25 October 2002

Minister in Charge of the SIS & GCSB

Parliament Buildings

Wellington

Dear Ms Clark,

We have noted with interest your recent statements, in Parliament and to various media outlets, that New Zealand belongs to the world’s "best Intelligence club", the other members being the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and that, furthermore, New Zealand was a "founder member".

You are obviously referring to the UKUSA Agreement and we congratulate you on being the first New Zealand Prime Minister to publicly state the glaringly obvious fact that this Agreement actually exists.

We believe that this unprecedented flow of information from you should go that extra step and, in accordance with the 1982 Official Information Act and all subsequent amendments, we request a copy of the UKUSA Agreement (including any amendments).

Please do not give us a "the Government will neither confirm nor deny the existence or non-existence of any such Agreement" reply. You already have publicly confirmed its existence, within the past fortnight. So let’s all have a look at it.

Yours sincerely,

Murray Horton

for ABC

Note for readers - if you want to learn more about the super secret UKUSA Agreement (which dates from the 1940s), then visit our Website (address below).

http://www.converge.org.nz/abc

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