Security and Intelligence in Australia – David Irvine

On Tuesday 24 January 2012, David Irvine, Director-General of Security (ASIO), addressed a capacity crowd at The Sydney Institute to outline comprehensively the work of Australia’s Intelligence forces, their purpose and their importance to Australians both commercially and  generally. David Irvine reminded his audience that, in the broadened definition of security threats, homeland security now encompassed areas not only of citizen safety but also of commercial knowledge in cyberspace vital to the national interest. This expanded security front included terrorism, the globalisation of religious or ethnic conflict, climate change, the transport revolution and economic and technical change where adaptation to modern technology was more rapid than ever before, requiring, as David Irvine warned, “our people and systems to adapt immediately or be left behind”.

SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE IN AUSTRALIA

DAVID IRVINE

The Sydney Institute has since 1989 provided a forum for thoughtful people to consider issues that go the heart of Australia, including our security and the safety and wellbeing of our citizens.  In that context, I know from long experience that intelligence plays a key role in informing national decision-making, particularly in foreign affairs and national security.

Writing in 2010, Sir David Omand, former Permanent Secretary of the British Home Office and Cabinet Office stated the case for intelligence succinctly:

We now rely upon the intelligence community to help with very hard decisions on national security, the first responsibility of Government.  We know that the absence of reliable intelligence and                 understanding at times of security threats will limit the options open to government in trying to protect the public.^[1]

Omand went on to say:

Intelligence does also have limitations that need to be understood, as well as bringing in its wake moral hazards and dilemmas over the methods used to produce it and their potential impact on               our personal privacy.^[2]

It is these two themes upon which I should like to dwell tonight:

.         We need intelligence better to inform our decision-making and better to help us forecast and avoid disasters, while acknowledging that intelligence information alone cannot give absolute guarantees that adverse events can always be avoided; and

.         We need to collect and use intelligence in ways that acknowledge and support our democratic values, including our concerns for privacy.

Finally it is worth considering briefly the broader question of how Australia is doing in the intelligence business.

Definition of Intelligence

A search of the literature will produce many definitions of intelligence as it applies to state-based activity.  My own definition is a variation to that used by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI):[3]

Intelligence is information that has been collected, analysed and refined so that it is useful to policy makers in making decisions – specifically decisions about potential threats to national security or to advance the national interest or well-being.

What this definition implies, is that intelligence, particularly that related to guarding against possible threats or catastrophic events, is essentially a predictive discipline.  Intelligence is concerned about what may happen in the future.  In this sense it is very different from a police investigation into a crime that has already been committed.

The intelligence process involves three broad steps:

.         Collection: Intelligence can be collected from open sources (media, Internet, etc) but particularly from covert or clandestine sources: from human sources, from the interception of communications, from covert observation and surveillance.  It is no secret that ASIO uses these generic covert collection methods.

.         Analysis: raw intelligence collected from whatever source must be collated and assessed by experts as to its accuracy, reliability and plausibility.

.         Assessment: collation and analysis of all relevant intelligence material enables judgements or predictions to be made, which are released to policy makers as intelligence assessments; these can be broadly strategic or very specifically tactical in nature.

Security intelligence agencies like ASIO may also have a policy advising function.

Uses of Intelligence

In its National Security Statement of 2008, the government outlined a conceptual framework that expanded the ambit of national security beyond the very traditional concepts of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and protection of the lives of citizens, acknowledging in this era of globalisation and trans-national events that an expanded range of phenomena, not in themselves particularly new, can have a heightened impact upon our security and national well-being.

Professor Michael L’Estrange of the National Security College described the debate about national security in terms of a contest between what he called traditionalists who maintain that the concept of national security has not changed in any fundamental way, and the expansionists – those who contend that

… the traditional concept of national security, focussed on the security of the state, has been superseded by trans-national human security issues focussed on the protection of individuals; issues such as people smuggling, cyber security, demographic issues, weapons proliferation, public health contingencies, etc.^[4]

I would add to that expanded definition phenomena such as terrorism, the globalisation of religious or ethnic conflict, climate change, the transport revolution and economic and technical change, more rapid than ever before, requiring our people and systems to adapt immediately or be left behind.

