Change needed in intelligence approach

The above data collection system is supplemented with extremely good working relationships with communications companies like Foxtel, Macquarie, Telecom, and Optus, as well as the major computer and internet companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Verizon, Yahoo, Facebook, and Twitter. Similar links also exist with banks and credit card providers. Data from these sources is screened through the meta-data collection system PRISM according to Wayne Madsen of the Strategic Culture Centre.

Perhaps even more disturbing than electronic surveillance exposed by Edward Snowden are the HUMINT activities undertaken by Australian operatives under diplomatic cover at Australian missions abroad. According to a retired senior diplomatic official previously stationed in Moscow and Jakarta and an Australian Federal Police (AFP) officer once stationed in Kuala Lumpur, a large array of human intelligence is collected and operations undertaken from these clandestine groups within diplomatic missions. Each group operating from a diplomatic mission would include operatives from ASIO, ASIS, the AFP, the Defense Intelligence Group, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO), military attachés, and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. These operatives are concerned with both Australian and foreign nationals in the areas of business activities, money laundering, counterfeiting, identity theft, tax evasion, narcotics, human trafficking, arms trading, pedophilia, terrorism, general criminal activities, and anything considered important to the interests of Australia. Greatly improved signals collection technology has allowed for larger deployment in HUMINT activities. In addition, some work is sub-contracted to 'CIA friendly' companies like VFS Global which collect and process visa applications on behalf of the "UKUSA" security collaborating countries of UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. VFS has a proprietary client profiling system which assists on creating databases on "persons of interest".

Not all activities are aimed at the host governments the diplomatic missions are operating within. A large proportion of time is spent by these clandestine groups monitoring the personnel of other diplomatic missions of interest. For example Australian intelligence is interested in what the trade officials of the Chinese Embassy are doing in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, and Kuala Lumpur, etc.

Other priorities include the surveillance of Australian citizens abroad which an agency may have an interest in. Over the last decade the intelligence services have become much more interested in criminal intelligence where a formal network of transnational Crime Units (TCU) have been set up across the Pacific in the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Micronesia, Pulau, Niue, Solomon Islands, Tonga, PNG, and Vanuatu. This is coordinated by the Pacific Transnational Crime Coordination Centre (PTCCC) located in Apia, Samoa. The Transnational Crime Units assist the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis centre (AUSTRAC) track the financial transactions of Australian citizens and corporations both home and abroad.

The CIA, NSA and other partner intelligence agencies are now primarily focused upon economic, business, industrial, trade, and political data collection. This information is vitally important in trade negotiations and shaping the future finance-scape of the region, particularly with the US aspiration of forming the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Asian pivot as a counter to Chinese growth of influence across the Asian region. Former CIA operative Philip Agee in an interview before his death in 2008 confirmed that much of the information collected by intelligence is used to assist US multinationals rather than for national security purposes. Another former Australian intelligence officer said that the data collected had very little to do with 'the war on terror', but tended to be political, diplomatic, and commercial in nature. Australia is sometimes placed in the position where it collects intelligence which is used for the interests of the US over the interests of Australia, particularly n the commercial area. Australia's poor showing in gaining commercial contracts after the Iraqi invasion could be seen as testimony to this.

Ironically Australia is cutting its foreign aid budget by AUD 4.5 Billion over the next 4 years, while at the same time increasing its intelligence budget. This is not a good message to be sending out to the region if sincere and open engagement is truly sought by the Abbott Government. Asia is judging Australia by its actions, not rhetoric, and there appears to be a massive failure which the Abbott Government must quickly react to, if Australia's interests are to be safeguarded.

This means turning inward onto the security agencies themselves. There have been allegations that Australian surveillance services are 'out of control' and unaccountable, where laws are regularly flouted while it is keeping track of both Australian and foreign citizens. There have been allegations that ASIS tried to destabilize the Aquino Government in the Philippines during the 1980s. There have been allegations that ASIS assisted MI6 to protect British interests in Hong Kong and Kuwait, potentially to the detriment of Australian interests. There have been accusations that ASIS deliberately lied to the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam about covert operations in Chile during the early 1970s, when ordered to stop. Numerous Royal Commissions and inquiries do not seem to have solved these problems.

Now the security agencies have damaged Australia's relations with its neighbors, trading partners, and friends to the point where it could take many years to repair.

One of the collateral effects of this scandal is that Australia has been found not to be true to its own democratic ideals. It has been found wanting, by disregarding its own policies, if not its own laws. This is not to mention the moral position Australia is in through its facilitation of target information for US drone strikes which many consider war crimes.

The prevailing attitude within the Australian Intelligence community that it is not accountable to temporary holders of public office must be knocked on the head with a thorough clean out of personnel, if any credibility is going to be salvaged with its neighbors. Resignations must be forthcoming in the national interest.

Australia must be prepared for a strong backlash in Asia where Australia is now seen as being blindly aligned with US security interests, and thus "Australia is not of the region" but some alien small time treacherous power and therefore unwelcome in the region as a partner for the future. That is what the "intelligence Tai Pans" have done for Australia, cowardly hiding behind legislative protection of their identities. Australia's whole diplomatic service is in disrepute unless massive resignations quickly occur.

Finally, from the geo-political perspective, the Der Spiegel and Sydney Morning Herald reports came at a time when Obama's "no show" in the region for the Bali and Brunei Summits gave Russian Premier Putin and more so Chinese Premier Xi Jinpeng uncontested market-space to win the 'hearts and minds' of the regions leaders.

We may be watching a great shift in regional influence where Australia may miss the boat.