public news and things I spy ..
Thursday 30 December 2010
Push to accept last of Viking refugees | The Australian
Fears vetting is political hush-up | The Australian
Monday 27 December 2010
What actually happened with Haneef? - Hyper Magazine Forums
Friday 24 December 2010
Australia told to prioritise spy recruitment - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Spy audit looks for lack of intelligence | Adelaide Now
Thursday 23 December 2010
Victoria Police Online News Centre - Joint Media Release - Operation Neath
Government launches intelligence review | The Australian
Wednesday 22 December 2010
The Gestapo get heavy even before their fortress is complete | The RiotACT
ASIO gets into Christmas mood | News.com.au
Friday 17 December 2010
ASIO rejects Sri Lankan refugees from Oceanic Viking stand-off | The Australian
Cablegate: Aussie spies spooked by cyberwar > Cybercrime > Legal > News > SC Magazine Australia/NZ
Thursday 16 December 2010
Disaster blamed on 'anti-refugee' policies - The West Australian
Monday 13 December 2010
ASIO working hard as boats keep coming
The West, Islam and Sharia: WikiLeaks: Nuclear War Threat In Iran & Middle East
Nuclear War Threat In Iran & Middle East: WikiLeaks Exclusive
Sunday 12 December 2010
Terrorist allowed to walk free early | The Daily Telegraph
Friday 10 December 2010
Julian Assange protest comes to Canberra | The RiotACT
Arbib no spy, says Loosley | The Australian
Wednesday 8 December 2010
Rohan Gunaratna masterminding a ‘cover-up’ for Sri Lanka and its president By Usha Sris-Skanda Rajah. | Tamil Daily News
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Poet and painter in Villawood detention centre | Green Left Weekly
Australians 'added to terrorism watch list' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Monday 6 December 2010
David Hick's torture camp diary | Green Left Weekly
Saturday 4 December 2010
Triangle's grand dame gets a facelift - Local News - News - General - The Canberra Times
Aust spy bases shut down to 'save money' - The West Australian
Friday 3 December 2010
ParlInfo - Title Details
Download PDF
Thursday 2 December 2010
Australia-Indonesian relations: Making them work | The Jakarta Post
WikiLeaks may shed light on Dubai | The Australian Jewish News
Charges against terrorist dropped | News.com.au
Two Sri Lankans ruled security risks | The Australian
Don't cry over WikiLeaks
Wednesday 1 December 2010
WikiLeaks under new pressure on cable dump - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
The Canberra cables: next WikiLeaks drop to jeopardise World Cup bid? | Crikey
ZIONIST TORTURE AND PALESTINIAN BETRAYAL
Tuesday 30 November 2010
Editors cool on WikiLeaks censorship - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Cable Viewer
WikiLeaks irresponsible
WikiLeaks could have freezing effect on diplomacy - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
To publish or not to publish? | The Australian
ASIO doctor review | Herald Sun
Some junk needs to be touched - Unleashed (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Keeping data under lock and keyboard
About Wikileaks
Security breach investigation | The Daily Telegraph
WikiLeaks cables not so damaging: expert - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Spooks and soldiers seconded to examine secret cables
Monday 29 November 2010
Living in the shadow of al-Qa'ida | The Australian
Sunday 28 November 2010
ASIO report to parliament 2009-10 | Australian Policy Online
UTS fingerprint technology put to the test
Friday 26 November 2010
Canberra on alert for WikiLeaks | Perth Now
Speaking of Siev X… | Inner West LIVE
Thursday 25 November 2010
Please, sir, can we have our $40m - Local News - News - General - The Canberra Times
Wednesday 24 November 2010
Middle East Reality Check: Behind the ASIO Assessment
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Middle East Reality Check: Those Were the Days My Friend
Monday 22 November 2010
Hoosier Daddy...in Oz!: "Best Mates?"
