Transparency International defends funding from Western spy agencies — but won't say which
Following Transparency International New Zealand confirming its funding from New Zealand's equivalents of the CIA and NSA, the organization's main secretariat defended the practice but won't expound.
2023-09-13: Added comment from Transparency International New Zealand CEO Julie Haggie.
2023-09-23: Added comment from Transparency International Australia CEO Clancy Moore.
You may not know Transparency International by name, but their ‘corruption perception index’ is one of the most influential inputs into Western government analysis of state corruption. The international non-profit has long been criticized for measuring corruption in a manner which disadvantages developing nations and underemphasizes the aggressions of major U.S. corporations — which are often its funders. But little attention has been paid to a recent admission from Transparency International New Zealand that it received funding from two of New Zealand’s spy agencies.
In July, the state-funded broadcaster Radio New Zealand published a confirmation from the CEO of Transparency International New Zealand (TINZ), Julie Haggie, that the organization accepted funding from both the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) and the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB). While those agencies may be unfamiliar to an American audience, they are respectively New Zealand’s analogues of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA).
According to further reporting from Radio New Zealand last year, NZSIS was forced to pay $66,400 to investigative journalist Nicky Hager as a result of illegally seizing his phone records after he published his book “Other People’s Wars”, which provides an in-depth overview of the American, British, Australian, and — especially — New Zealand special forces in the post-9/11 Global War on Terror. The sole photograph in the book, taken in 2010, is of the bearded U.S. intelligence chief of ‘Kiwi Base’ in Bamiyan, which was located roughly one day’s drive west of Kabul.
The New Zealand Defence Force had carefully controlled media surrounding the base to hide the U.S. presence and to promote its focus as purely peacekeeping — but Hager concluded from searching U.S. diplomatic cables published by WikiLeaks that it concealed a CIA base. Hager also disclosed that the base’s ‘Provincial Reconstruction Teams’ were cover for NSA signals intelligence collection, which he contextualized using the WikiLeaks Afghan War Diary.
Anti-corruption, funded by Western spy agencies and their contractors
Beyond its role in benchmarking international corruption, one of Transparency International’s central efforts has been the promotion of protections for whistleblowers, including having played a major role in the October 2019 passage of the European Union’s Whistleblower Protection Directive.
I happen to have been in Brussels in late September of 2019 for a workshop on whistleblowing at Maastricht University, and I ran into Transparency International’s head lobbyist for the directive, a fellow American, at a restaurant the night before. After a few drinks, I carefully broached the subject of Transparency International’s American chapter having been disaccredited two years prior — ostensibly for the intense criticism it received for cooptation by its major funders, including giving U.S. weapons manufacturer Raytheon its 2014 TI-USA Corporate Leadership Award. Suffice it to say that Transparency International’s lobbyist was not interested in discussing the subject.
Two months later, I was a speaker at Transparency International Ireland’s Integrity at Work conference in Dublin, where the primary topic was on the protection of corporate whistleblowers. Around the same time, I learned that an independent journalist had reported that Michael Ahrens was simultaneously the Executive Director of Transparency International Australia and a director of the Australian branch of Peter Thiel’s U.S. surveillance firm Palantir in the early-to-mid 2010’s — as well as a director of Palantir New Zealand beginning in 2015.
When reached for comment, Transparency International New Zealand CEO Julie Haggie stated that “Our commitment to being able to address issues freely, thoroughly and objectively is reflected in our code of conduct and there is plenty of evidence of that commitment in our research, advocacy and other activities.” Transparency International Australia CEO Clancy Moore stated that “In relation to the former TI Australia Executive Director, Mr. Ahrens, the board at that time only became aware of his directorship of Palantir shortly before he left the organisation. We are not aware of any conflicts of interest involving this role and Mr. Ahrens during his time at TI Australia.”
