Secret Power, New Zealand’s role in the international spy network

1st August 1996

“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.

Secret Power – Nicky Hager – cover

“The most detailed and up-to-date account in existence of the work of any signals intelligence agency. It is a masterpiece of investigative reporting and provides a wealth of information.”
– Jeffrey Richelson, author of 10 books about United States intelligence agencies including America’s Secret Eyes in the Sky, and co-author of The Ties That Bind.

“An astonishing number of people have told him things that I, as Prime Minister in charge of the intelligence services, was never told…. It is an outrage that I and other ministers were told so little.” 
– David Lange, Prime Minister of New Zealand 1984-1989
(in his introduction to the book).

 

Download as an e-book for free

Order the Japanese language edition from Liberta, Tokyo, 2003, translator Satou Masahiko

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

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