But do they supersede the traditional concept or merely supplement it?  I think the latter.

What I can say with certainty, however, is that while good intelligence has always been important – arguably it was an important factor in ensuring the Cold War never reached total boiling point – it also has a central role to play within the “all-hazards” approach to national security, helping us to identify, assess, anticipate and disrupt imminent and future threats .  It therefore contributes directly to assisting the “Protecting State” fulfil its obligations to its own citizenry.

In the foreign policy, economic and defence areas, intelligence may be grandly strategic, such as assessments on the future of the Middle East, implications for Australia of developments in this or that region of the world or prospects for nuclear non-proliferation.  It may include very specific information informing the daily operations of our forces overseas, protecting the lives of our soldiers or enhancing their operational capabilities.  It may help thwart people smugglers or organised crime syndicates, arms smugglers or nuclear proliferators.

ASIO’s Responsibilities

Our responsibilities to national security are very tightly defined in the ASIO Act:

In the case of ASIO, we collect and assess intelligence for the purpose of protecting national security and the lives of our citizens against  deliberate activities – or “threats” – by state or non-state entities and individuals.  But our responsibilities to national security are very tightly defined in the ASIO Act:

the protection of, and of the people of, the Commonwealth and the several States and Territories from:

.         espionage;

.         sabotage;

.         politically motivated violence;

.         promotion of communal violence;

.         attacks on Australia‘s defence system; or

.         acts of foreign interference;

whether directed from, or committed within, Australia or not; and

.         the protection of Australia‘s territorial and border integrity from serious threats; and

.         the carrying out of Australia‘s responsibilities to any foreign country in relation to a matter mentioned

In short, our task is to identify spies and help protect national secrets; we seek to prevent sabotage which increasingly can be cyber-related; a dominant focus in recent years has been the prevention of terrorism (which, along with violent, extremist nationalist or racist behaviour, comes under the rubric of politically motivated violence); we monitor the potential for intra-communal violence and we work to protect against attacks on defence installations and defence technology.  It all sounds dramatic – and sometimes it is.

When it comes to what is most occupying our attention, in Australia today, it will come as little surprise that terrorism, espionage and foreign interference – including by cyber means – present first order threats to life, the preservation of our freedoms, political sovereignty and economic prosperity.  They are, for this reason, ASIO’s highest priorities.

Terrorism

The death of Usama bin Laden last year provided a symbolic if macabre bookend to the decade since the 9/11 attacks.  Similarly the death of the American sheik, Anwar al-Awlaki, in Yemen in September 2011 just a few weeks after we marked the tenth anniversary of 9/11 removed a particularly malign threat, given al-Awlaki‘s ability to recruit English-speaking Muslim extremists over the Internet to commit acts of terrorism against western countries.

Neither of these events can be interpreted at this stage as signalling the end of anti-western trans-national terrorism. As if a postscript to the death of bin Laden, the picture of the Sydney Opera House in al-Awlaki’s jihadist anti-western polemic Inspire last year reminds us that Australia continues to feature in the minds of those who would do us harm.

The Internet, that marvellous mechanism for the democratisation of information, continues to help al-Qa’ida and like-minded violent jihadists with their mission. It is a propaganda and recruitment tool, providing terrorists with a means to support operational activity, to project their ideology onto the international stage and to recruit suicide attackers. This dissemination of violent extremist ideology through the Internet poses the very real danger of drawing individuals down the path of radicalisation, a phenomenon we have seen realised through the actions of “stand alone” violent jihadists such as Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, the so called “Detroit underpants bomber”, and Nidal Malik Hassan, currently charged with the mass shooting of soldiers at the Fort Hood military base in the United States.

Over 100 Australians have died in terrorist attacks overseas since 9/11.  In Australia itself, we have been fortunate that there has been no terrorist incident on our soil for many years.  This, however, seems to have led some to conclude that the terrorist threat is either exaggerated, or that terrorism is something that happens only to other countries.  The facts do not lead me to share that view.

There have been conspiracies amongst extremist groups in Australia to put their warped religious views in practice through mass casualty attacks within Australia’s borders.

