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Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation - Page 1
The Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) is an Australian government intelligence agency responsible for the tasking (collection), exploitation (analysis), and dissemination (distribution) of geospatial intelligence (GEOINT). DIGO is part of the Australian Department of Defence.
DIGO was created on 8 November 2000, by amalgamating the Canberra-based Australian Imagery Organisation and Directorate of Strategic Military Geographic Information, and the Bendigo-based Defence Topographic Agency (now called the Geospatial Analysis Centre).
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public news and things I spy ..
Friday 18 September 2009
Australian Intelligence Community
The Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) comprises six Commonwealth intelligence agencies, each with distinct responsibilities and functions. They include the Office of National Assessments (ONA), the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO) and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS). There are three collection agencies (ASIS, DSD and DIGO) and two assessment agencies (ONA and DIO). ASIO's role incorporates collection and assessment, as well as policy formulation and advice. For more information about the AIC, visit www.ona.gov.au/publications/htm
Difference between ASIS & ASIO
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is Australia’s national security service. As set out in the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979, ASIO’s main role is to gather information and produce intelligence that will enable it to warn the government about activities or situations that might endanger Australia’s security. ASIS and ASIO have in common the fact they both collect intelligence from human sources and are both members of the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC). However, there are substantial differences between the two agencies. ASIS’s work relates to foreign intelligence in the interests of Australia's national security, foreign relations and national economic well-being, whilst ASIO’s work principally relates to security intelligence. ‘Security intelligence’ is not a synonym for ‘domestic intelligence’ - ASIO’s role is limited only by its function of security intelligence as defined in the ASIO Act, not by geography. Another important difference is that while human intelligence is the vast majority of ASIS’s work, ASIO’s human collection is one part of its work as an integrated collection, assessment and advisory agency.
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Book review: Document Z, Andrew Croome
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SAMANTHA BOND
18/09/2009 4:00:00 AM
Winner of the 2008 Vogel Award, Document Z is a fictionalised account of “the Petrov affair” – a bone fide Cold War episode that took place in 1950s Canberra.
The Vogel is one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards, responsible for launching the careers of writers such as Kate Grenville, Andrew McGahn and Tim Winton, and offering a prize of $20,000 (Croome got an extra $50,000 to mark the prize’s 50th anniversary). However, I was sadly disappointed by the 2008 winner.
Based on extensive research of recently declassified records of the 1954 Royal Commission on Espionage, Croome fictionalises the characters of Evdokia Petrov, her husband Vladimir and another important player, Michael Bialoguski. The life Croome breathes into these characters – including his exploration of the personal cost of their defection – is the most successful aspect of this novel.
Most notably, Croome succeeds in bringing Evdokia to life, giving her a personality beyond that which can be gleaned from documents; likewise, he builds a believable character for Bialoguski as the Polish immigrant intent on recognition for his role in securing their defection.
Document Z’s main failing is that it lacks narrative drive – there is a certain “so what?” factor.
It starts with a good hook: Evdokia Petrov, wife of a Russian defector, is being put onto a plane to be flown back to Russia to face punishment and even death for her husband’s crimes. The book then goes back three years in time to tell the Petrovs’ story and how it all came to this.
The main setting for the early part of the novel is the newly minted Soviet embassy in the newly minted national capital, Canberra. It is 1951, the height of the Cold War, and paranoia, rumour and suspicion run rife at the embassy. Both Petrovs are party loyalists also working for the MVD, Moscow secret intelligence. ASIO, often referred to as “the competitors”, is determined to discover who in this group works for the MVD.
The first part of the novel sets the stage for the action that eventuates, but it does so at extreme leisure.
Historical fiction has become a massive genre over recent decades. A problem with the fictionalisation of more recent history is that events remain in living memory and thus can’t be as easily manipulated as history of a hundred years ago or more. Croome sticks to the facts … and perhaps this is the problem. The facts aren’t that interesting and so neither is the story.
Document Z also ends fairly weakly, but this, too, is true to life. Here, at novel’s end, I began to envisage the difficulty that must have confronted Croome when trying to shape these events into a narrative.
While his narrative style and prose is excellent, this alone does not a story make. If I haven’t spent much time here describing the plot, it’s because there isn’t much of one. The second half was better, but I still struggled to finish the book.
