Category Archives: Australian intelligence agencies

Australia expelled two Indian intelligence operatives in 2020 as part of ‘nest of spies’, reports claim

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Asio director general Mike Burgess had referred to expulsion of foreign operatives in 2021 speech but did not name country behind threat

Australia reportedly expelled two Indian intelligence officers in 2020 after Asio alleged a “nest of spies” had sought to cultivate politicians, monitor diaspora communities and obtain classified trade information and airport security protocols.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that two officers from the Research and Analysis Wing, India’s foreign intelligence service, had been expelled from Australia in 2020. The newspaper reported the incident was one of “a series of clashes between RAW and western domestic security services.”

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Asio boss defends undercover police operation targeting boy with autism

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Mike Burgess says security agencies ‘don’t radicalise people’ and stands by actions of police in case of 13-year-old with Islamic State ‘fixation’

The Asio chief has insisted security agencies “don’t radicalise people” but admitted “dealing with minors is incredibly difficult” after court findings criticising an undercover operation targeting a 13-year-old child with autism.

Guardian Australia revealed last month that the boy, known by the pseudonym Thomas Carrick, was granted a permanent stay on terror-related charges last October, after a magistrate found police “fed his fixation” with Islamic State during the operation and “doomed” his efforts at rehabilitation.

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Australian who worked for foreign spies was in parliament at the time, Asio boss says

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Mike Burgess says actions of person who ‘sold out their country, party and former colleagues’ were legal because they predated 2018 espionage laws

The Asio boss, Mike Burgess, says an Australian who worked for foreign spies is no longer a politician and no longer a security threat “but this happened when they were a politician”.

Burgess has also stated that the unnamed former politician knew they were assisting a foreign intelligence service. “This person knew what they were doing,” he said.

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Alex Turnbull says he may have been targeted in espionage attempt revealed by Asio

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Spy agency says former Australian politician recruited by foreign regime once ‘proposed bringing a prime minister’s family member’ into their orbit

The son of former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull says he may have been a target of suspected Chinese intelligence agents, as the federal government urged politicians to “wake up” to spying threats.

Australia’s domestic intelligence agency sparked an intense round of political intrigue after alleging that a former Australian politician “sold out their country, party and former colleagues” after being recruited by spies for a foreign regime.

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Bondi businessman accused of selling secrets to China can only be accused of plagiarism, lawyers argue

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Lawyers for Alexander Csergo say a search using AI tools used to check plagiarism at universities verified his claim he provided open source material

Lawyers for a Bondi businessman accused of selling Australian secrets to China say simple artificial intelligence tools used to check for plagiarism at universities verified his claim he only provided publicly available information.

Alexander Csergo watched on via video link from Sydney’s Parklea prison on Wednesday as prosecutors told Downing Centre local court they would ask the federal attorney general’s department if it wanted to continue his case.

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‘My son is innocent’: mother of imprisoned Australian businessman denies he’s a Chinese spy

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Lawyers say Alexander Csergo brought home list of requests from aspiring Chinese handlers to ensure he would be believed by Australian authorities

An Australian businessman facing a foreign interference charge brought home a “shopping list” given to him by two Chinese intelligence officials as evidence of China’s overt and ultimately unsuccessful efforts to cultivate him as a source, his lawyers say.

The list, which Alexander Csergo slipped between the pages of a magazine to spirit out of China, requests information about whether Australia’s new Aukus alliance is “preparing for [a] Taiwan war”, about competition between the US and China in the Pacific, and about the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

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Foreign spies are aggressively seeking ‘disloyal’ insiders with access to Australia’s secrets, Asio warns

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Intelligence agency wants government security clearance system ‘hardened’ to protect sensitive information

Foreign spies are “aggressively seeking secrets across all parts of Australian society”, including trying to recruit “disloyal” government insiders to access classified information, Asio has warned.

The intelligence agency said “hostile foreign powers and their proxies” were seeking to test the Australian government’s security clearance system.

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Ex-intelligence officer Witness J’s mother did not know he was in jail, sentencing remarks reveal

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ACT chief justice calls secrecy ‘anathema to the rule of law’ as sentencing decision finally made public

The Australian Capital Territory’s chief justice, Lucy McCallum, has described secrecy as “anathema to the rule of law” while releasing the long-awaited sentencing decision against Witness J.

The man, known by the pseudonym Alan Johns and also as Witness J, was jailed in complete secrecy after pleading guilty and being convicted for the disclosure of confidential information.

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Australian man who allegedly sold information to foreign spies faces court

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Alexander Csergo, 55, was arrested in the Sydney suburb of Bondi on Friday on one count of reckless foreign interference

An Australian man charged with a foreign interference offence will remain behind bars until Monday after his case was adjourned in Sydney.

Alexander Csergo, a 55-year-old businessman who normally lives overseas, was arrested in the Sydney suburb of Bondi on Friday for allegedly sharing information with individuals who work for a foreign intelligence service, the Australian federal police said in a statement.

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Liberal senator insists Australia must be ‘ruthless’ in pursuit of US military technology

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James Paterson says regulatory barriers in US could imperil access to AI, hypersonic weapons and other advanced systems

Australia needs to be “ruthless” about prioritising which technologies it pursues under the second pillar of the Aukus pact to overcome “regulatory barriers” in the US, the shadow minister for cybersecurity and countering foreign interference, James Paterson, has said.

The Liberal senator made the comments on the Guardian’s Australian politics podcast, warning that an “absence of consensus” in the US and a “clear plan” in Australia could see it miss out.

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Australia news live: defence pursuing joint patrols with Philippines in South China Sea, Marles says

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It comes as Anthony Albanese grilled on balance of power under Aukus after press club address. Follow the day’s news live

Chalmers highlights importance of sustainability of superannuation

Treasurer Jim Chalmers isn’t ruling in or out whether there will be any changes on superannuation tax concessions in the May budget.

