NewsHub.com & Stuff.com & TV New Zealand & NewsTalk ZB – 2018-02-02 01:37:58
http://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2018/01/protesters-target-gscb-s-waihopai-spy-base.html
Protesters Target GSCB’s Waihopai Spy Base
NewsHub.com
NEW ZEALAND (January 27, 2018) — The annual protest against the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) listening station at Waihopai, near Blenheim, is on again.
Protesters say they will be at the main gate at Waihopai Valley Road from 10am on Saturday. They say the GCSB systematically spies on New Zealanders, and on other countries.
In 2008 three peace activists broke into Waihopai and deflated a dome covering one of the satellite dishes. After the protest, the group will meet in Blenheim for the launch of a new organisation called the Aotearoa Independence Movement.
“Our purpose is to initiate and drive a nationwide dialogue to advance the case for a non-aligned Aotearoa based on policies of economic, military and political independence,” organisers say.
Speakers include former Green MP Keith Locke and Council of Trade Unions’ economist Bill Rosenberg. GCSB has two communications interception stations: a high frequency radio interception and direction-finding station at Tangimoana, near Palmerston North, and a satellite communications interception station at Waihopai.
New Zealand ‘Spying to Make America Great’ – Spy Base Protesters
Anan Zaki / Stuff.com
(January 30 2018) — Protesters outside a government spy base have called for New Zealand to stop “working for Trump”. About 50 protesters gathered at the gates of the Waihopai Station, in Marlborough, with pictures to “illustrate different aspects of Trump”, including a nuclear mushroom cloud, a drone launching missiles and a burning cross.
People have been picketing outside the Government Communications Security Bureau surveillance base for the past 30 years, but this year was all about the US President.
“The theme this year was basically to draw attention to the fact that the world has now endured a year of Donald Trump as President of the United States,” protest organiser Murray Horton said. “The fact that he’s in charge of the world’s biggest military and the world’s biggest spy network, of which Waihopai is part of, isn’t very reassuring . . . and that Waihopai is basically working for Trump.”
Waihopai Station was part of a network of facilities used by the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, made up of agencies in the US, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Horton said there were no shortages of talking points when it came to Trump.
“We took up four graphics to illustrate different aspects of Trump, one was a nuclear mushroom cloud, one of a drone launching missiles, one was of the world on fire symbolising climate change and one with a burning cross that symbolises racism,” Horton said.
Horton said he only realised it was the 30th anniversary of the protest when he was preparing his annual speech. “The first protest on the Waihopai spy base was in the beginning of 1988 when it was announced, and before anything was built,” Horton said.
Green MP Golriz Ghahraman also took part in the protest. She reaffirmed her party’s policy to shut down Waihopai Station. “The point is we have to keep up our voices because it does matter, it is hurtful to us as humanity to have things like this happen . . . it is important to remember that this base is helping Donald Trump, that’s a really useful prism to look at it on,” she said.
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) protesters also gathered at the site on Saturday, calling to stop the government’s plan to sign the TPP agreement in March. Police were present at the protest but the event proceeded peacefully with no arrests. Horton said the event was “low key”.
The surveillance base has been controversial since it first opened in 1989. In April 2008, three activists got past security to get into Waihopai Station where they used a sickle to deflate the dome covering one of the satellite dishes.
READ MORE:
*New Zealand spy base works for Donald Trump now, protesters say
*GCSB looking for workers at Waihopai Station surveillance facility outside Blenheim
*Snowden files: Inside Waihopai’s domes
Activists Descend Upon GCSB for Annual Protest
TV New Zealand
NEW ZEALAND — The annual protest against the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) listening station at Waihopai, near Blenheim, is on again. Protesters say they will be at the main gate at Waihopai Valley Road from 10am this morning.
In 2008 three peace activists broke into Waihopai and deflated a dome covering one of the satellite dishes. After the protest, the group will meet in Blenheim for the launch of a new organisation called the Aotearoa Independence Movement.
“Our purpose is to initiate and drive a nationwide dialogue to advance the case for a non-aligned Aotearoa based on policies of economic, military and political independence,” organisers say. Speakers include former Green MP Keith Locke and Council of Trade Unions’ economist Bill Rosenberg.
GCSB has two communications interception stations: a high frequency radio interception and direction-finding station at Tangimoana, near Palmerston North, and a satellite communications interception station at Waihopai.
Green MP Golriz Ghahraman tweeted saying: “Fine day to protest a spy base in Waihopai!” She said it was time to stop helping alleged spying from “Donald Trump (or anyone else). . .on our Asia Pacific neighbours.”
Protesters at Waihopai Say We’re Spying for Trump
Newstalk ZB Staff
(January 27, 2018) — Protesters say New Zealand’s spies should stop doing US President Donald Trump’s bidding. About 50 people turned up for a demonstration at the Waihopai spy base near Blenheim today, with both a former Green Party MP and a current one among the speakers at the protest.
The base collects intelligence that New Zealand shares with partners in the Five Eyes alliance, comprising Australia, Canada, the UK and the US.
Former Green MP Keith Locke Locke said there have been protests against the base for decades, but that they’ve become more urgent since Trump came into office. “Having a spy base that is gathering information for Donald Trump’s foreign policy agenda is not to our liking and we think that New Zealand should be independent.”
Locke said he hopes recent arrival to Parliament Golriz Ghahraman can put pressure on the governing coalition over the base. “The Greens have ministers outside of government and can continue their long-standing policy of closing the spy base down.”
Greens the Sole Voice of Opposition
To Proposed New Spy Laws
Felix Marwick / NewsTalk KZB
(March 10, 2017) — Legislation reforming the laws that New Zealand’s spy agencies operate under is a step closer to making its way into the country’s law books.
The Government has comfortably had the numbers to pass its Intelligence and Security Bill through its second reading in Parliament, 106 votes to 14, with only the Green Party opposing the Bill.
Green MP Kennedy Graham said while terrorism has become a fact of contemporary global life, its perception is distorted among Western governments. “We know about the threat of terrorism, but there are different, more effective and more insightful ways of plying this trade than what we have before us.
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