend and agreed to donate a speaking fee to a designated charity.) 
 
 The disclosure that the GCSB plotted a program of mass surveillance based on this new law is likely to raise further questions about the ethics and credibility of the Key government. The new surveillance planning took place at high levels of the government, and expressly intended to use the new surveillance law as its basis even as Key himself insisted that the law provided no such authority. 
 
 Photo: Rob Griffith/AP 
 
 Additional reporting provided by Andrew Fishman ||||| Accused government whistleblower Edward Snowden is seen on the computer screen of a journalist on the internet site of the Council of Europe, as he speaks via video conference with members of the Committee on legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of... 
 
 WELLINGTON New Zealand was preparing to conduct mass domestic surveillance last year, a U.S. investigative journalist said on Monday, five days before the country goes to the polls, provoking immediate denials from Prime Minister John Key. 
 
 The accusations by Glenn Greenwald were based on evidence disclosed by former U.S. National Security Authority contractor Edward Snowden that Key's center-right government planned to exploit amended spying laws to sharply widen domestic spying. 
 
 Greenwald said the NSA documents showed New Zealand's electronic spy agency took the first steps towards the surveillance in a project dubbed 'Speargun', by tapping into an undersea telecoms cable into the country, while waiting for the legal authority to do so. 
 
 "Phase one entailed accessing that cable, tapping into it, and then phase two would entail metadata probes," Greenwald said on Radio New Zealand National. 
 
 Key rejected the charges as "absolutely wrong", and said a business case put up by the agency, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), early last year aimed at mass cyber protection, but was turned down by his government. 
 
 "There is not, and never has been, a cable access surveillance program operating in New Zealand," Key said in a statement, as he released several declassified papers to back his position. 
 
 "There is not, and never has been, mass surveillance of New Zealanders undertaken by the GCSB." 
 
 Snowden's material can be accessed at: here 
 
 New Zealand law provides that the GCSB, which conducts electronic surveillance and is part of the "Five Eyes" surveillance network along with the United States, Britain, Australia, and Canada, can only spy on New Zealand citizens if requested by a domestic law enforcement or intelligence agency. 
 
 Key said Greenwald, who was brought to New Zealand by millionaire internet entrepreneur Kim Dotcom, was being used to try to influence voters ahead of the election. 
 
 Dotcom, who is fighting extradition to the United States on charges of internet piracy, copyright breaches, and money laundering, has paid for Greenwald's trip to New Zealand. 
 
 Greenwald appeared at a public meeting of more than 1,000 people organized by a political party being bankrolled by Dotcom, at which the ebullient German had promised revelations damaging to Key. 
 
 Snowden and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange addressed the meeting through video links. 
 
 New Zealand media said the revelations involved an alleged email between a Warner Brothers film studio executive and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), suggesting Key colluded with them to allow Dotcom to settle in New Zealand so that it would be easier to detain and extradite him. 
 
 Warner Brothers and the MPAA said the email was a fake, and Key said he made no such comments to the film executives. 
 
 Controversy around Dotcom's arrest and the protracted ongoing effort to extradite him, as well as charges of illegal spying, have dogged Key's government over the past two years. 
 
 In the past month links between his government and right-wing bloggers have prompted separate accusations of dirty tricks against political opponents. 
 
 But Key, largely unscathed in opinion polls, remains the favorite to gain a third consecutive term, although he is likely to need the support of minor parties to secure a majority. NZPOLL 
 
 (Reporting by Gyles Beckford and Naomi Tajitsu; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) ||||| A new examination of previously published affidavits from the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB)—the New Zealand equivalent of the National Security Agency (NSA)—appears to suggest that the GCSB used the “Five Eyes” international surveillance network to capture the communications of Kim Dotcom, the founder of Megaupload. 
 
 The new analysis was posted by New Zealand journalist Keith Ng in a Thursday blog post. If the link proves to be true, it would seem that the NSA’s vast international surveillance capability can be turned against individuals unrelated to the NSA’s stated mission to aid military, counterintelligence, or counterterrorism objectives. 
 
 Kim Dotcom has been charged in the United States with copyright infringement rather than terrorism or any other violent crime. The German-born entrepreneur is currently fighting extradition from New Zealand to the United States. Separately, he has launched a civil suit in New Zealand against the GCSB for what the New Zealand government has already admitted was unlawful surveillance. 
 
 REL TO NZL, FVEY 
 
 On Page 21 of the GCSB’s Affadavit of Disclosure (PDF), in an internal e-mail dated February 17, 2012, the document is marked: "TOP SECRET//COMINT//REL TO NZL, FVEY." 
 
 The last section of that classification (REL TO NZL, FVEY)—“Relevant to New Zealand, Five Eyes”—refers to the vast intelligence and data sharing program between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, known as “Five Eyes.” Given new disclosures about the capabilities of PRISM and XKeyscore as a result of the documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, a close examination of this affidavit seems to suggest that the Five Eyes infrastructure was used in Dotcom’s case. (In a slide published last month by The Guardian, XKeyscore is clearly shown to have a presence in New Zealand.) 
 
