Secret papers show NZ spy agency GCSB is collecting calls and internet traffic in bulk and sending it to the US National Security Agency

New Zealand is spying indiscriminately on its allies in the Pacific region and sharing the information with the US and the other “Five Eyes” alliance states, according to documents from the whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The secret papers, published by the New Zealand Herald, show that the New Zealand Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) collects phone calls and internet communications in bulk in the region at its Waihopai Station intercept facility in the South Island.

Since a 2009 upgrade, Waihopai has been capable of “full take” collection of both content and metadata intercepted by satellite, the documents showed. The data is then channelled into the XKeyscore database run by the US National Security Agency, where it also becomes available to agencies in each of the “Five Eyes” countries: the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

A leaked NSA memo credits the GCSB with providing “valuable access not otherwise available to satisfy US intelligence requirement”.

Edward Snowden's lawyers 'working' to bring NSA whistleblower back to US Read more

The papers – published by the Herald as part of a joint reporting operation with New Zealand investigative journalist Nicky Hager and the Intercept website co-edited by Glenn Greenwald – echo similar revelations from the earlier Snowden documents showing that Britain and the US had been spying on friendly neighbours in countries in the European Union and Latin America.

The regional surveillance conducted from the base covers Tuvalu, Nauru, Kiribati, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. New Caledonia and French Polynesia, both French overseas territories, are also among the listed countries. Although Samoa, Fiji, Tonga and Vanuatu are named, much of their data is now transmitted via undersea cable links that are not susceptible to Waihopai’s intercept satellites.

The revelations are particularly likely to test relations between New Zealand and Fiji, the island nation headed by Frank Bainimarama, the army chief-turned-prime minister. Following elections in Fiji in 2014, the countries have moved towards resuming full diplomatic links for the first time since the military coup led by Bainimarama in 2006.

Andrew Little, the leader of the NZ opposition Labour party, said that while he accepted the need for security agencies to protect national interests, he was “stunned at the breadth of the information that’s been collected”.

In an interview with Radio New Zealand, Little said: “It doesn’t seem to be targeted around particular threats, whether there just seems to be a hoovering of all this information and supplying it to the United States. I can’t see that that’s within the security mandate of the GCSB.”

The NZ prime minister, John Key, refused to comment on the specific revelations, saying via a spokesperson: “The Snowden documents were taken some time ago and many are old, out of date, and we can’t discount that some of what is being put forward may even be fabricated.”

Key later told reporters: “Some of the information is incorrect, some of it is out of date, and some of the assumptions are just plain wrong.



“We do have the GCSB and it is a foreign intelligence service, it does gather foreign intelligence that’s in the best interests of New Zealand and the protection of New Zealanders.”



He said successive governments had used the GCSB to gather foreign intelligence.



“Where we gather intelligence, particularly if a friend is involved, it isn’t to harm that country,” he said.



“It’s often to support or assist them.”



On Wednesday, before the publication of the documents, Key said it was a “bizarre time to be coming out making the case that New Zealand either gathers and shares information or gets information from other intelligence agencies”, adding: “Well, of course we do, and we do that to keep New Zealanders safe. We’re in the situation where we’ve got Isil reaching out to cause harm to New Zealanders, I think New Zealanders would expect me to share information.”

A GCSB spokesperson refused to comment on “speculation”, telling the Herald: “Everything we do is explicitly authorised and subject to independent oversight.”

The Samoan prime minister, Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi, said he was not worried about the information in the documents.



“I don’t have any strong feelings about the allegations of spying,” he said.

Hager told the Guardian the first stories contained “by no means the most dramatic revelations” from the New Zealand-related Snowden documents.

“We spent months digging into the Snowden archive, writing lots of stories from them … We’re going to be spacing out stories over the next while based on some really interesting information,” he said.

The first New-Zealand-specific documents from the Snowden files were revealed by Greenwald in September 2014, when the journalist visited New Zealand at the invitation of Kim Dotcom, the internet tycoon sought for extradition by the US over alleged copyright-related offences. Greenwald then said the documents proved New Zealand had embarked on a mass surveillance programme called Speargun, which centred on a tap into the undersea Southern Cross cable, New Zealand’s primary internet link with the rest of the world.

Key responded by declassifying documents that he said showed the government had considered a programme for “mass protection”, but rejected the proposal. Greenwald’s allegations were “simply wrong” and “based on incomplete information”.

“There is not, and never has been, mass surveillance of New Zealanders undertaken by the GCSB,” he said.

Key branded Greenwald “Dotcom’s little henchman” and “a loser”. Greenwald in turn called Key’s attacks “adolescent” and “reckless”.

Key later acknowledged, however, that Snowden’s claim that internet data from New Zealand was easily accessible via XKeyScore “may well be right”, saying: “I don’t run the NSA any more than I run any other foreign intelligence agency or any other country”.