Churches call for Support for Iraqi Christians | Scoop News
Australian Intelligence Service Closes Foreign Stations | Intelligent Intelligence
Sunday 21 November 2010
Australian Intelligence Community (AIC): Defence Signals Directorate (DSD)
Saturday 20 November 2010
Tireless fighter for Aboriginal rights
Accountability: Defence Signals Directorate (DSD)
Spy bases shut down to 'save money'
Thursday 18 November 2010
ASM:: BAE recruits cyber security expert
Infosecurity (UK) - Report reveals Australia's IT infrastructure being hit by hundreds of security threats
Wilkie to oversee agencies
Tuesday 16 November 2010
Hidden Agendas | The Monthly
as posted hereas posted here
Police check student who filmed near ASIO
Sunday 14 November 2010
Howard adviser lands top spy job - National - smh.com.au
Saturday 13 November 2010
Paper trail leaves red prints on Labor's past | The Australian
Aunty's sneering aside, ASIO effectively kept communists in check | The Australian
Thursday 11 November 2010
Security monitor: we're still waiting
The Court said Moti conspiracy charges inside - mariaybsr2 - 博客大巴
Tuesday 9 November 2010
ADM: BAE appoints cyber chief
Why Governments and Bankers Fear a Gold Standard
Monday 8 November 2010
SA man posed as a spy in eleborate scams
Cloak-and-dagger conman Aloysius Robert Hastings gets jail | Adelaide Now
Saturday 6 November 2010
Offensive on Aussie militants - Silobreaker
ASIO creates wiretap hub
Lateline - 05/11/2010: Australian pilots call for security overhaul
Friday 5 November 2010
Top spy was a man of extremes | The Australian
Mamdouh Habib passport appeal dismissed
ASIO tailed WA ex-JI man 'for years' | Perth Now
ASIO tailed ex-JI man 'for years' | The Australian
Jaundiced view of ASIO history | The Australian
Thursday 4 November 2010
Sri Lanka Guardian: China’s economic espionage prowess
Raytheon Australia launches security solutions business :: Security Management
Aussie deported on ASIO request - says media
From the Petrov affair to reds under beds: Menzies' flawed secret agent | The Australian
Brandis seeks terror brief | The Australian
Aussie 'jihadist' Andrew Ibrahim Wenham in Norway mosque battle | The Australian
Wednesday 3 November 2010
Open and Shut: The Minister and the Commissioner respond to questions
In defence of I, Spry - Unleashed (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Australian Truth Teller, Andrew Wilkie, Becomes Member of Intelligence and Security Committee
Australians may have contacted terrorist bomb plotters in Yemen
Tuesday 2 November 2010
Visits to Yemen a terror threat
Islamism is the most important issue we face | The Australian
as posted hereas posted here
Australian deported from Malaysia met Al-Qaeda men: report
Opposition seeks ASIO briefing
The West, Islam and Sharia: Australia: Crackdown on Yemen terror links after US parcel bombs
Crackdown on Yemen terror links after US parcel bombs | The Australian
Australian deported after ASIO request | Herald Sun
Sunday 31 October 2010
Agents market asylum dream | The Australian
'He told me that Afghans have suffered a lot but finally things are getting better for them now that your government is allowing asylum-seekers and families to live in the community,' the affable young Afghan refugee told The Australian at his family's restaurant in suburban Islamabad." ...
Saturday 30 October 2010
How ASIO got it right during a time it got so much wrong | Article | The Punch
Thursday 28 October 2010
Raytheon Australia: Growing Raytheon's cybersecurity capabilities
AP: Yes, one of the main markets for Security Solutions is the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC), which includes civil and Defence agencies. We also serve the Intelligence Community of our Allies. Each of these customers has their own missions and particular approaches to their work. There are of course, stringent and vitally important security requirements to satisfy, but that is something Raytheon is comfortable with. As for any sophisticated customer, we will be focusing on the basics of performance, bringing great technologies and solutions, supporting the mission and being a trusted partner."
ABC The Drum - I Spry with my little eye
as posted hereas posted here
Wednesday 27 October 2010
Intelligence Reference: ELLIS, DICK
'No breach of national security' from ASIO papers - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
ASIO creates wiretap hub - Security - News
Australia visa rejections increase amid security fears � VISA 2 TOUR
Security upgrades to hit passengers' costs | The Australian
Tuesday 26 October 2010
�CPA - The Guardian - #1478
Control centre to take on terrorism
� �Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the Centre would help improve the coordination of Australia’s counter-terrorism intelligence.
