Planned surveillance law changes will move New Zealand towards a "national security state", two University of Otago professors say.
Prof Kevin Clements and Prof Richard Jackson, of the university's National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, said yesterday proposed GCSB changes were being promoted as addressing a "legal anomaly".
But the proposal had "worrying implications for individual privacy, civil liberties and national security", they said.
"It provides expanded powers of surveillance without evidence of real necessity or effectiveness, or corresponding safeguards of individual liberty and privacy."
The law change would effectively merge the GCSB - the Government Communications Security Bureau - and the SIS - Security Intelligence Service - plus the intelligence wings of the military and the police.