SURVEILLANCE
SSC Report and Surveillance: Big brother looking out for you? James Knapp, Principal Consultant at Stag Risk Management, writes that the SSC Inquiry into the use of external security consultants by government agencies raises more urgent questions than answers. The report from the State Services Commission (SSC) investigation into government agencies’ use of private security providers, and in particular the private investigation firm Thompson and Clark Investigations Limited (TCIL), was widely reported as ‘scathing’. ‘Paradoxical’ is perhaps a better description, raising the question, “Okay, so what do we do now?” On releasing the report, State Services Commissioner Peter Hughes stated, “It is never acceptable for an agency to undertake targeted surveillance of a person just because they are lawfully exercising their democratic rights – including their right to freedom of expression, association and right to protest. That is an affront to democracy.” I don’t think one would find a single New Zealander in disagreement with that statement. I strongly doubt any public servant or agency would ask for surveillance ‘just because’ someone is expressing an opinion; rather I suspect the concern would come from how they were expressing it.
No public servant wakes up in the morning determined to use their work to trample on people’s rights. Yet since the inquiry, the media, activist groups and even security commentators seem to have used a very broad brush to paint all commercial intelligence-gathering and threat assessment activities as antidemocratic. According to the SSC website, the inquiry “looked at TCIL’s reporting to government agencies on ‘issue motivated groups’, which treated those groups as a security threat.” Did all agencies really consider issuemotivated groups (IMGs) to be security threats, or is that a generalisation? If the generalisation is broadly accurate: was that position based on the advice provided by TCIL, was it tribalism (“your group is opposed to my group, therefore you pose a threat to me”), or was it perhaps a genuine misunderstanding of the nature of the risk? I personally never regarded any ‘group’ as a threat. A group is made up of individuals who, like all members of
James Knapp specialises in health, safety and physical security for remote workers who face high-risk situations. He is a member of the NZIPI and IIRSM.
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society, sit somewhere on a spectrum from great to awful. I have categorically ruled out several individual activists as safety threats, saving time and stress, largely thanks to advice from TCIL. However, in order to work out who might be and who is not a threat, one has to look at the bigger picture. Is it fair to monitor the public activities of a group in order to detect and prevent offences? I asked Gavin Clark, Director of TCIL, for comment about whether IMGs are a threat. He was adamant that “TCIL believe in and embrace the right to freedom of speech and expression”, adding that “TCIL have never prevented any lawful protest or activist group exercising their democratic rights”. He confirmed that they did monitor the activities of certain IMGs to detect unlawful protest activity that could threaten people or the continuity of legitimate business. It seems fair to me that everyone should expect to attract some scrutiny if, in the course of expressing their opinion, they display concerning or threatening behaviour, if they do so in a public place or forum where they have no reasonable expectation of privacy. We have rights, but we also have a responsibility to exercise those rights in a way that does not frighten other people, solicit or incite violence or obstruct the carrying on of a lawful business. The risk While it is indeed the case that not all activists pose a threat to people or the organisations they oppose, it is equally true some fixated or extremist persons or elements within those IMGs could, and have, posed a genuine security risk to the lawful activities of the organisations they oppose.
April/May 2019
