Just Don’t Offend the Terrorists

Well, you’ve got to hand it to Australia’s secret service – they’re very secretive.

Of course, a certain level of discretion goes with the spook territory. We’d hardly expect ASIO to letterbox the neighbours, informing them that they’re surveilling the suspected foreign spy at No. 2 (that’s the job of ALP politicians). But, when they’ve just busted a “nest of spies”, Australians might reasonably expect to be told more than, “we arrested some people from somewhere”. Much less that, “we gave them a good talking-to, as well!”

ASIO has cracked a major foreign espionage network operating in Australia that successfully recruited a government official with security access to classified defence technology, in what the security agency has described as a “nest of spies”.

The spies also groomed current and former politicians, officials of an unnamed state police service, and sought access to sensitive security protocols for a major airport via a public servant.

So who was it? Who knows?

The nation’s top spy [Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general Mike Burgess], a former head of the Australian Signals Directorate, would not name the responsible country because that would be an “unnecessary distraction”. “Before you jump to conclusions — and to underline my point that multiple countries are trying to conduct espionage and foreign interference in Australia — I want to point out that the foreign intelligence service was not from a country in our region,” he said.

So BFD readers are off the hook, at least.

“They successfully cultivated and recruited an Australian government security clearance holder who had access to sensitive details of defence technology. ASIO acted. We investigated, identified and verified the activity. We cancelled the government employee’s security clearance.”

Ouch. That’s showing them. Rumour has it that the ASIO chief even threatened to get out the wooden spoon if they did it again.

Meanwhile, ASIO is apparently in a race with the ABC to see who can go to the most ridiculous lengths not to offend the world’s worst people.

“From today, ASIO will be changing the language we use to talk about the violent threats we counter. We will now refer to two categories: religiously motivated violent extremism and ideologically motivated violent extremism. Why are we making a change? Put simply, it’s because the current labels are no longer fit for purpose; they no longer adequately describe the phenomena we’re seeing.”

Mr Burgess said some Muslim groups, and others, viewed the term Islamic extremism as “damaging and misrepresentative of Islam”. With the terrorist threat remaining “probable”, the ASIO chief said “we have credible intelligence that individuals and groups have the capability and intent to conduct terrorism onshore”.

The Australian

Speaking of “religiously motivated violent extremism”…

A Melbourne teenager is expected to be charged with a terrorism offence after allegedly lighting a fire in bushland and assaulting a person, with police linking the acts to extremist Islam.

Three people — the youngest just 16 — were arrested in Melbourne’s northern suburbs by the Australian Joint Counter Terrorism Team on Wednesday.

Remember when suggesting that “bushfire terrorism” might be the latest jihadi tactic in Australia was dismissed as a crazy right-wing conspiracy theory?

Victoria Police Assistant Commissioner Michael Hermans, from Counter Terrorism Command, said […] the arrests were linked to extremist Islamic ideology but stressed police “target the crime not the ideology” […]

AFP Assistant Commissioner Scott Lee said police now regularly saw a phenomenon of young people becoming involved in extremism regardless of religion.

The Australian

Sure, because we daren’t answer our front doors on a Sunday, lest those deceptively nice-looking Mormons suddenly whip out a machete and scream “Jusef Samithu-Ackbar!”

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