Cont'd...
On Tuesday, ASIO officers raided the home of a former ASIS officer. The names of ASIS officers, serving or retired, cannot be revealed. The Opposition was briefed on Wednesday and Attorney-General George Brandis made a statement in the Senate.
Brandis said he issued the warrant, at the request of ASIO, on the grounds that the documents and electronic data collected contained intelligence relating to security matters.
Under section 39 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001, it is a criminal offence for a current or former officer of ASIS to communicate "any information or matter that was prepared by or on behalf of ASIS in connection with its functions or relates to the performance by ASIS of its functions", where the information has come into his possession by reason of his being or having been an officer of ASIS.
To no-one's surprise, the raid, initiated by ASIO, was loudly condemned by Greens leader Christine Milne, Green Senator Scott Ludlum and that reliable warhorse of the Left, Father Frank Brennan, and given expansive coverage by the Left's media allies at the ABC and Fairfax Media.
Barely had the Senate convened before Milne was demanding that the Attorney-General provide reasons for the raid.
Not that she had not made her own mind up.
She said it was to prevent the unnamed ASIS officer travelling to The Hague to give evidence in a dispute between Australia and East Timor about maritime boundaries which could affect the resource-sharing deal struck between former foreign minister Alexander Downer and the East Timorese government.
"It is a shocking thing that, as this negotiation is going on in The Hague, the Attorney-General in Australia authorises the raid," she said.
"There is no suggestion here that the whistleblower who was going to attend to give evidence in The Hague was in any way a threat to national security."
But if the so-called "whistleblower" is, as the issuance of the warrant would suggest, a rogue former intelligence officer much like the US defector Edward Snowden, now in the arms of his Soviet handlers while The Guardian and the ABC collaborate to distribute information from his stolen cache of secret files, surely it is the duty of the Australian government to act.
Further, as the Attorney-General painstakingly pointed out to Ludlum, when the director-general of ASIO requests such a warrant, it may only be issued if the Attorney-General is satisfied that it is necessary to protect the Commonwealth and its people from espionage, sabotage, politically-motivated violence, attacks on Australia's defence system, or acts of foreign interference; and the protection of Australia's territorial and border integrity from serious threats.
Unfortunately, there is little any nation can do to prevent rogue agents like the convicted former US marine Bradley Manning, who provided stolen information to fugitive WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, or Snowden, or the former ASIS officer, as we may find when ASIO concludes its investigation.
Their actions are heinous, particularly so when they lead to the identification of those who work in the field of intelligence and guard our national interest. Those from the Left, like the Greens and their media friends at The Guardian and the ABC and elsewhere, who glorify the Assanges, the Mannings, the Snowdens and those who leak sensitive national intelligence material and endanger lives, betray the national interest and deserve nothing but utter contempt.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/labor-left-right-out-of-matters-of...