Each chapter of Transparency International has a large degree of autonomy. Indeed, TI Ireland and TI Germany dissented against Transparency International’s refusal to call for the protection of National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower Edward Snowden in November 2013. According to reporting from Corporate Crime Reporter and Huffington Post, the resolution was largely blocked by the now-disaccredited U.S. chapter. TI Germany likewise gave Snowden its whistleblower prize in July 2013, one month after the organization as a whole ignored an invitation to meet Snowden while he was stranded by the U.S. in a Moscow airport.
According to reporting from the U.S. Government’s primary international reporting arm, Voice of America, representatives of the Five Eyes signals intelligence partnership planned to meet in the New Zealand capital of Wellington as recently as June. Initiated as a signals intelligence component of the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and United Kingdom in the aftermath of World War II, the intelligence-sharing alliance soon expanded to include the former British colonies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The American NSA and the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) form the backbone of the alliance — New Zealand’s smaller contribution, the GCSB, is one of the two intelligence agencies TI New Zealand confirmed funding from.
(American journalist Mark Hosenball was surveilled and then deported from the United Kingdom in response to his 1976 article exposing the existence of the GCHQ. As recently as February of this year, there is a public contract between the GCHQ and its Australian analogue, the Australian Signals Directorate. )
When reached for comment on whether TI New Zealand’s funding from spy agencies violated any rules from the parent organization, the main secretariat of Transparency International replied that “TI NZ has not compromised their independence, nor their ability to provide critical system analysis.” They went on to add that “TI NZ is independent and does not endorse any particular agency and has therefore upheld our existing policies on the matter.” The general explanation was that: “It is Transparency International’s policy to accept funding – whether monetary or in kind – from any donor, provided that acceptance does not impair our independence to pursue our mission or endanger our integrity and reputation.”
Transparency International did not respond to a question on whether funding would be allowed from non-Western intelligence agencies.
And while the website of Transparency International discloses sufficiently large funders of the international secretariat, the list does not include funding for individual chapters and therefore does not mention New Zealand’s intelligence services, nor any spy agencies funding other chapters. One could easily be misled by the website into believing that Transparency International only goes so far as collaborating with the U.S. State Department and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Western-aligned nations, rather than the truth that they receive — and defend — funding from Western spies.
(Public procurement records also show that numerous Transparency International chapters subcontract with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The interplay between USAID and military intelligence programs in Afghanistan is a significant theme of the chapter of “Other People’s Wars” discussing the concealment of NSA surveillance within Kiwi Base.)
The double-standard of Western intelligence funding of NGOs
On the subject of potential conflicts of interest between its simultaneous commitment to whistleblower protections and funding from Western spy agencies, Transparency International stated: “We are aware of cases where journalists and whistleblowers have been illegally spied on, and we consider all of these cases deeply troubling. In the case of the GCSB incident, it is our understanding that this resulted in a major review of the incidents and its legislative base, which led to legislative change, greater transparency and improved oversight.”
Transparency International did not respond to a request for which of its chapters have received funding from intelligence agencies, nor which spy agencies they received it from. The organization was registered as a foreign agent by the Russian government in 2015 yet seems intent on continued partnerships with Western spies. The independence of the Irish and German chapters appears to be an anomaly relative to the broader organization.
One of the most recent implied statements of concern from the international whistleblower support network regarding the jailing of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange came more than three years ago, in an uneditorialized Facebook post from Transparency International Ireland. The last, hedged publication from the main secretariat was even earlier, on April 19, 2019. And, despite Transparency International’s assertion otherwise, media organizations and press freedom groups from around the world have concluded that Assange has been prosecuted precisely for publishing information which embarrassed the United States government — particularly the diplomatic cables which fueled Hager’s book on New Zealand’s contribution to the Global War on Terror.
Transparency International’s opaque defense of its funding from Western intelligence agencies and reticence to protect Snowden and Assange should perhaps not come as as a shock. The U.S. government and its allies are the closest partners of the organization writ large, and whistleblowers should exercise measured caution.