.         In the last few years the courts have meted out some very heavy sentences to persons convicted of planning terrorist attacks – twenty-three individuals in all. It is worth reading the sentencing statements of the Australian judges to get an idea of the seriousness with which they viewed the offences – and the likely consequences had they been successful.

.         ASIO continues to conduct several hundred counter-terrorism investigations and inquiries ranging from Australians in contact with terrorists off-shore, including al-Qa’ida, to possible threats to Australian interests or Australian lives from extremist activity, either on or off-shore.

Within the Australian environment, we are seeing a worrying trend of “home grown terrorism”.  This is not an abstract or an offshore threat; it is real and it is amongst us.  I have mentioned the disrupted terrorist plots in Australia.  Three of these planned attacks would have been the work of home-grown groups, with little or no direct contact with al-Qa’ida or its overseas affiliates.^[5]

Worryingly, too, we are continuing to see a number of Australians seeking to travel overseas for participation in – or facilitation of – terrorism-related activities. My concern is that such people may target innocent people overseas, assist those who would do harm to our nation, or might return to Australia with a greater knowledge, training and intent to carry out an act of terrorism back home.

And the sickening shooting rampage and bomb attack in Norway by a right wing extremist reminds us that the threat to our people can come from different directions, and in different guises – even from those who are blonde and blue eyed.  It also demonstrates the difficulty in identifying and neutralising the terrorist “loner” – the person who operates outside or on the periphery of terrorist networks.

ASIO’s role in counter terrorism is to provide the intelligence that enables us to identify potential threats within our communities so as to be able to nip them in the bud, before they develop to the point where an attack is imminent.  To do this, we have to work with the communities from which terrorists may emerge.  This is not always easy, given that many of those communities come from countries where there may have been good reason to be deeply afraid of intelligence services.  Ultimately, however, many potential terrorist developments are avoided because ASIO and law enforcement are able to work with the communities, on the basis of mutual trust and understanding.  A large number of ASIO’s intelligence leads come from within the community, from the fridge magnet advertising the counter-terrorist hotline, or from concerned citizens.  Nobody is more pleased than the ASIO officer when our inquiries tell us there is nothing to worry about.

I see a parallel between ASIO’s counter-terrorism vigilance and the role of the anti-virus software we all need to install on our computers. The anti-virus software works quietly in the background, precisely targeting known or suspected viral activity, ignoring what is benign, interrogating what is suspect, alerting you to what is dangerous and taking action to neutralise the threat.  The anti-virus companies are constantly researching the viral environment, developing antidotes and regularly updating the software you have loaded onto your machine.

ASIO operates in a similar way.  At the same time, such is the unfortunate nature of the threat that we have to get it right every time, the terrorist needs to succeed only once for there to be terrible consequences.  Like the software protectors, I cannot give an absolute guarantee that we will be successful every time, but I believe the government, through ASIO and through law enforcement, is taking appropriate measures to protect Australians from terrorism.  We do so in a carefully targeted manner, ever mindful of the need to avoid unnecessary violations of the privacy of our citizens.

In short, the threat of terrorism in Australia remains real and it is persistent. Individuals inspired by violent extremist jihadist ideology remain committed to undertaking attacks in pursuit of their cause and they are present in many countries, including Australia. We cannot afford to relax our vigilance.  But nor, I stress, should we become paranoid and allow the fear of terrorism to so dominate our existence that it imperils the relaxed harmony of our multi-ethnic democracy. Let Australians get on with their lives, alert but not paranoid with fear, and let the government get on with the business of providing appropriate security measures and security monitoring – without needing to go overboard.

Counter-Espionage and Counter-Sabotage

ASIO’s functions from the outset involved safeguarding our secrets against theft by those who would use them to their advantage and to the disadvantage of Australia and our friends.  Espionage has been a tool of government for a very long time.  Sunzi, that great Chinese advocate of the advantages of espionage, wrote his famous treatise on war in the Spring and Autumn period in Chinese history – somewhere between the fifth and the eight century BC.  His words on espionage still remain relevant today.  Put simply, if espionage were not successful, people and countries would not still be doing it.

