The ASIS Interviews - No 3. Spying for Australia.

paul simon welcome to aspie thanks greg paul an australian overseas is kidnapped overseas terrorist groups decide that they're going to target australians what does isis do uh sadly we have a bit of experience with this uh there's a number of things we do very quickly uh firstly you said an australian is kidnapped so um the first thing that i need to do is gain a ministerial authorisation to potentially collect intelligence against that individual for their own safety and security because they're an australian there are extra layers of privacy protections that surround australians so i actually need to go to the minister and the attorney general and obtain the authority to collect against those individuals as i build up the picture so um so they are special protections for australians we can do that very very quickly but that is a requirement under the act for me to get that authorization um the second thing i'd be doing um would be reaching out to liaison partners so counterpart organizations in the region in the country where the person's been kidnapped and you know this is one of the reasons we have intelligence diplomacy why we have liaison relationships that are in moments like this that come out of the blue that we can continue a conversation or build on a conversation that we've already built up over many many years and clearly those counterpart intelligence organizations will often have a much better and deeper richer understanding of the the dynamic at play when an australian citizen is kidnapped overseas um i would um i would then uh really look to pre-position people forward to the location to continue with that liaison arrangement and use all of the mechanisms not only that we have but the whole australian intelligence community would be directed towards antennas would be directed towards every effort would be made to know and understand what has happened to the individual and of course you know we work in parallel with department of foreign affairs and trade they would in a whole of government sense they would lead the australian government effort they would put together the interagency task forces that would try and um you know help the individual that's been kidnapped so so again this is the overt and the covert working in parallel we would be very much guided by dfat but we would also be aiming to inform dfat know and understand what's going on and how do you apply that same philosophy towards say terrorists targeting australians overseas um really quite a similar dynamic in many ways i mean if if there are terrorist groups targeting australians then we are targeting you know targeting australia it's it's a asia has the prime lead on that but it's a team it's a team game and uh our footprint overseas our relationships overseas come you know are brought to bear to to assist azo to assist the federal police now the australian defense force is deploying overseas again what does isis do oh well again we're very well practiced in this uh the tentacles between isis and defence are many and varied um so let's take as the lead proposition to your question the defence is about to plan and conduct operations overseas we we are embedded in planning headquarters with liaison officers so we're brought in very early into the piece in in the planning of their operations when i say there are many tentacles i mean we have relationships deep relationships with the defence intelligence organisation certain areas that they concentrate on that we have a relationship with them with special forces with the defence forces human intelligence capabilities so there's an array of elements of the defence force which asus has a very strong working relationship this idea of having relationships or intelligence diplomacy with overseas intelligence services how do you balance your purpose against maintaining that relationship that's a good question we have to we have to calibrate our liaison relationships we have to a start point becomes um the human rights record for example of some of our counterpart agencies and um i've talked in the past about legality and propriety of what we do you know it underpins um the way in which we will build a relationship with a counterpart organisation clearly if they have uh if there have been instances in the past of breaches of human rights record you know human rights or other extrajudicial activities then we would engage in the relationship very very carefully very very warily and you'd say at the sort of very low end uh of the spectrum if if it was in australia's interest to have some sort of relationship with that uh with that liaison partner clearly at the other end of spectrum are five eyes countries that we have worked with over decades have a very uh trusting relationship share knowledge capabilities um and so you know there's a spectrum and it is genuinely calibrated really in australia's national interest but i would say obviously with our deepest and richest partners it's been calibrated over many many decades born of similar values because that's history that's culture as well absolutely that's right that's right so it's so it's not fits all it has to be calibrated very very carefully i can't um i can't open a new liaison relationship without the permission of the minister and again i think these are provisions in the act that are not well known but obviously need to be well known by us but but speak to i think the richness of the law and how well protections have been put in place since since hope and and since then just to make sure that we um are managing these relationships carefully and in our interest how do you recruit foreigners to spy for australia to spy for isis uh well uh in some instances only a minority but in some instances people will walk in people will actually um you know in history is replete with uh spies both good and bad who have literally been a walk-in and wanted to have that relationship obviously we have procedures and very careful uh gates that we step through in that type of instance but that's that's a that's a possibility um i think the majority um uh really use we use in the first instance um significant data sets looking at profiles thinking about the intelligence questions that we're trying to answer who might assist us and might be interested uh in assisting us answer those questions where do they sit in the program where do they sit in the government so a lot of background work goes into thinking about um you know from a if you like from a targeting perspective who are the individuals that we might be interested in um and then we just go through a very careful uh process of cultivation potentially recruitment validation which i've talked about before so it's probably not that dissimilar to your journalistic pedigree and how do you choose your network and the relationships that you build it's uh it's not dissimilar in some ways i suppose the only what i'd say to that is that while journalists and spies might be tracking across the same terrain i've often said that what matters to journalists is what they can make public whereas what does it makes what matters for spies is what they can keep secret but that's that's the the difference in the dynamic isn't even if they are tracking through the same country no that's very true but at its heart your contacts are relying on your skills and your trade craft in some case to project their voice if that's what they want or in some cases to protect their voice in our case it's not to project a voice but the if you like the sanctity of the relationship the trust the care that we put into securing that relationship and making sure that their personal safety and security you know is uppermost in our mind is is a very key component of what we do how do you recruit australians to be your officers what qualities are you looking for in australia's offices um we used to have a we used to have a banner for asus which was iq plus eq equals isis it's it's not bad it's not a bad banner um there are some parts of the intelligence organization where you can accommodate a higher iq and a lower eq in isis it's got to be pretty balanced so they're the you know ultimately