The ASIS Interviews. No 2. Purpose and principles.

paul simon welcome to aspie thanks paul what does asus do today three main functions um firstly it collects intelligence as we did on the 13th of may 1952 and we continue to obtain for our government intelligence from overseas the second function is what i broadly describe as intelligence diplomacy the fact that we have counterpart organisations almost in every country in the world and intelligence agencies talk to intelligence agencies they share information they will often have conversations um where that line of communication can be on some very sensitive subjects that the diplomats would prefer not to have or indeed countries the other side would prefer the conversation be held between intelligence chiefs rather than rather than diplomats so there's that that element of intelligence diplomacy the other element of intelligence diplomacy is in the region in our near region there are countries that actually need some support and help some capability uplift to let them you know defend their own national sovereignty better than they currently are so again we sort of help with training programs and and deliver some capabilities to to countries in our near region so that's the second so firstly collect intelligence secondly intelligence diplomacy the third main one under the act uh the intelligence services act there is a a section six one e provision which indicates that uh the minister can direct us to do uh activities um and that has obviously the ability then that gives the government the ability that if they wish for us to undertake disruptions or activities that are [Music] probably going to be enabled by good intelligence but actually allow us to undertake disruptions whether it's disrupting a terrorist plot or some type of activity where there is an action that occurs that's the third broad category so those activities i can't authorize they have to be authorised by the minister and the way the act is written is that if the minister so authorises an activity like that she needs to also consult other ministers including the prime minister who may be affected or impacted by those activities that we do where does human intelligence fit in in the cyber age the digital age well humans are a social animal and humans really with other forms of intelligence you mentioned cyber uh well informed thoughtful individuals will recognize and appreciate that what they uh say over telecommunications devices what they uh send by way of email there are other agencies that can uh collect that type of intelligence and a lot of people know that and uh and therefore uh avoid that form of communication so you know really what what most countries need is a combination of cyber sigint human humans will develop relationships trusting relationships they will share secrets they are willing to in many cases build a relationship with a service like ours that cultivates recruits validates them um and there's a relationship that builds and so when when you're trying to understand um senior leaders around the region more further afield you're really trying to understand the way they're thinking their vision for their country the risks that they see the opportunities they see those sorts of conversations are normally held in the inner circles and it's between you know humans and it will always remain that way why are people re willing to take these risks why are people willing to betray their country's secrets well i mean there can be a range of reasons i guess as a general proposition um i would argue that if you if you're in a closed society um then there is a stronger possibility um that you will be concerned about the direction of the country you know if if people become leaders of everything in their country if power is concentrated and centralized then ultimately you become responsible for everything and you actually become responsible for the way in which your citizens perceive your leadership so there's an interesting sort of medium to long term dimension to this as a general rule close societies run the risk of a greater number of individuals willing to betray the secrets of their country because they're not happy they don't get a voice we get a voice every three years we go down to the local school and we vote um but there are a lot of people that don't so look i mean that's one that's one motivation azio says that the threat from espionage and foreign interference to australian interests is extensive unrelenting and increasingly sophisticated what does that mean for isis well it means that we need to innovate um and we need to stay ahead so there's a really compelling culture in isis to understand technology emerging technology to look at the environment in relation to startups new and emerging technologies how could new and emerging technologies be adapted to allow us to undertake the risk the risk the risky activities we undertake and to reduce if you like the the risks of being compromised so there is a competition at play here and uh in many ways you know if you if you think of the the match analogy um we we're playing the attack in in isis and azio by and large is playing the defence the margins between the two overseas are close we believe that we still have a marginal advantage to obtaining the secrets that we obtain but we don't rest on our laurels and we can't afford to be complacent that's why science technology is an important component to the way we think about our tradecraft moving from that first four decades of the cold war how does isis operate in a new environment where you're thinking about gray zone activities disinformation multi multi-polar great power competition what does that mean for the sorts of choices you have to make well i think it sort of follows on from that last question the environment's getting the operating environment's getting harder and therefore um we have to double up in our determination to to use technology to have the quality of the people that we need to deal with as you you say the gray zone environment the gray zone is really that it's increasingly being used in the lexicon to reflect the fact that we're in this environment of coercion short of conflict um and that is keenly felt inside the intelligence community whether it's on the defense or on the offense so the other comment i'd make is it's it's often a term that the military are using and i think the military our military and other militaries around the world are thinking very very carefully around coercion short of conflict and the role of the military now we cooperate with and work very closely with the australian defence force with the australian military so not only do we have to stay across all the best of technologies coming through and emerging technologies but our partnership with defence has to get even deeper and stronger and i think that's really driving us at the moment what is the legal basis for what you do the intelligence services act 2001 is the legal basis you can any anyone that's watching this can get on the internet put in intelligence services act 2001 and it's the section 6 which relates to the roles and functions of of isis amended quite recently as as you've mentioned before um all of those amendments in there it's laid out that's the legal basis upon which we are uh held to account held to account politically by my minister the foreign minister to whom i'm answerable uh answerable in an accountability sense to the inspector general of intelligence and security who has the powers of a standing royal commission igis and the staff of the inspector general literally drop onto my computer systems my highly classified systems they can look at any files um it's all made available to them so that at any point in time if they have concerns about legality or propriety of what we're doing they can actually go in and have a look um and then to parliament through the the parliamentary joint committee and intelligence and security which looks more at our administrative sort of aspects of the service but um it's it's there in the intelligence services act and it's observed in the breach every day either by the minister or by the inspector general every day as you sit down how do you think about those checks and balances how does that frame the way you approach you approach each day um well i think it's meant that a couple of things one is that the training of our people