Espionage using cyber means is a by-product, some in my profession might say a malicious by-product, of the information technology age.  The explosion of the cyber world has led to an equivalent explosion in the opportunities for the covert acquisition of information by both state-sponsored and non-state actors.  Espionage targets include national secrets, valuable intellectual property, commercial intelligence and information vital to the effective operation of critical national industries and infrastructure.

In recent years, the general public has gradually become aware of the extent to which their own privacy, not to mention their bank accounts, are now vulnerable to modern information technology.  The rapid development of this technology makes it incredibly difficult, and expensive, to keep up effective defences.  Conversely, cyber attacks are relatively easy and cheap and the gains from them can be enormous.  Because of this, we will continue to see cyber attacks against Australia and our allies increase, from both state and non-state actors.

Nor over the past year can we fail to have been reminded of the potential destructive or offensive capability that the cyber world now represents – alongside all of its obvious benefits.  Quite apart from cyber crime or cyber-based defrauding of individuals, we have seen cyber attacks bring down or disrupt business here in Australia.  Around the world, we have seen cyber attacks against national institutions or important elements of the commercial sector, such as the banks on whom we depend for our daily commerce – all this as a means of expressing protest.  What would happen if nation states brought their immensely superior cyber attack capabilities to disable military cyber command and control systems, national air traffic control systems, electricity and gas grids, transport infrastructure, inter-bank financial clearances – all of which are increasingly dependent on the Internet for their efficient operation?

There is therefore an imperative for the security intelligence and the national cyber expertise to develop protections against such possibilities.  This will require close cooperation with the private sector – both in the general commercial world and the cyber service provider world.

ASIO’s support for democratic values

Let me now turn to the second of my themes, the operation of a security intelligence organisation in a free democratic society based upon respect for human rights and the rule of law.

I previously spoke about Omand’s view of the responsibilities of the “Protecting State”; essentially these were to protect the citizen from threats and hazards, anticipate threats and take steps to prepare for them, and to build national resilience.  Intelligence agencies assist the State in meeting those responsibilities, even if the majority of the work must necessarily be conducted in secret and out of the public’s view. As my colleague, Director General of the Office of National Assessments, Allan Gyngell pointed out during the Lowy Institute’s 2011 Canberra Lecture in March: “Intelligence organisations can only do their job if they operate behind barriers of secrecy.”^[6]

ASIO officers are constantly alert to the fact that they will frequently be the target of criticism, sometimes quite strident, from people who consider even the concept of security intelligence as an inherent infringement of the rights of individuals. Some people hold such beliefs, possibly in good faith, because they are inherently suspicious of the exercise of government power and responsibilities in an area that must necessarily remain secret.

I believe, however, that the vast majority of Australians expect their governments to take all necessary action to protect the community and further the national interest, that the governments will use their intelligence services wisely and effectively and that they will strike an appropriate balance between the human rights of the community and those of the individual.

We should take comfort that, in the 35 years since the 1977 Hope Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, upon which the fundamental framework and operating principles of the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) have been based, there has been very substantial bipartisan support, in both legislative and political terms, for ASIO and its partner AIC agencies.

The prime reason for this is the soundness and rigorous logic of Justice Hope’s conclusions.  Hope, of course, was an outstanding New South Wales jurist and civil libertarian.  His recommendations sought to balance the competing needs for community security, individual rights, privacy and the requirement for accountability in organisations whose activities by their very nature cannot be subject to public scrutiny in the same way as a main roads department.

There have been a number of inquiries into the AIC since Hope’s seminal reports of 1977 and 1983.  The most recent, conducted last year by Mr Robert Cornall and Dr Rufus Black, is due to be released shortly.

Let me now share some of my personal views, as someone who has been deeply involved in the business of intelligence for the last nine years, and where I have come in that time.

My view is that the AIC has undergone extraordinary modernisation and development, both in adapting to new permutations of threat and in developing a credible national intelligence capability. That this has occurred within the basic framework set out for the AIC 35 years ago by Justice Hope is a palpable vindication of his vision and logic.

