The " Spying " Game !

 Internal security in Australia rests in the hands of ASIO, the mysterious counter espionage agency based in Canberra and referred to as the " Spooks ".   In a rare moment of candour, it's boss has revealed that it has broken several spy networks trying to infiltrate our military secrets.  Mike Burgess declined to name the countries of origin of the agents involved, but did mention that attempts had been made to recruit Australians with top level security clearance to learn the secrets of our military technology. 

We tend to think of spying  as a war time activity, but even in a peace environment there are countries with ill intent to Australia who try and influence elections here to their advantage.  Often this means introducing false news content to try and swing public opinion behind candidates of their choice when this nation goes to the polls.

He said a number of foreign agents had been kicked out of the country in the past twelve months  He was careful to avoid mentioning the exact numbers, but hinted that this would run into double figures. As well as spies, ASIO  was keeping watch on " religiously motivated  right wing extremism " which had risen from about one third of ASIO's caseload to forty percent in recent times.

Another threat to the nation came from " religiously motivated  violent extremism " and ASIO     was now avoiding using terms such as " Islamic extremism " as this was offensive to  followers of the Islamic faith who had no interest in violent activity but found themselves lumped in with violent zealots.

People  often think we are talking about skinheads and swastika tattoos.  Today's  ideological extremism is more likely to be motivated by a social or economic grievance than national socialism.  More often than not,  they are young, well educated, articulate and middle class, and not easily identified.

While ideological extremism was on the rise, religious extremism was an enduring threat with IS last year releasing  a video  referencing the bushfire crisis to encourage arson attacks in the west.  This circulates on public media and finds a wider audience.

ASIO does not seek publicity but it does its work quietly and it is much to its credit that we have had few violent incidents originate in this country, considering we are a migrant nation and just about every country and culture in the world has found its way to our shores.

Security organizations are mistrusted in many parts of the world because of the image presented in the movie industry.  In this electronic world in which we now live new means of communications are constantly evolving and it is getting harder to keep state secrets under lock and key.  The innovation of the computer and its incorporation into commerce leaves us vulnerable to outside influence using the ever developing technology to by-pass our security systems.

It is comforting to know that ASIO has people matching those skills and using them to weed out those who seek to interfere with our democratic process !