�� They said in a joint statement that the Centre would set and manage counter-terrorism priorities, identify intelligence requirements and ensure the process of collecting and distributing intelligence was fully integrated." ...
as posted hereas posted here
Australian citizenship offered for British spies to work for Australia
Monday 25 October 2010
ASIO net offensive on Aussie militants | The Australian
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation -- which is investigating hundreds of potential terror concerns and is worried about the activities of some citizens abroad -- has advised the federal government to improve the domestic security situation." ...
Sunday 24 October 2010
ASIO grounds local wannabe jihadists
ASIO struggles to cancel passports of 'our local' wannabe fighters for Allah in order to prevent them from spreading Islam worldwide but at the same time our immigration policies ensure we get them here in Australia in growing numbers." ...
RELEASE OF ASIO ANNUAL REPORT | Robert McClelland MP
Revealed: ASIO history at the Cross roads
TO PASSERS-BY, Cahors at 117 Macleay Street, Potts Point, is just another of Sydney's grand apartment buildings: in the words of one local real estate agent, ''an art deco gem, offering period charm, elegance and character''.
But behind its blue-tiled walls, framed by an upmarket optometrist's and a flower shop whose star jasmine scent drifts fragrantly across the footpath, lies a secret history of betrayal, seduction and skulduggery.
It was here that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation set up operations in two adjacent units...
Saturday 23 October 2010
Friday 22 October 2010
The name's ASIO and we need you
Ever dreamt of ordering a martini, shaken not stirred?
Well, ASIO might be dreaming of you.
In the past 12 months the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has struggled to hire staff...
Thursday 21 October 2010
Monday 18 October 2010
Sunday 17 October 2010
Friday 15 October 2010
Thursday 14 October 2010
Tuesday 12 October 2010
Monday 11 October 2010
Sunday 10 October 2010
Saturday 9 October 2010
Wednesday 29 September 2010
ASIO, police files found during drug raid - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Victoria's Office of Police Integrity (OPI) has confirmed sensitive documents were found at the home of a former employee during a drug raid in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
Classified documents from other security agencies including ASIO and the Western Australia Police were also found at the house.
The raid took place earlier this month and an investigation is now underway into the discovery files.
In a statement, the OPI said the documents were linked to a former employee and the other files were from the employee's previous workplaces.
The OPI said it was cooperating with a police investigation and it had undertaken a full security and risk assessment which had so far found no compromise to any if its operations.
The secretary of the Victorian Police Association Senior Sergeant Greg Davies says the security breach is concerning.
"It is not the first time that files under the control of the OPI have found their way into supposedly the wrong hands," he said.
"Now if we have ASIO files being bandied about, certainly there would be concerns from that agency in relation to national security."
He says the Police Association has always believed that there needs to be a broad-based anti-corruption commission in Victoria.
"We're faced with the ludicrous situation of the police force having to investigate the body set up to ensure the police force has independent oversight," he said.
"It's quite a bizarre situation."
Sunday 19 September 2010
Cyber Storm about to unleash chaos on Australia, the world
CYBER Storm is about to be unleashed, bringing chaos to Australia and across the world. It threatens to halt business, cripple power supplies, paralyse governments, and undermine national security.
The name suggests an apocalyptic movie, but Cyber Storm is an official exercise involving some of our biggest businesses, government departments and spy agencies.
Its aim is to test the ability of Australia and its allies to respond to what governments, spy bosses and security experts say is the real and growing threat from cyber attacks. As a video on the website of the super-secret Defence Signals Directorate puts it: ''Online is the new front line.''
Cyber Storm will play out on business, government and intelligence agency computer screens here and overseas, testing their ability to respond to co-ordinated attacks on the systems underpinning almost every aspect of society.
About 50 organisations are expected to take part in the Australian arm of the exercise, the third and biggest in a series testing national responses to major cyber attacks.
