Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / John Howard: New Zealand Initiative Senior Fellow on the NZSIS report looking at rising threats to national security

Transcript

John Howard: New Zealand Initiative Senior Fellow on the NZSIS report looking at rising threats to national security · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The sas the spies. They release an annual Threat Environment report.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: So what are we worried about? Is that AIS supercomputers
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: coming after our infrastructure or the most likely scenario, a
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: lone wolf radicalized on the Internet. John G. Howard, retired
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Major General, New Zealand Initiative Senior fellow with me this morning, John,
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Good morning, Good.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Morning, Ron. How are you very well?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Thank you? So is a lone wolf? Do we know
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: what they might be thinking or where they might come from?
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: No, you will never know what a lone wolf is thinking.
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: The point that the Director General of the Essays is
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: making is that risk is still present in our society
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: as it is in Western Europe and in America.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: And how do you if they're a lone wolf by definition?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: As you can't have said, you don't really know who
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: they are or where they are, So how do you
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: stop them?
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: It's a really good question. So the first thing, as
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: they've laid out in their report, is that we've just
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: got to be aware that this risk is real. The
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: ability to stop than if you see something, say something.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: That's the classic international security and national security mantra. And
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: none of us should be worried or concerned. We shouldn't
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: change the way we approach our daily business. We just
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: need to be aware of what's going on around us,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: and when something is of concern, then raise the issue.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: And this was clear to the nation and should be
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: since our national security strategy came out three years ago.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: John, When you say that, you know, you know, whenever
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: there's some sort of terror attack overseas and they're going
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: in to be other neighbors and neighbors go, oh, yeah,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: they were a bit weird. They kept to them, you know,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: they kept to themselves. I didn't talk to them much.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: Should we go and just ring an one hundred number
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: about all of our weird, quiet neighbors, you know?
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Look, so New Zealand is a really open, friendly society
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: and we live in a relatively calm society, which is
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: ranked You see this with the international relations. But the
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: concept here is if you see something that really concerns
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: you discuss it with someone first. Whether it's with the
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: people in your home, your way, afano, or your community.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: There'll be someone there that you should start with, even
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: if it's local law enforcement. But if you're really concerned,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: there are numbers to ring. And look, you know, I
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: lived in the US for many years where this threat
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: was a lot more real, and in Western Europe, and
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: that these things are becoming more real for everybody every day.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: So it's not a cause for panic. It's a call
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: to community in my mind, for us to be able
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: to be aware of our neighbors and help our neighbors
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: because someone else in the neighborhood may see something that
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: you don't as well.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: What about threat prevention? Have we got enough going on there?
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Oh? Look, so the threat, as the report that came
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: out overnight has clearly said, has accelerated and it has changed.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: It's what I call velocity and vector, so dual use technologies,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: and by that I mean something that might be for
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: good artificial intelligence or small first person drones. These things
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: can be put with the criminal intents or with leaf
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: intent against citizens, and we need to be quite aware
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: of it. And then the ability to stop it means,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: as we used to say, to be forewarned is to
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: be forearmed. So you know, I'd always say more funding
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: and resources to the National Security architecture and to the
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: SAS and GCSB and police. Of course that's a decision
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: for the cabinet table, but for all of us, be aware,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: be advised, and when you've got to concern, just scout
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: and ask someone about it.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: John gre Howard, retired Major General in New Zealand Initiative
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Senior Feller. Always good to have you on the program.
• 3:32
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• 3:35
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• 3:38
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