as posted here ... Australia part of fake passport swapping club
AUSTRALIAN security agencies use false passports issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs to allow covert operatives to function overseas, intelligence sources have admitted.
Following the admission by the Deputy Opposition Leader, Julie Bishop, about Australian use of fake passports, sources confirmed Australia has a long-standing tradition of providing passports to overseas intelligence agencies. These countries are within the ''Western intelligence club'' - specifically Britain, the United States, New Zealand and Canada, sources confirm.
While the government has leapt upon Ms Bishop's comments, accusing her of a grievous breach of national security, sources within the intelligence community have confirmed she merely made public an inconvenient truth.
Security agencies, including the international spy agency, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, as well as ASIO and the federal police, use false passports issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs to allow covert operatives to function overseas.
Australia does not use the identities of its citizens or forge existing passports. Rather, it creates a passport of a fictitious person and provides it to an intelligence operative.
It is a practice similar to that used by state police when they create fake identities for undercover police officers.
In the grey world of espionage the necessity for covert activity can be great, and from time to time - in Australia perhaps as seldom as once a year - the Department of Foreign Affairs will create a passport at the request of an agency. The only caveat is that the intelligence service keep Foreign Affairs informed of the movement of the agent through national borders.
The Australian government would also be extremely judicious in its use of such passports, particularly so when providing them to other countries.
There is a big difference between creating fake passports and using real passports, as in the Mossad assassination of arms dealer Mahmoud al-Mabhouh that led Australia to expel an Israeli diplomat this week.
What Israel did was to forge the passports of actual foreign nationals - including four Australians - to use for their agents.
Ms Bishop - a cabinet minister in the Howard government - was pounced upon by Labor after her comments to the Herald on Tuesday. ''It wasn't what you would call kosher,'' one intelligence source said.
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public news and things I spy ..
Thursday 27 May 2010
Bishop to continue security briefs - National News - National - General - The Canberra Times
as posted here ... Bishop to continue security briefs - National News - National - General - The Canberra Times
The Federal Government will continue to brief the Opposition on sensitive national security issues despite its claims that Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop is unfit to handle such matters.
A spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith confirmed last night that it was ''not proposed to disturb current arrangements which are of long standing.''
The Government stepped up its attacks yesterday on Ms Bishop for suggesting in media interviews on Tuesday that Australian intelligence agencies used forged foreign passports.
Ms Bishop made her comments after a classified briefing by Australian intelligence, security and police agencies on the Israeli Government's use of forged Australian passports in connection with the assassination of a senior Hamas commander in Dubai.
In Parliament Mr Smith charged that Ms Bishop had breached longstanding conventions concerning the confidentiality of security and intelligence briefings and a ''fundamental principle'' of not commenting or speculating on national security and intelligence matters.
''She is not a fit and proper person to sit around the National Security Committee of the cabinet,'' he said.
''She is not a fit and proper person to discharge that role.''
Mr Smith called on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to acknowledge Ms Bishop's conduct was ''unacceptable, that she was in serious breach of a fundamental principle and, as a consequence, she has put our national security interests at risk''.
However, despite the Government's claims, national security sources said there was no intention to terminate or restrict briefings for the Opposition on national security issues. There is a statutory obligation for the Directors-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to brief the Opposition Leader on the activities of their agencies.
By convention, the shadow ministers for foreign affairs and defence, and the shadow attorney-general are also briefed on classified matters including ASIO, ASIS and the top-secret Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility.
The Federal Government will continue to brief the Opposition on sensitive national security issues despite its claims that Opposition foreign affairs spokeswoman Julie Bishop is unfit to handle such matters.
A spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith confirmed last night that it was ''not proposed to disturb current arrangements which are of long standing.''
The Government stepped up its attacks yesterday on Ms Bishop for suggesting in media interviews on Tuesday that Australian intelligence agencies used forged foreign passports.
Ms Bishop made her comments after a classified briefing by Australian intelligence, security and police agencies on the Israeli Government's use of forged Australian passports in connection with the assassination of a senior Hamas commander in Dubai.
In Parliament Mr Smith charged that Ms Bishop had breached longstanding conventions concerning the confidentiality of security and intelligence briefings and a ''fundamental principle'' of not commenting or speculating on national security and intelligence matters.
''She is not a fit and proper person to sit around the National Security Committee of the cabinet,'' he said.
''She is not a fit and proper person to discharge that role.''
Mr Smith called on Opposition Leader Tony Abbott to acknowledge Ms Bishop's conduct was ''unacceptable, that she was in serious breach of a fundamental principle and, as a consequence, she has put our national security interests at risk''.
However, despite the Government's claims, national security sources said there was no intention to terminate or restrict briefings for the Opposition on national security issues. There is a statutory obligation for the Directors-General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation and the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to brief the Opposition Leader on the activities of their agencies.
By convention, the shadow ministers for foreign affairs and defence, and the shadow attorney-general are also briefed on classified matters including ASIO, ASIS and the top-secret Pine Gap Joint Defence Facility.
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