Architects of the drill, co-ordinated by the Attorney-General's Department, will not outline the cyber game scenario, organised by the US Department of Homeland Security.
Officials were concerned about maintaining the exercise's security, a department spokesman told The Sunday Age. Nor would he say when the exercise begins, although The Sunday Age believes it is imminent.
Cyber Storms I and II, in 2006 and 2008, resulted in virtual chaos. The first was based on a scenario in which a coalition of anti-globalisation activists attacked US and Canadian computer systems. The attacks cut power supplies, disrupted ports and airlines, and compromised intelligence communications.
Cyber Storm II, with Australia playing a major role, was based on a similar scenario - simulated attacks by a group with a political agenda and the time, money and motivation to penetrate any network.
A report by the Attorney-General's Department reveals participants were stunned by the speed and global scope of cyber attacks on banking, finance, water, electricity, communications, information technology and government agencies.
While no real operations were affected, information systems virtually collapsed during the exercise, as IT managers scrambled to cope.
When systems controlling power supplies were hit, communications also failed. Under intense pressure, players abandoned protocols for dealing with failures, losing key information in the process. A common problem, according to the report, was that while responding to multiple incidents, managers failed to see they faced a crisis.
The director of the Cyber Storm II, Steven Stroud, told an industry conference that participants were surprised by the level of damage inflicted by the attacks, even though they were aware of the risks. ''If you hit your hand with a hammer, it's going to hurt. In Cyber Storm, a lot of people hit their hand with a hammer and were surprised that it hurt,'' he said.
Cyber III, which also involves Britain, Canada and New Zealand, is the latest sign of how seriously governments regard the risk of cyber attack.
In a speech last month, ASIO boss David Irvine placed cyber attack alongside terrorism at the top of Australia's threat list, describing it as ''the issue of the 21st century''.
When he opened the new cyber security operations centre in Canberra in January, then defence minister John Faulkner revealed defence networks were attacked on a daily basis. There were about 200 ''electronic security incidents'' involving defence networks each month last year, he said.
Senator Faulkner declined to comment on whether the attacks were launched by China, the culprit widely blamed for state-sponsored cyber attacks.
The former head of the Australian Federal Police high technology crime centre, Alastair MacGibbon, sees gaps in Australia's approach to the cyber threat.
While official efforts focused on protecting government and corporations, members of the public did not understand the extent of the problem or the risks they faced. There was little capacity for ordinary citizens to report online crime affecting them, or for these reports to be co-ordinated and assessed.
Mr MacGibbon, who works for Surete Group consultancy, said talk of the cyber threat was not a ''Chicken Little exercise of saying the sky is falling down. The threat is real, and it requires prudent planning.''
Nor were cyber attacks without victims. ''Because people don't see physical damage when it comes through cyber, people have got the idea that it's a very clean weapon. There's nothing clean about it.'' Attacks on power grids, for instance, could have ''huge unintended consequences'' on places such as hospital wards.
''This is a dirty weapon you can't see.''
Thursday 26 August 2010
Greens spooking spies Opinion | goldcoast.com.au | Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
IT must be ASIO's worst nightmare -- the meddlesome Greens finally are set to have a meaningful say in governing Australia.
Not just from a token MP or sympathiser in the House of Representatives but from next July 1 when the Greens take the balance of voting power in the Senate.
The spy industry in Australia was going from strength to strength until election weekend. Trying to stay in step with the huge expansion of the spying business in the United States.
Once upon a time you had to build a High Court or National Gallery to score a plum building site on Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra.
But the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has shouldered its way into the national capital's waterfront real estate.
Its new $600 million plus (how would you know the real bill to taxpayers?) lakeside headquarters kept taking shape as Labor and Liberal went hammer and tongs to run Australia.
Mugs! ASIO is regarded by many old Canberra hands as the real ruler of national government. Start nosing around or writing press reports about ASIO and these clowns will start snooping.
Legend has it the spooks from ASIO or the other national spy agencies, including the Prime Minister's own secret service, used to keep a dossier on Greens boss Bob Brown.
Be a bugger for ASIO and the other spies if Senator Brown starts demanding answers on their operations before the Greens start passing legislation.