they're the qualities that we're after someone who you know individuals who are intelligent but also have a very good uh emotional quotient and can read a situation can read relationships i need people with a really good antenna um because at the end of the day you know a lot of judgments uh are pushed down to the individual they've got to make some very very fine judgments so in the broad that's that's what i would i would say clearly we've talked about uh i really you know a person who has a serious ego or is narcissistic becomes a problem for me because we as we've described uh enjoy our successes internally we don't um you know we we don't um celebrate externally so a person needs to our individuals need to be sort of balanced iqeq balanced in sort of their own personal uh you know comfort with uh you know their ego and those sorts of things but but i would make the point that there is there is no such thing as a a typical officer uh the moment we look typical the moment i've sort of failed in ensuring the sort of diversity of our profile no one should be able to look at an individual and say that person has to be you know an isis person because in fact we work very hard to make sure that we don't look like a typical spy so a typical spa has to be very typical yes how do they deal with you how do your people these these people with high emotional intelligence high intelligence how do they work you when they're when they're when they're working you in the office uh well i i found that very interesting when i came here and i and i quite enjoyed it i in in the sense that um you do in the early days when you join the organization feel like you're being huminted they're sizing you up they want to know whether you're trustworthy they want to know what type of person you are and so it certainly does feel like um as as they have learned skills around cultivation and recruitment uh persuasion uh you can feel very loved in the organization when you join it by a lot of officers as they are building a relationship and getting to uh to understand you so it's it's it's quite fun to watch but the other aspect is that a lot of our people well our people are trained in and need good memories because they can have a conversation for a long period of time and they need to record in writing everything that was said accurately it is clearly the most important aspect of what they do and not only what was said but um what they've observed um you would have observed um i'm wearing a different shirt to what i wore you know last time so why is that have i have i changed since our last interview did i spill coffee uh was i sweating under the lights in the last interview i've noticed you're wearing a different tie so um the their ability to not only recall conversations but but but have an antenna that tells the complete picture which helps as we pass an agent let's say from one officer to another which might happen if we've got an agent that we might have for decades they're going to have a number of case officers who look after them so all of these this understanding um becomes really really important as people read into what is going to become a relationship to them what are the selling points when you're recruiting how do you get people to commit to this super secret organization um well it's it's it's one of the challenges and and uh one reason why i think conversations like this are important because um for me having some conversation with the general public and especially with young people who are wondering what they might do with their future they need to have some understanding that we exist and what we do no media is a problem because we're we're just simply not known so for me there's a there's a sweet spot here which is i would rather you know not not be in the public light i prefer that we have a modest to low media profile but as i say no profile is a problem you're asking people to go overseas and break the rules but you want them to do that as they very strictly follow the rules a whole set of rules that you're imposing on them describe the sort of the tensions and the dissonance in that in that approach well training is everything so we we do train people to abide by rules and tradecraft that have been acquired over many many decades so issues that i've been discussing about the accuracy of conversations and write-ups and what we seek to get from uh relationships with uh with agents overseas there are there are rules processes and procedures that we we take very seriously and and our younger intelligence officers um learning the breach by their elders um if they are if they're being uh casual with sort of procedures and tradecraft that we've acquired over many times so over many years so there's quite a there's quite a strong internal discipline to the way we do the work that we do um and of course what what's happening overseas is you know from our officers point of view um they are applying that trade craft the agents that they are dealing with they are breaking the laws of of their country that that is true um there is no um tension in the in the eyes of our officers as to uh what is being asked of in that relationship there's a lot of um there's a lot of work goes into making sure that both sides are comfortable and there's an understanding so we would never ask an agent to do something that is um uh improper or illegal in the sense of um you know undertaking violent activities or anything like that we are we are acquiring intelligence so i i don't see uh that there is a contradiction or a problem there we do have mechanisms though and and it's certainly borne out more in the counter-terrorism space where we've sought to penetrate terrorist groups or recruit individuals who are part of terrorist organizations um it is true that we have in the last 10 years or so strengthened ethics we have an ethics counsellor inside the organisation we have a number of avenues that if an officer at any point in time feels the sort of tension that you're describing and want to opt out they can um if they in in most cases don't want to opt out but they actually just want to sit down and have a conversation and just want to be clear in their own mind about that relationship between sort of ethics morals and what they're being asked to do with an agent so we've embedded that in the organization it works very very well that really leads naturally to the last question of this interview which is that asus will be 70 years old in 2022. what has it grown into what has evolved into over those 70 years well i look my read of the history is that for many decades we were a family we're a small family unit in many ways there was a a kinship there was a size that went with the organization um there was a budget that went with the organization that meant it had all of the hallmarks of just being a big family you know small family then a big family but it really changed significantly once hope brought us into if you like what put the intelligence community more into the public spotlight and a deeper understanding by the australian public of intelligence the use of intelligence the purpose and function of of organizations and then of course really since the late 90s and the extent to which australia's interest through the region and further afield has uh has played out in my life in the last 20 years of my lifetime um has meant that the uh that really isis has stepped from being a big family to a to a mid-sized corporation quite frankly and we're not a big corporation we're a mid-sized corporation we like to um ensure that we have very flat structures and we we don't admire bureaucracy we don't uh admire processes for processes so we do the the minimum necessary to do our job efficiently and effectively knowing that you know processes and bureaucracy support rather than hinder good organizations so that's how we've changed and and you know the path forward given i think the successes we've achieved look very promising to me paul simon thank you thanks

Channel: ASPICanberra

Views: 4,355

Rating: 4.8285713 out of 5

Keywords: aspi, asis

Id: NabevojO_Kk

Length: 20min 52sec (1252 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 08 2020