This growth in AIC operating capability over those nine years been the result both of very substantial investment in the AIC made by activist governments since 9/11 in response to new challenges and in the willingness of the agencies themselves to work together more effectively than ever before, including under the current Government’s expanded concept of national security.

A few examples will suffice:

.         The government has established an overarching coordination mechanism for the national security community, the high level National Intelligence Coordination Committee (NICC). As a result, AIC leaders have achieved inter-agency cooperation and mutual support on a level never previously achieved, gaining added value through combining better the capabilities of the agencies to achieve whole-of-government outcomes. This has not simply been an organisational or structural change, but has meant reaching far-reaching cultural change in the traditional closed-shop mentality of intelligence professionals – not least in my own agency, ASIO.

.         The government has been prepared when necessary to review the efficacy and adjust the legislation governing intelligence agencies to enable them meet the requirements of the rapidly-changing operating environment.

.         The multi-agency Counter-Terrorism Control Centre established within ASIO has enhanced our ability to set and manage priorities for the counter-terrorism community, evaluate agency performance against those requirements, and ensure the process of collecting and disseminating counter-terrorism information is fully harmonised and effective.

.         Similarly, the creation of a Cyber Security Operations Centre within the Defence Signals Directorate has greatly strengthened co-ordination of cyber security activities across the various agencies with cyber responsibilities.

In my view, despite the fact that some elements of the counter-terrorism legislation introduced over the decade have prompted considerable debate about individual human rights and the entitlement of the community to live in safety, governments have been getting the balance more or less right between these two sides of the same coin.

I say this taking into account not only the safeguards and accountability mechanisms that govern the counter-terrorism laws, but the whole regime of legally required operating principles that goes back to Justice Hope and beyond.  These include:

.         Precise legislation to define the role of agencies such as ASIO;

.         Individual Ministerial responsibility for agencies and specific ministerial authorisation for particularly intrusive activities; and

.         Oversight mechanisms through the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security, the role of the courts, extensive requirements for intrusive activities to require warrants and strong internal compliance mechanisms (including an emphasis on professional training and adherence to ethical standards).

But perceptions of that balance can change with time and there is therefore a ready logic in the role of the newly created Independent National Security Legislation Monitor to review and advise on the appropriateness of the legislative bases for the activities of an organisation such as ASIO.  I strongly support the concept of regular monitoring of the AIC and the efficacy of its legislation by appropriately qualified independent persons.[7]

The Future

An important part of the “duty of care” of the government of a “Protecting State” is to ensure that our national security apparatus is up to the mark.  Although of a different magnitude, the notion of intelligence being a national capability is conceptually no different from the obvious fact that our defence forces constitute a necessary national capability.  They are inter-related and both have to be maintained in a state of anticipatory readiness to meet current and future contingencies and threats.

The question now is whether ASIO and its partner AIC agencies are properly equipped for the future.

My response is broadly “yes” but we cannot become complacent. The security environment is continually evolving and so must we continue to find new ways to be even more effective. The public musthave confidence in its intelligence organisations that they are responding effectively to the changing times – even if they cannot always see them do it.

Part of my job as Director-General of Security is to ensure that ASIO is as best equipped as it can be, in an age of constant change, in terms of technology and the training and professionalism of its officers to be able to identify and deal with the current and future threat environments.  It is a sad fact that intelligence agencies have often been well-prepared for yesterday’s threat.

When we are surprised by a new catastrophe on such an unanticipated scale as 9/11, agencies go through a difficult process of accusations, reviews and then whole-scale and urgent remedial measures.

That has certainly been characteristic of the US intelligence community since 9/11.

As far as ASIO is concerned, I am very conscious of the need to avoid hasty disaster-driven reform. Far better that we prepare ourselves, through the acquisition of modern technology, through constant revision of trade-craft, through reform and modernisation of our operational and compliance processes, through constant training and retraining of our thoroughly professional staff, to put ourselves in a position better to identify and assess threats without the need for disaster-driven knee-jerk reactions. The staff of ASIO has responded admirably to the realisation that we cannot fight today and tomorrow’s battles with yesterday’s methods and have enthusiastically supported our internal reform and modernisation program.