Senator Brown told one national newspaper last month that the cost of the new ASIO headquarters was indefensible.
ASIO's KGB-style bunker will not rise up to confront taxpayers; rather it will stretch long and low so eventually Australia's overpaid and underworked spies will be able to doze and play ping-pong behind walls and greenery. The building's deceptive appearance will disguise the fact that it is the largest construction project in Canberra since our new Parliament House in the 1980s.
You wonder what politicians were thinking when the project was approved. Probably it was too difficult to ignore those events in the US.
Uncle Sam's September 11 (2001) panic appears as powerful as ever. A total of 24 new security organisations were created in the US within weeks of that event. The total of new security organisations has topped 260 with presumably more to come.
The Washington Post reported that the Pentagon's Defence Intelligence Agency workforce jumped from 7500 to in 2002 to 16,500 this year. Budgets keep doubling, secret reports keep multiplying.
Little wonder the US economy had a dollar deficit of trillions which defied household comprehension last year. After all, there are more than 850,000 Americans with top secret security clearances. The Post estimated that the government security business in the US is supported by up to 2000 private firms operating from almost 10,000 different locations within America itself. Then there is US security work overseas: estimates on Australia's spy expenditure are about $4 billion a year, four times what it was at the turn of the century. It is not just the thousands in ASIO, there are the James Bonds from the undercover ASIS agency who swan around overseas. Add on the Office of National Assessments, Defence Department's DIGO agency, Defence intelligence and the magnifying glass mob from Signals secretariat.
The ASIO project in Canberra will look an awful lot like the Australian puppy wagging its tail for Uncle Sam's approval when it is finished. Imagine the ongoing cost of ASIO's cyber spying programs when phone-tapping and satellite surveillance become obsolete? Sure, fanatics with terrorism tendencies are rounded up semi-regularly, but it is the young bucks from dirty-tricks departments within the Australian Federal Police doing the harder yards.
The so-called war on terrorism became almost a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Canberra veterans reckon ASIO only really excelled at penetrating branches of the Communist Party in the 1950-60s, until it all fell apart when there were more spies than commos per branch.
One thing is for sure. ASIO and all the other expensive spy networks in Australia are useless in preventing deaths of fine young Australians in Afghanistan.
Tuesday 10 August 2010
Tamil Tigers pair fly in to have baby | The Australian
FEDERAL authorities will allow a couple ASIO deemed a threat to national security to have their baby on the Australian mainland.
And Australian taxpayers will foot the bill.
The impending birth of the Tamil couple's third child forced the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to concede last night that the pair would be flown to Perth within 12 weeks because the hospital on Christmas Island, which is excised from Australia for migration purposes, is not equipped or staffed for births.
No child has been born on the island for about 15 years; residents and asylum-seekers are sent to the West Australian capital when they reach the 34th week of their pregnancies, usually with their immediate families.
The woman, who is six months pregnant, is among Tamil asylum-seekers rescued by the Oceanic Viking and offered a special deal by the Rudd government last October. She was on the Australian Customs boat with the couple's two children, now aged six and three.
On December 29 last year, the woman, her children and three Sri Lankan men from the Oceanic Viking flew via charter aircraft from Indonesia directly to Christmas Island.
There, she and the children were reunited with her husband. He had arrived by boat a few months earlier and has also been issued an adverse security finding by ASIO. The family now lives under guard in a converted construction camp on Christmas Island and are indefinitely detained.
Though ASIO's finding makes it legally impossible for Australia to accept the woman, Australia would be in breach of its human rights obligations if it returned her to Sri Lanka. This is because, like the 77 others aboard the Oceanic Viking during the standoff, she is a legal refugee designated by the UNHCR.
In March, The Australian reported that the woman lived and worked in the Vanni district in Sri Lanka's north, which was controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The woman's brother told The Australian that his sister had been employed in the de facto justice system set up by the LTTE, which was described by the US State Department as "agents" of the Tamil Tigers.
There are three other Sri Lankans from the Oceanic Viking -- all men -- who are in limbo too, having also received adverse security assessments from ASIO.