Document Z seems to be a novel about politics, but not a political book. Soviet Russia is 20 years dead; why is there now a need for this book, retelling what is a minor footnote in Australian history? Was it simply that the ASIO documents had been declassified, thus providing a wealth of useful material for a novel?
Still, if you are interested in Australian history, the Cold War and espionage, you may enjoy it more than I did. – Allen & Unwin, $23.99
as posted here
SAMANTHA BOND
18/09/2009 4:00:00 AM
Winner of the 2008 Vogel Award, Document Z is a fictionalised account of “the Petrov affair” – a bone fide Cold War episode that took place in 1950s Canberra.
The Vogel is one of Australia’s most prestigious literary awards, responsible for launching the careers of writers such as Kate Grenville, Andrew McGahn and Tim Winton, and offering a prize of $20,000 (Croome got an extra $50,000 to mark the prize’s 50th anniversary). However, I was sadly disappointed by the 2008 winner.
Based on extensive research of recently declassified records of the 1954 Royal Commission on Espionage, Croome fictionalises the characters of Evdokia Petrov, her husband Vladimir and another important player, Michael Bialoguski. The life Croome breathes into these characters – including his exploration of the personal cost of their defection – is the most successful aspect of this novel.
Most notably, Croome succeeds in bringing Evdokia to life, giving her a personality beyond that which can be gleaned from documents; likewise, he builds a believable character for Bialoguski as the Polish immigrant intent on recognition for his role in securing their defection.
Document Z’s main failing is that it lacks narrative drive – there is a certain “so what?” factor.
It starts with a good hook: Evdokia Petrov, wife of a Russian defector, is being put onto a plane to be flown back to Russia to face punishment and even death for her husband’s crimes. The book then goes back three years in time to tell the Petrovs’ story and how it all came to this.
The main setting for the early part of the novel is the newly minted Soviet embassy in the newly minted national capital, Canberra. It is 1951, the height of the Cold War, and paranoia, rumour and suspicion run rife at the embassy. Both Petrovs are party loyalists also working for the MVD, Moscow secret intelligence. ASIO, often referred to as “the competitors”, is determined to discover who in this group works for the MVD.
The first part of the novel sets the stage for the action that eventuates, but it does so at extreme leisure.
Historical fiction has become a massive genre over recent decades. A problem with the fictionalisation of more recent history is that events remain in living memory and thus can’t be as easily manipulated as history of a hundred years ago or more. Croome sticks to the facts … and perhaps this is the problem. The facts aren’t that interesting and so neither is the story.
Document Z also ends fairly weakly, but this, too, is true to life. Here, at novel’s end, I began to envisage the difficulty that must have confronted Croome when trying to shape these events into a narrative.
While his narrative style and prose is excellent, this alone does not a story make. If I haven’t spent much time here describing the plot, it’s because there isn’t much of one. The second half was better, but I still struggled to finish the book.
Document Z seems to be a novel about politics, but not a political book. Soviet Russia is 20 years dead; why is there now a need for this book, retelling what is a minor footnote in Australian history? Was it simply that the ASIO documents had been declassified, thus providing a wealth of useful material for a novel?
Still, if you are interested in Australian history, the Cold War and espionage, you may enjoy it more than I did. – Allen & Unwin, $23.99
as posted here
AWB makes progress in search for Mid-East grain export evidence
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AWB will soon have access to reports that may advance the grain exporter's defence that the Department of Foreign Affairs was aware of its payment of "transport fees" to Saddam Hussein's regime, The Age reported.
The Federal Court has ordered the Office of National Assessments (ONA) to make available 15 reports that may be used in a $100 million class action against AWB, beginning in November.
The federal intelligence agency must produce reports, and lists of officials who saw them, which may add to AWB's defence.
ONA had resisted producing the edited documents, on the grounds the material it contained may endanger national security.
The provision of the reports to the Cole inquiry into the wheat payment scandal had been at the request of the United Nations, and then-prime minister John Howard.
as posted here
AWB will soon have access to reports that may advance the grain exporter's defence that the Department of Foreign Affairs was aware of its payment of "transport fees" to Saddam Hussein's regime, The Age reported.
The Federal Court has ordered the Office of National Assessments (ONA) to make available 15 reports that may be used in a $100 million class action against AWB, beginning in November.
