Andrew Hampton: Director-General of Security issues warning about threats to national security

There's pleas from the Security Intelligence Service to report threats to national security.

Their annual Insights report warns a small number of people subscribe to a range of violent extremist ideologies.

The report reveals it's increasingly assessing individuals supporting violence as having a mixed, unstable or unclear ideological outlook.

Director-General of Security Andrew Hampton says people mostly don't act.

But he warns sometimes they might.

"The key message we want to get across is - if, within your community or your family, you're concerned about someone because they may be engaging in extremist material, that you do raise that with us of the police." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
There is a realistic possibility of a terrorist attack in
New Zealand and the most likely way that it could
happen is a lone actor. That's according to the latest
security assessment by our Intelligence Services. Andrew Hampton is the
Director General at the SIS Hey Andrew Hi Heather, is
the possibility of a terrorist attack like this more or
less likely than it was last year.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
It is consistent with last year's assessment, which is there
is a realistic possibility of a terrorist event. But the
threat environment continues to evolve and one of the things
that has changed over the last year is the increased
prominence of what we call people with mixed unclear ones

(00:42):
stable wider ideologies or motivations. So these are people who
often young, radicalized online, fixated with violence. They may not
have strong affiliations to a particular ideology, but they're looking
for some thing to justify undertaking a.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Violent act right And these kinds of people are very
hard to stop, aren't they, because they act by themselves.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Well, fortunately, you know, we're talking about only a very
small number of individuals who we know about, who we're
concerned about, and we're keeping an eye on them. But yes,
you're You're right. The risk with a self radicalized individual,
they're likely to be acting alone. There won't necessarily be

(01:28):
much intelligence warning, and they'll use capabilities that are readily
at hand, such as knives or vehicles. That's one of
the reasons why we've put this threat assessment out, so
that the public know what the signs of someone who
may be on that mobilization pathway looks like, and so
they can spot those signs and raise their handful place.

(01:51):
There's a range of range of things to look at,
and we released a couple of years ago a report
specifically on that. But part of it is people's online behavior.
Part of it is individuals maybe looking at their own security,

(02:12):
you know, how they obscure what they're doing. Sometimes it
may be radical changes in behavior from people. It may
be about how they espouse particular ideologies. So there are
a range of things to look for. The key message
we want to get across is if you know within

(02:34):
your community, even within your family, you're concerned about someone
because they may be engaging with extremist material, They may
be talking about wanting to undertake some sort of act,
They may be seeking to associate with people online of
concern that you know, you do, you do raise that
with us or with the police, you know, and in

(02:57):
many cases, in most cases, you know, people who exhibit
online behaviors don't end up taking undertaking a real world act,
but sometimes they do.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
On the spying, the report says that you guys busted
a unit gathering info for a foreign intelligence service, and
then you send a message to them to stop. Did
they stop?

Speaker 2 (03:16):
They definitely took notice. What what we try and do
is make very clear to those countries that are undertaking
that type of activity that we know what they're up to,
that we are monitoring them, and that it is said
it may not be a legal activity, but it is

(03:38):
activity that's inconsistent with our values and our national interest
and for them to cease doing it. And as you
would expect, they don't like that very much. Sometimes though,
it just leads to them trying to you know, obscure
their their activities more. But in that particular our case,

(04:00):
yesday took notice.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Andrew. Thank you, I really appreciate you having a chat
with us. Andrew Hopton, Director General of the SIS. For
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