KIM DOTCOM - SUPREME COURT REFUSES LEAVE TO APPEAL DECISION ON ACCESS TO COMMUNICATIONS UNLAWFULLY INTERCEPTED BY GCSB

For eight years now, I have been fighting for access to personal communications that the GCSB unlawfully intercepted from my family. Today, that fight came to an end when the Supreme Court declined my application for leave to appeal. Now, a new fight begins. Between late 2011 and early 2012, the GCSB unlawfully spied on me and intercepted my personal communications. At the time I had no idea. Indeed, I would never have found out if it had not come to light in another proceeding. The GCSB tried to keep it a secret. When they could not, they were forced to admit it. But the GCSB has always refused to provide me with any detail as to what personal communications they unlawfully obtained. These were personal communications of mine, my family and our acquaintances. We have no idea of the extent of this invasion of privacy or who else it has affected. I brought High Court proceedings against the GCSB for breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and invasion of privacy. I considered that the GCSB should be accountable for its own illegal conduct, as it seeks to hold others accountable for any unlawful conduct. I did not think that the arrogant abuse of the GCSB’s powers should pass without an inquiry and those responsible being held accountable. I also wanted to know the extent to which the GCSB had invaded my family’s privacy.  Anyone in my shoes would want the same. What is the GCSB hiding? And why should this be permitted, when its conduct was unlawful, and the communications intercepted were ours? These are the simple questions I felt the GCSB should answer and be accountable for. The GCSB claimed that disclosure would reveal intelligence gathering capability and prejudice New Zealand’s relationships with other states – presumably New Zealand’s partners in the “Five Eyes”. How could anything to do with my household’s day-to-day life seriously impact on international relations or disclose intelligence gathering techniques? How could the mere fact they were unlawfully intercepted make such communications classified? What agreements has New Zealand reached with its Five Eyes partners that deprive its people of what we should all demand in a free and democratic society? We will never know these answers. My lawyers have tried to get these answers. However they have not been permitted to have any meaningful input into this process because, at every stage, the GCSB has required its evidence and submissions to be treated as classified and heard only in a secret hearing from which my counsel and I were excluded. The Courts’ reasons were also classified and not stated in their decisions. We have been blindfolded, with one hand tied behind our backs, while up against the fully equipped and limitlessly funded GCSB and Crown lawyers seeking to keep us all in the dark and away from the truth. It has long been said that “sunlight is the best disinfectant”. For eight years I have fought to shine some much needed sunlight on the GCSB’s conduct so that we as a community can ask ourselves whether we deserve better from the intelligence agencies whose extensive powers are supposed to be used to protect us, not spy on us. Unfortunately, today’s judgment confirms that the law as it stands in New Zealand can be used in this way and effectively allows such misconduct to remain in the shadows. I will never know the true extent of the GCSB’s unlawful conduct. Although I will still be entitled to damages for the GCSB’s unlawful conduct, this proceeding has never been about the money for me. It has long since ceased to be economic to pursue it. For me, it has always been about ensuring that we know what has happened and, as a result, the GCSB is held accountable publicly for its unlawful conduct under John Key’s National government. I want to make sure that this never happens again. This is not the end. I don’t like New Zealanders being deprived of basic rights when they have been wronged, being told they may not know what has happened to them and their families, and not being able to be heard fully on the actual harm caused to them as a result. We shouldn’t be kept in the dark when state agencies act unlawfully and they should never get away with not being fully accountable to us, as the GCSB has now achieved. They don’t care about paying some money to me and my family, although they will fight to limit that also. They just care about you