GO TO the heart of one of Telecom or Vodafone’s mobile phone exchanges and you’ll find the whole system – covering a quarter of the country – is run by a single computer, no bigger than a small freezer.
Cables lead off to all the company’s cellphone towers and other parts of the network. A main cable, connecting all those phone users to the world, comes out the top of the computer and passes directly into a unit in the rack above. One cable goes into the unit but two come out: one continuing out to the world, the other coiling off to secret equipment marked “LI” on the system diagrams. “LI” stands for “lawful interception”.

New cyber-monitoring measures have been quietly introduced giving police and Security Intelligence Service officers the power to monitor all aspects of someone’s online life. The measures are the largest expansion of police and SIS surveillance capabilities for decades, and mean that all mobile calls and texts, email, internet surfing and online shopping, chatting and social networking can be monitored anywhere in New Zealand.

The police have used an informer to spy on New Zealand protest groups for nearly 10 years – providing them with intimate details about planned protests and even the private lives of group members….

Police teams set up to identify terrorism threats and risks to national security are spying on protest and community groups, including Greenpeace, animal rights and climate change campaigners, and Iraq war protesters.

National leader John Key’s campaign is being overseen by the same highly controversial manipulators who directed Don Brash’s ill-fated tilt at power….

PRIVATE INVESTIGATORS working for the state-owned coal company Solid Energy have defied a direct government instruction and again tried to infiltrate an environment group that opposes Solid Energy’s coal mining plans….

Twelve months ago the government told state coal company Solid Energy that using paid informants to infiltrate environment groups was ‘not acceptable’ and that it had to stop. Solid Energy is adamant it has complied. The private investigators however appear to have defied the order….

What information led the police to smash the Urewera ‘terrorist’ training camps? Nicky Hager investigates the intelligence trail which led from cafe conversations to the armed police response.
TWO YEARS ago a man quite similar to central characters in the Urewera “terrorism” case purchased a pistol holster on TradeMe for $66. Officers at the Otahuhu police [...]

The Police “terrorism” case against Maori, peace and environmental activists has its origins long before Operation Eight began last year….

Student confesses he infiltrated group opposed to Solid Energy mining.
AN AUCKLAND private investigation firm is paying agents to infiltrate
and spy on environmental, peace and anti-vivisection groups….

The book shows the internal working of New Zealand’s main conservative party (the National Party) from the election of a new leader, through two years of election campaigning, up to that leaders demise. Based on 1000s of internal communications, strategy papers, itineraries and meeting minutes, it gives an unprecedented insight into modern politics. After exposing numerous lies told to the public, revealing the cynical use of racism to woo redneck voters, secret relations with millionaire donors and much more, the party leader resigned on the day the book was published.

• Order a copy
• Read the Preface
• Read the first chapter
• Nicky Hager speech notes for launching book
• Nicky Hager releases further National Party information 28 November 2006

AUSTRALIAN intelligence officials knew the man at the centre of the Kiwi Israeli spy scandal was a long-time Mossad agent well before he began the New Zealand passport operation…

Don’t expect the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad to be named in an apology about the Israeli spy scandal, but it was indeed Mossad at the centre of the affair. (This story solved the mystery of two Isreali men caught attempting to obtain false New Zealand passports. Nicky Hager traced them to the Isreali intelligence service, Mossad.)

NO ONE said it openly, but an unpublicised cabinet decision in late January signalled the end of Labour’s policy of reorienting the defence forces….

The role New Zealand soldiers are playing in Iraq is not the one the government has sold to the country… (This feature was the first expose of New Zealand military activities in Iraq.)

Nicky Hager reveals a controversial American company behind the South Island’s proposed Project Aqua scheme….

THE war in Afghanistan was fought by intelligence analysts sitting at computers and special force commandos roving in mountains and lowlands…. (This feature was the first expose of New Zealand military activities in Afghanistan and surrounding countries in 2001-2003, activities which until then had mostly remained secret.)

The book tells the story of how the New Zealand government handled the unwelcome news of contamination of corn crops with genetically-engineered seeds. Officials succumbed to industry lobbying, quietly changed the regulations to “allow” contaminated crops. ‘managed’ the risk of politicians and the public objecting by keeping the whole incident secret. The book is not about the corn but about the political management. It takes readers step-by-step through the crisis, based on original documents from an unhappy insider.

• Order a copy
• Read the introduction and first chapter

A $2.3 billion defence spending plan is stalled before cabinet after ministers rejected a bid by defence officials for a high tech military upgrade of surveillance aircraft….


The police, Security Intelligence Service and the Government Communications Security Bureau are pushing for major new surveillance powers including the ability to spy on emails. Nicky Hager investigates.
THE secretary of the anti-free trade group turns on her computer and types in the security password. Her computer holds all the group’s membership lists and meeting minutes [...]

A based on hundreds of leaked public relations papers, the book shows how PR consultants think and act when they are being paid to try to influence politics. It shows the range of techniques used by PR companies to manufacture political support for their clients and dirty tricks they use to stop their client’s opponents being heard.

• Order a copy
• Order US edition from www.commoncouragepress.com
• Read the Introduction to the United States edition
• Read the Afterword in the United States edition
• Appendix “A brief guide to leaking”

Most SAS keep to themselves. They socialise together, are hard drinkers, and `watch each other’s backs’. They don’t talk freely about their work, with is why most of what they do remains secret…. (This article publicised many previously unknown details of New Zealand’s Special Air Service)

Written with Anthony Hubbard
AN UGLY industrial building in inner-city Wellington is the Security Intelligence Service’s bugging and surveillance centre, the Sunday Star-Times can reveal.
The white two-storey building in Kaiwharawhara Rd _ in an industrial area which includes panelbeaters and pet food wholesalers _ houses sophisticated electronic bugging equipment.
Cars and utility vans used by SIS surveillance [...]

This article publicised Nicky Hager’s book Secret Power and particularly its revelations about the Echelon surveillance system to an international audience. The article was picked by a European Parliament researcher and prompted a year-long European Parliament investigation into the Echelon system (2000-2001). It received a US journalism award.

“The most detailed and up-to-date account of the work of any signals intelligence agency in existence… a masterpiece of investigative reporting.” The book contains the first detailed account of the world-wide electronic surveillance system called Echelon, which is used to spy on international communications including e-mails and phone calls. These revelations have been repeated in hundreds of articles, documentaries and movies, and prompted for a year-long European parliament inquiry. The book gives an inside look at New Zealand’s largest intelligence agency and its part in a US-British-Canadian-Australia-New Zealand intelligence alliance, information that helps us understand the workings of all five allied agencies.

• Download as an e-book for free
• Read the Introduction to the Japanese edition
• “Exposing the Global Surveillance System”: Nicky Hager’s award-winning 1997 article describing the Echelon system
• Nicky Hager speaking to the European Parliament about the Echelon system