um has to be very well bettered on an understanding of the law uh the unders the meaning of propriety and legality understand the functions and purposes we can't i can't uh senior officers can't micromanage our people in the field they have to make judgments when they're dealing with an agent um you know that that are very very fine judgments indeed and so they need to the understanding of the law and the basis upon which they are undertaking activities in the national interest has to be something that is very very well understood what it also though has meant is that inside isis i think there is this outstanding written record of everything we do if you looked at our internal correspondence literally all of our activities are written up in great detail and when i say great detail i'm i'm not only talking the nature of a meeting with an agent and the conversation and the intelligence or the information that's passed but considerable detail about body language personal life all of that is is recorded because we're always wanting to check and validate that the information we're getting is is accurate that the agent themselves that themselves are on a um are at a point in their their life where they're not getting uh distracted they're not being coerced there's a lot of things that we're checking on as we build a relationship with it with our agents so everything's very well written down inside the service so coming back to you back to your question it manifests itself in uh our people having a really good understanding of the law and the proper purpose and function of the service and a very strong written record of everything we do which obliges them to be honest and to write down everything that they see and observe and and and hear using that officer agent approach you've said that asus isn't just about providing context and information it has to make a difference to government it has to enable outcomes and actions how do you measure that we're actually measured by other agencies and i'll come to that but we also are pretty demanding on ourselves and by demanding on ourselves i say you know we're awash with information open source information very much the mantra inside isis is the quality of the insights that we're able to help policy makers understand in other words getting as close to decision makers foreign decision makers as we can to provide those that the quality insights that our policy makers need um so we're pretty demanding on ourself uh around the quality of of the insights if we if we get information from uh from an agent and it doesn't substantially add value to that that's in the in the public domain we won't publish it so we set pretty high standards internally but we also are evaluated and this is one of the functions that o and i has really stepped up with so we have mission evaluations um and it might you know a mission might be counter terrorism so each year a range of agencies in town both policy and intelligence agencies are asked to mark our homework and they speak very openly and honestly about how we've added value to the counter terrorist understanding inside australia and so of course azo would be asked the federal police will be asked policy agencies are asked so those reports are done on an annual basis across a whole spectrum of uh of areas so you know we we undergo scrutiny from other policy and intelligence agencies and o and i pull that together we've literally just finished a round of evaluations and come under the spotlight from from other agencies let's finish this with a discussion of risk how much harder is it how much riskier is it to actually get human intelligence now um well it's it's always there's always been risk involved and perhaps if i just quickly talk about risk i mean we as i think i've said before we accept risk um we can't be cavalier there is a very strong thread of education knowledge and understanding about risk management we have a whole area separate of the operational line areas that undertake compliance and risk management so they oversight operations independently to ensure that risk management the risk management techniques are adopted in the way that many organizations think about risk and risk management so in international standard 31 000 iso 31 000 which is the international standard for risk management how you assess risks how you look at the likelihood of those risks being realized the consequences of those risks every activity we do is written up in considerable detail and planned in considerable detail the vast majority of those activities in the planning stage contain the risk management plan so i mean risk has always been part and parcel of what we've done but i would say it's deeply entrenched in the way that we think about our activities and our operations and depending on the overall risk at the end the overall risk determines who ultimately is the delegate to approve an activity or an operation so obviously that the highest risk ones i'll be the delegate but there are lower you know moderate low risk activities where people at lower levels can uh can approve the activities and operations i i think we've got it about right in terms of strong thread of risk right through the organisation and the way we plan activities but an agility through the delegation of the overall risk that allows us to generate activities quite quickly certainly at the more low-to-moderate end obviously the high-risk activities i take responsibility for those in case they're compromised when those high-risk calls land on your desk what is the the value threshold the risk threshold that you use to decide i am willing to put this person's life at risk because i want these pieces of information how do you how do you make those judgments well it's judgment isn't it there's more more art than science on these sorts of things but at the end of the day um it is simply you're staring at the benefits what the benefits would be for policy makers what the benefit would be in the national interest and having to weigh that against the the risks that we have to live with in obtaining that information if if we think the benefit is is there it might be that we redo the risks over and over again in other words think about every vector to achieve the outcome without necessarily following the first plan that comes forward so often if the benefits there it won't follow that we'll necessarily undertake the activity in the way that it's first been planned it may well be that it goes back and we say okay what other what other vectors what other opportunities what other hints could we use to achieve that effect and that's where agencies like us and asd work very closely together to see you know if we don't need to take the risk up to a particular threshold if i can keep the risk down and still obtain the benefit then obviously that's what i what i will do but but we are we are a risk accepting organization um there are many activities that we do that um means that you don't sleep as well at night as you might like to but we've deduced that the benefits are worth it in the national interest finish this by talking to me a little bit about how you weigh that risk and accountability uh equation how you think that through if you're going to have to be thinking about this as you go to bed at night how does that work for you as the director general um well it means trust trust becomes everything and uh you know i i have to trust my people and know my people to be able to trust them in the way they're engaging with the risk it's also true that my my relationship with my minister and the trust uh that goes with that relationship is really important and you know the the foreign minister for example carries a heavy burden because you know she is our she is our chief diplomat she's advancing australia's interests every day and she has to have faith that uh we will conscientiously and diligently undertake activities we will plan them very very carefully and we will do everything within our power to you know to mitigate the risks but she like the other side of politics has been a beneficiary of isis's most extraordinary activities and operations and very much appreciates what we do so the trust trust is everything in this business paul simon thank you thanks greg

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Length: 22min 0sec (1320 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 04 2020