 The affadavit also provides a redacted list of “selectors” for Kim Dotcom, his wife Monica Dotcom, and Bram Van Der Kolk, one of Dotcom’s co-defendants. 
 
 “We intercepted [REDACTED] from the first two selectors on the list," the document states. "Obviously only a small fraction of them were used in the reports that were generated. We had no [REDACTED] collection on Dotcom, and I’m advised we saw a little [REDACTED] none of which was used in reporting.” 
 
 “All Five Eyes partners have access [to the NSA's systems], including GCSB,” Dotcom told Ars. “GCSB doesn’t even operate their own spy cloud. Everything goes into the US-based spy cloud. Including all the surveillance they have done on me. They typed in the selector and got access to everything the Five Eyes spy cloud had on me. Then the GCSB started real-time surveillance of all my communications, IP, mobile, etc. and was feeding that into the spy cloud.” 
 
 Neither the GCSB nor a spokesperson for the Embassy of New Zealand in the United States immediately responded to Ars’ request for comment. In June 2013, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key evaded answering whether the GCSB uses or has access to the NSA’s PRISM system. 
 
 "I can't tell you how the United States gather all of their information, what techniques they use, I just simply don't know,” Key told TV3’s Firstline. “But if the question is do we use the United States or one of our other partners to circumvent New Zealand law then the answer is categorically no. We do exchange—and it's well known—information with our partners. We do do that. How they gather that information and whether they use techniques or systems like PRISM, I can't comment on that.'' 
 
 "What was done was illegal" 
 
 As we reported in March 2013, a New Zealand appeals court ruled (PDF) that Kim Dotcom has the right to sue the government of New Zealand for illegal surveillance. As we reported further last year, the NZ government admitted after the fact that Dotcom should not have been subjected to government surveillance due to his having obtained permanent resident status. 
 
 According to new documents acquired earlier this year by a New Zealand TV channel, the GCSB already had information as of December 16, 2011 (before the January 2012 raid) showing that Dotcom was a permanent resident of New Zealand and that the agency knew Dotcom should not have been targeted at all. Interestingly, the documents also show Dotcom’s government code name: “Billy Big Steps.” 
 
 Still, Ira Rothken, Dotcom’s California-based attorney, seemed to be a bit more cautious about drawing any new implications from the NZ affidavit. 
 
 “We’re in the process of litigating a civil case that implicates the New Zealand government for their illegal spying,” he told Ars. “At this point, while we have a healthy appreciation for whatever informal analysis is being done, our goal in this case is to actually get the information directly from New Zealand government sources. I don’t want to prejudge the very thing that we’re litigating now.” 
 
 Still, Rothken seemed to indicate that it was within the realm of possibility that Five Eyes was turned against Dotcom illegally. 
 
 “I think it’s axiomatic that New Zealand has access to the Five Eyes infrastructure because it’s a member of Five Eyes and it has network points in New Zealand, including a large installation in New Zealand,” he added. “I think that that’s common knowledge. We know that the spy machinery was misused because what was done was illegal. The interesting thing about this case is that it shows how not having sufficient checks and balances against the spy machinery can come back to hurt and impact the rights of innocent residents. Here, the Prime Minister has already apologized and admitted that what happened was illegal. We are litigating for what damages and remedies should be provided.” 
 
 Mark Rumold, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that it wasn’t clear how much New Zealand authorities obtained via the NSA. 
 
 “It would all be dependent on New Zealand law,” he told Ars. “There’s nothing in here that looks like a slam dunk. It doesn't seem like it’s outside the realm of possibility, but if everything is based on a single classification, it seems possible.” 
 
 Meanwhile, NZ expands GCSB spying domestically 
 
 At the time of the surveillance against Dotcom, the GCSB was only allowed to engage in surveillance of non-resident foreigners. However, earlier this week, the New Zealand parliament voted 61-59 to expand the GCSB’s powers to encompass citizens and legal residents. 
 
 "This is not, and never will be, about wholesale spying on New Zealanders," Prime Minister John Key told parliament on Thursday. "There are threats our government needs to protect New Zealanders from. Those threats are real and ever-present, and we underestimate them at our peril."
– Edward Snowden's latest revelations target New Zealand: The country's leaders repeatedly told the public that they weren't working on a domestic spying program, the whistleblower says, when in fact they were doing just that. "The Prime Minister’s claim to the public, that ‘there is no and there never has been any mass surveillance,' is false," Snowden writes in a piece for the Intercept. "If you live in New Zealand, you are being watched." He cites his NSA work, during which he "routinely came across the communications of New Zealanders." Snowden has revealed top secret documents that appear to point to an effort to intercept communications via an undersea cable that's responsible for most Internet traffic to and from New Zealand, Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher write at the Intercept. Ahead of the report, Prime Minister John Key acknowledged this weekend that a surveillance program had been planned, though he says he nixed it before it got under way, the Intercept adds. The country will hold an election Saturday, and Key holds that Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, who paid for Greenwald's trip to the country, is trying to sway the election, Reuters reports. Dotcom, a New Zealand resident, is facing extradition.