as was posted here ... Asia News - Australia’s budget cashes for intelligence review
Australia’s budget cashes for intelligence review
CANBERRA (Xinhua) — The Australian federal government on Wednesday quietly announced an independent review of the secretive intelligence community.
It will spend 3 million Australian dollars (2.69 million U.S. dollars) to look at espionage agencies including the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO) , the international- focused Australian Secret Intelligence Service and four other groups that make up the community.
“The review will enable an in-depth examination of the work of the intelligence community to ensure its effectiveness in supporting the policy and operational needs of the government,” the budget paper said.
It was due to be completed by the end of 2011.
The 3 million dollars (2.69 million U.S. dollars) will be taken from the broader ASIO budget.
The decision followed the 2004 Flood inquiry which had called for regular inquiries of the secretive community.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s department will oversee the review.
English.news.cn 2010-05-12 09:43:26
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe review of those AIC agencies (that are not ASIO or ASIS) may well include DSD (Defence Signals Directorate, Australia's NSA equivalent mass volume telecommunications intercept agency). Both not only cover esoteric satellite communications (their normal publicity) but also major city telephone exchanges...
While the DSD review is necessarily being kept secret a parallel process of less formal public consultation is being managed with the assistance of Ross Babbage (an academic, former senior DoD official and former adviser to the Rudd government).
Australia may well be wishing to legalise the use of DSD for a wider range of domestic activities than it is curretly carrying out domestically right now.
This Australian consultative approach is at variance to the NSA's barely legal "warrantless wiretaps" approach.
The NSA learned the hard way, with an avalanche of bad publicity, how not to expedite a domestic interception expansion program. Australia clearly wants to handle a similar functional shift legally and with as much consultation as possible.
Here's a article on this http://www.smh.com.au/national/new-phone-tap-powers-planned-for-spy-review-20100512-uy9j.html
Pete