Extraditing Kim Dotcom: a case for reforming New Zealand's intelligence community?

Abstract

Recent disclosures of information concerning the internal workings of New Zealand intelligence agencies offer fertile ground for scholarship reassessing New Zealand's security arrangements. Building upon only a few of these disclosures, this article argues that when the Government Communications Security Bureau decided to assist the New Zealand police with its extradition of Kim Dotcom to the United States it stimulated a flurry of media interest which not only signalled the widespread confusion among the intelligence community over the meaning of national security but also revealed systemic deformities within the intelligence community itself. The article concludes that this confusion over national security and those systemic deformities constitute a prima facie case for reforming New Zealand's intelligence community, though the prospects for an immediate transformation remain dim.