I’ll tell you what I think. I gave a longish speech about this on Monday, where I said the priority [of] super is and should be nailing down the objective. For too long, the lack of an agreed objective has meant that our predecessors could mess with superannuation when it came to all kinds of ideological pursuits. We want to take that out of the system.

Ideally, we’d want to get some kind of broad agreement amongst the industry in the community … about what super is for, so that we can build from that. And as part of that speech, I pointed out the fact … that the cost of superannuation tax concessions will overtake the cost of the pension. That’s a fact.

Not necessarily.

I just think as part of a broader assessment of where our superannuation system is at and how we locked down the objective of super so that we can provide more certainty and security around its purpose, as part of that I acknowledged earlier in the week, that these concessions in the superannuation system, they’re not cheap. I don’t think it’s especially controversial to acknowledge that.

Well, as I keep saying, we haven’t changed their view. We haven’t taken any decisions.

We haven’t determined that.

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José Ramos-Horta pleased ‘fairness prevailed’ in Bernard Collaery case

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Exclusive: Timor-Leste president welcomes decision to end prosecution of ‘good man’ who helped expose Australian bugging operation

Timor-Leste’s president, José Ramos-Horta, has welcomed the “wisdom and fairness” of the decision to end the prosecution of Bernard Collaery, saying the lawyer is a “good man” who represented the best of Australian ideals.

Collaery and his client, intelligence officer Witness K, are viewed as heroes in Timor-Leste for their role in exposing Australia’s 2004 operation to bug the nation’s government offices to gain the upper hand in oil and gas negotiations.

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It may be too late to stop China-Solomon Islands treaty, former Australian intelligence chief says

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Coalition urged to refrain from megaphone diplomacy as it tries to persuade Honiara to change course

China’s proposed treaty with Solomon Islands is an “adverse development for Australia’s security” but it may be too late to stop the deal, a former senior Australian intelligence official has warned.

Richard Maude, head of the Office of National Assessments from 2013 to 2016 and an experienced former diplomat, urged the Morrison government not to engage in megaphone diplomacy as it tried to persuade Solomon Islands to change course.

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Will all submarines, even nuclear ones, be obsolete and ‘visible’ by 2040?

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Technologies could render the ocean transparent by the time Australia’s new submarines are ready, some experts say

Australia’s proposed nuclear-powered submarines could be obsolete by the time they hit the water in the 2040s due to new technologies making underwater vessels “visible”, some experts argue.

One of the controversies over the federal government’s decision to ditch the $90bn deal to build conventional submarines in favour of nuclear boats is the timeline for getting them battle-ready.

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Australia politics live: Morrison says issue of ‘vile language’ by staffer has been dealt with; IR bill passes Senate

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Pared-back bill now relates only to casual employment; government faces scrutiny over its botched vaccine booking website. Follow all the latest updates

Four Corners has announced its episode for Monday. Here is the release:

On Monday Four Corners investigates how and why Brittany Higgins’ story was kept quiet for almost two years.

It does not bode well for the Centre Alliance “alliance” if its two remaining MPs can’t come to an agreement of whether or not there was an agreement.

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Witness K and the Australian spying operation that continues to betray Timor-Leste

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Charges against Bernard Collaery and his retired Asis agent client confirm the government has few regrets about an exploitative exercise against a friendly neighbour

In the first week of January 2019, a private jet landed at Presidente Nicolau Lobato International Airport in Dili, the capital of Timor-Leste. The former Victorian premier Steve Bracks emerged into the monsoonal heat and was greeted by staff from the office of Xanana Gusmão, Timor-Leste’s chief maritime boundary negotiator. They drove Bracks to the waterfront café at the Novo Turismo Resort and Spa, where Gusmão was waiting.

The subject of the meeting was Bernard Collaery, Gusmão’s former lawyer, who was pleading not guilty to breaches of Australia’s intelligence act. Collaery’s charges related to an Australian Secret Intelligence Service operation in Dili in 2004, in which Canberra is believed to have recorded Timor-Leste officials’ private discussions about maritime boundary negotiations with Australia. In 2013, the Australian government revealed the allegations of spying.

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Spy scandal: Canada reassures allies over leak that may be linked to Australian drug syndicate

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Intelligence officer Cameron Ortis had access to classified information from Five Eyes allies, including Australia

Canada is seeking to reassure its Five Eyes intelligence allies in the wake of a massive alleged spying leak that may be linked to an Australian drug-smuggling criminal syndicate.

Cameron Ortis, the director general of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s intelligence unit, has been charged over allegations he was trying to sell secrets to a foreign agent or terrorist group. He had access to classified information from Canada’s Five Eyes global allies, including Australia.

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Security blunder as Queensland premier’s office publishes name of Asio agent

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Exclusive: accidental release of intelligence operative’s name in Annastacia Palaszczuk’s diaries blamed on ‘administrative error’

The Queensland premier’s office has mistakenly published the name of a secret intelligence operative in an extraordinary national security breach potentially punishable by up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

The name of the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (Asio) agent was accidentally published during the routine public release of Annastacia Palaszczuk’s diaries, a practice designed to boost government transparency.

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Australian agencies had ‘no reason to restrict travel’ of Christchurch accused, MPs told

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Senior home affairs official says no major changes planned to ‘scientifically calibrated’ focus on terrorism after attack

Australian security agencies had no information to suggest the man accused of the Christchurch mosque massacre should be placed on a watchlist or prevented from leaving the country, a Senate committee has heard.

However, there were no major changes being made to Australia’s “scientifically calibrated” focus on different types of terrorism, the home affairs department secretary, Michael Pezzullo, said.

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