The country's GCSB is not allowed to monitor citizens or permanent residents

Sep 24, 2012 14:40 GMT  ·  By

John Key, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, has ordered an investigation that targets the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) - the country’s spy agency -, which is suspected of conducting unlawful surveillance in the Megaupload case.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security will have to determine precisely what happened and what can be done to prevent such incidents from occurring in the future, TorrentFreak informs.

It’s believed that the GCSB spied on Bram van der Kolk, Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, and their families to assist US authorities.

However, the agency – which is much like the US’ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) – is mainly responsible for spying on external entities. In fact, the New Zealand legislation forbids it from monitoring citizens or permanent residents.

“I’m now a real life James Bond villain in a real life political copyright thriller scripted by Hollywood & the White House. I welcome the inquiry into unlawful acts by the GCSB. Please extend the inquiry to cover the entire Crown Law Mega case,” Kim Dotcom said in a typical manner.