The federal intelligence agency must produce reports, and lists of officials who saw them, which may add to AWB's defence.
ONA had resisted producing the edited documents, on the grounds the material it contained may endanger national security.
The provision of the reports to the Cole inquiry into the wheat payment scandal had been at the request of the United Nations, and then-prime minister John Howard.
as posted here
Intelligent design in Bomber Kim Beazley and Doc Brendan Nelson
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KIM Beazley is the best possible choice to be Australia's new ambassador to the US.
The only possible limitation is that, if anything, Beazley has better contacts on the Republican side of the aisle than the Democratic side.
However, Beazley is liked and admired across American politics and across the great institutions of the US government: the Pentagon, the State Department, the Trade Representative and many others.
Beazley, a former defence minister, succeeds Dennis Richardson, a former boss of ASIO.
This demonstrates the high priority national security matters continue to hold in the Australia-US relationship.
The same is true for the intriguing appointment of former opposition leader Brendan Nelson as ambassador to the EU, to Belgium and to a number of multilateral organisations.
Nelson, like Beazley a former defence minister, will be Australia's ambassador to NATO.
Upgrading Australia's relationship with NATO has been a priority for the Rudd government since it came to power; indeed, Kevin Rudd himself attended a NATO summit.
Australia is deeply involved with NATO in Afghanistan, and the government has consistently sought closer, deeper, more intimate input into NATO policy and planning for Afghanistan.
Both Beazley and Nelson will have their work cut out for them making a splash in two of the great centres of global diplomacy, Washington and Brussels.
If anyone can make a splash in Washington, it is the Bomber, as Beazley is affectionately known. His personality, his deep knowledge of military history, his devotion to US history and his long record of involvement in the US-Australian relationship at the highest levels, all contribute to his ability to make an impression in the US.
When Beazley was deputy prime minister, he got deeply involved in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.
The founder of that dialogue, Phil Scanlan, one of Beazley's closest friends, is now Australia's consul-general in New York.
Beazley knew many of the American participants in the dialogue, such as former deputy secretary of state Rich Armitage, well, and knew them independently before the dialogue was founded in 1993.
However, through the dialogue, he has also become close to such pivotal US figures as Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific.
The appointments of Beazley and Nelson represent an intelligent use of scarce, high-quality human resources by the Rudd government.
as posted here
KIM Beazley is the best possible choice to be Australia's new ambassador to the US.
The only possible limitation is that, if anything, Beazley has better contacts on the Republican side of the aisle than the Democratic side.
However, Beazley is liked and admired across American politics and across the great institutions of the US government: the Pentagon, the State Department, the Trade Representative and many others.
Beazley, a former defence minister, succeeds Dennis Richardson, a former boss of ASIO.
This demonstrates the high priority national security matters continue to hold in the Australia-US relationship.
The same is true for the intriguing appointment of former opposition leader Brendan Nelson as ambassador to the EU, to Belgium and to a number of multilateral organisations.
Nelson, like Beazley a former defence minister, will be Australia's ambassador to NATO.
Upgrading Australia's relationship with NATO has been a priority for the Rudd government since it came to power; indeed, Kevin Rudd himself attended a NATO summit.
Australia is deeply involved with NATO in Afghanistan, and the government has consistently sought closer, deeper, more intimate input into NATO policy and planning for Afghanistan.
Both Beazley and Nelson will have their work cut out for them making a splash in two of the great centres of global diplomacy, Washington and Brussels.
If anyone can make a splash in Washington, it is the Bomber, as Beazley is affectionately known. His personality, his deep knowledge of military history, his devotion to US history and his long record of involvement in the US-Australian relationship at the highest levels, all contribute to his ability to make an impression in the US.
When Beazley was deputy prime minister, he got deeply involved in the Australian American Leadership Dialogue.
The founder of that dialogue, Phil Scanlan, one of Beazley's closest friends, is now Australia's consul-general in New York.
Beazley knew many of the American participants in the dialogue, such as former deputy secretary of state Rich Armitage, well, and knew them independently before the dialogue was founded in 1993.
However, through the dialogue, he has also become close to such pivotal US figures as Kurt Campbell, the US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific.
The appointments of Beazley and Nelson represent an intelligent use of scarce, high-quality human resources by the Rudd government.
as posted here
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