What does ASIO need to meet our future requirements and where can we do better?

.         I do not see at this stage need for a further grand expansion of ASIO staff on the scale that we saw in the past decade, but over time we need to meet the  growth targets established for us five years ago – albeit when budget circumstances permit.

.         In the meantime we need to continue to attract and train specialist staff with the intelligence collection, technical and linguistic skills, not to mention the ethical foundations, required of a modern security service.

.         Similarly, we need to maintain a technological edge in a data acquisition, management and data exploitation.  This is a constant battle.

.         I believe we must continue to review and update our controlling legislation to ensure that our operating regime meets the requirements of changing threat patterns and changing technology, while at the same time maintaining the level of safeguard and assurance that modern democratic societies expect of their intelligence or security services.  In my experience, legislative change is always subject to intense scrutiny and often controversy, as is appropriate, but the Australian experience so far has been that practical common-sense has prevailed and broadly bipartisan solutions have been adopted.

.         I believe the future successes of intelligence services in our western democracies will depend on our enhancing further the practice of inter-agency information and capability-sharing, both internally and internationally, to enable the government to realise the operating efficiencies and enhanced outcomes that come from concentrating the AIC’s capabilities on particular threats.

.         I would like more employment diversity within ASIO.  Gender ratios are not an issue, but ASIO needs to recruit more people from within our newly arrived migrant communities.

.         Connected to this is the need for ASIO to develop even better outreach into our different ethnic communities, particularly Australian Muslim communities. I believe we can do better to convince the communities that ASIO is not a threat to their cohesion or their integration into Australian life, but it exists to protect them and to promote harmonious inter-communal relations.  ASIO has to work harder to build up the trust of the communities.  This is not always easy given that our job requires us to interview people and, if warranted, use intrusive investigative methods to carry out our function of protecting those very same communities. My constant message to our valued Islamic community is very simple: “ASIO is not against Islam, it is against terrorism; against terrorism that kills both Muslims and non-Muslims alike.  To achieve our common goal of a safe and harmonious community, we need to work with you.”  And the Australian people as a whole need to understand that it is both grossly unfair and counterproductive to community harmony constantly to blame this or that ethnic or religious group within our national polity for the terrorist or criminal activities of a tiny number of misfits or malcontents in their midst.

Conclusion

It is an admirable feature of our Australian democracy that organisations like ASIO will be subject to hyper-critical scrutiny in the media, which nowadays include blogs, Twitter, Facebook and the like.  That is no bad thing.  For ASIO professionals, it can sometimes seem frustratingly unfair, but they have learned to live with the fact that, given our need to operate covertly, it is usually impossible to respond to such criticisms or to set the record straight without compromising sources and methods.

But I think we can, from time to time, including on occasions like this, talk in general terms about the operating environment to reassure the public that ASIO is an organisation working in the public interest, for the protection of the public, that its successes can rarely be published, although its failures and criticisms of it always will be.  That is the lot of the professional intelligence officers within ASIO.  I am full of admiration for what they are doing.

I hope these remarks tonight have gone some way towards assuring you that Australia faces real threats to which we must remain alert and vigilant; but also to reassure you that Australia does have machinery in place that is appropriate for the task, that we need to ensure that machinery is constantly adapted to meet anticipated changes in threat and technology, and that machinery works in ways that conform to the rule of law while providing necessary, but never absolute, security protection for the Australian people.

^[1] Omand, David, Securing the State, New York, 2010, p,xvii.

^[2] ibid, p. xvii.

[3] <www.fbi.gov/about-use/intelligence/defined>

^[4] L’Estrange, M, text of speech to Sixteenth Annual Law Weekend, ANU, 9//9/11.

^[5] Of the 38 people prosecuted for terrorism-related offences in Australia, 37 were Australian citizens, and 34 were either born here or lived here since childhood.

^[6] Lowey Institute for International Policy: 2011 The Canberra Lecture: The Challenges of Intelligence, p. 7.

[7] Flood, Philip, Inquiry into Australian Intelligence Agencies, 2004, recommended regular reviews of the AIC every five years or so.