One of the police-state measures in the Abbott government\u2019s barrage of \u201cterrorism\u201d laws has generated a revealing debate within the media and political establishment about the media\u2019s key role in managing and manipulating public opinion in the so-called \u201cwar on terror.\u201d<\/p>\n
At issue is section 35P of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Act. It was inserted by the ASIO powers bill, which was passed by parliament a month ago, without one vote<\/a> being cast against it.<\/p>\n This provision puts a major new power in the hands of the government and ASIO, the main domestic spy agency. The attorney-general can now authorise \u201cspecial intelligence operations,\u201d in which ASIO agents infiltrate and act as provocateurs within targeted groups or political parties.<\/p>\n ASIO operatives are not only granted civil and criminal immunity for these illegal activities. Under section 35P, anyone, including a journalist, who \u201cdiscloses information\u201d about an operation can be jailed for five years. If that information could \u201cprejudice the effective conduct\u201d of the operation, they can be imprisoned for 10 years.<\/p>\n If these laws had been in place a decade ago, they could have blocked a string of revelations of government-AFP-ASIO frame-ups that helped expose the methods of the police\/intelligence agencies and discredit the \u201cwar on terror.\u201d One of the most prominent cases was that of Dr Mohamed Haneef, whose lawyers courageously leaked<\/a> to the media police documents showing there was no evidence against the young Indian doctor.<\/p>\n The introduction of section 35P points to a stepping-up of such operations in the latest \u201cterrorist\u201d scare campaign about Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), which is being used to justify Australia\u2019s involvement in the renewed US-led war in the Middle East.<\/p>\n Over the past decade, undercover ASIO and Australian Federal Police (AFP) agents have already entrapped victims into making alleged vague terrorist threats or preparations, resulting in major prosecutions<\/a>, accompanied by sensational media headlines about terrorist plots.<\/p>\n In 2008, for example, there was Operation Pendennis. Muslim cleric Abdul Nacer Benbrika and six followers were jailed after a police infiltrator offered Benbrika ammonium nitrate and took him to a remote hilltop to demonstrate how to detonate the explosive. That was the only \u201cbomb\u201d exploded by anyone in Benbrika\u2019s group. Nevertheless, they were convicted of being members of \u201ca terrorist organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n Section 35P also provides a wider mechanism for jailing members of any political party who expose an ASIO infiltration of their own organisation. ASIO has a 65-year history of such operations, directed almost exclusively against socialist parties and protest groups. This activity will no doubt escalate as public opposition grows to the bipartisan program of war, austerity and the overturning of basic legal and democratic rights.<\/p>\n Initially, as last month\u2019s parliamentary vote demonstrated, there was almost universal agreement within the ruling elite to back the extraordinary powers being handed to the government and the intelligence apparatus.<\/p>\n Attorney-General George Brandis insisted that section 35P could prevent damaging leaks, especially by whistleblowers like Edward Snowden, Chelsea (Bradley) Manning and Julian Assange. The Labor Party\u2019s shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus claimed credit for the proposal, which originated from the previous Labor government, and pointed out that Labor introduced similar powers to shield the AFP\u2019s undercover operations.<\/p>\n The Greens, who posture as critics of aspects of the \u201cterrorism\u201d laws, opposed the five-year jail term for disclosures that did not \u201cprejudice\u201d operations, but backed the 10-year sentence for damaging revelations. \u201cWe accept, as the Greens, that there should be some limits on revealing information that could potentially endanger an operation,\u201d the party\u2019s deputy leader Adam Bandt told parliament.<\/p>\n A September 29 editorial in the Australian<\/em>, the Murdoch media\u2019s national flagship, denounced several journalists for objecting to possibly being jailed for reporting on intelligence operations. The editorial accused the objectors of being \u201ccomplacent\u201d about the threat of terrorism.<\/p>\n Concerns, however, began to be raised within the establishment about the implications of section 35P. While couched in terms of opposing \u201ccensorship\u201d and protecting \u201cpress freedom,\u201d these concerns essentially related to the media\u2019s function in shaping public opinion, particularly in dealing with sensitive revelations that could be politically embarrassing for the government of the day.<\/p>\n Notably, in an October 23 speech, News Corp co-chairman Lachlan Murdoch warned against muzzling the media, while arguing that \u201cresponsible\u201d journalists could be trusted to serve the best interests of the \u201cnation.\u201d He pointed out that his grandfather Keith, who in 1915 defied British war censorship to alert the Australian government to the World War I defeat being suffered by the British-led Australian forces at Gallipoli in Turkey, thus helping to bring the catastrophic operation to an end.<\/p>\n News Corp and Seven West Media, another media conglomerate, launched a public campaign for an amendment to section 35P to exempt a report published in the \u201cpublic interest\u201d by a \u201cprofessional\u201d journalist, where the report did not identify an undercover agent.<\/p>\n Responsive as ever to the media owners, Labor Party leader Bill Shorten wrote to Prime Minister Tony Abbott last week asking him to amend the laws. In reply, however, Attorney-General Brandis insisted that section 35P should remain as it is, but the attorney-general should disallow any unwarranted prosecution of a journalist.<\/p>\n An editorial in last Saturday\u2019s Australian<\/em> (without mentioning its earlier editorial) condemned Brandis\u2019s proposal, saying it could make prosecutions under section 35P look \u201cpolitical,\u201d thus undermining \u201cpublic understanding and support\u201d for the intelligence agencies. It insisted that \u201csmall amendments\u201d were necessary to \u201cbetter safeguard Australia\u2019s interests.\u201d<\/p>\n The editorial\u2019s main argument was summed up by its headline, \u201cResponsible journalism assists national security.\u201d Arguing that \u201cgood editors would never jeopardise such operations,\u201d it declared: \u201cTo the contrary, the responsible reporting of their work, while it might occasionally embarrass governments, enhances public understanding and support for such agencies.\u201d<\/p>\n The editorial pointed to two considerations. The first was the media\u2019s role in promoting terror scares, often involving information from spying operations, in order to create the pretext for expanding police state powers. TheAustralian<\/em> gave the example of Operation Pendennis, which led to the jailing of Benbrika\u2019s group, during which the Australian<\/em> and other outlets ran false headlines that it planned to blow up a football grand final.<\/p>\n The second consideration was the media\u2019s role in damage control in the event that exposures occur that are harmful to the state apparatus\u2013such as the leaks by Edward Snowden revealing that the Australian Signals Directorate had bugged the phones of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and inner circle. In this case, the Australian<\/em> had \u201cenhanced public understanding and support\u201d by revealing the supposed rationale for the operation\u2013to probe links between the presidential palace and various Islamic groups\u2013despite the government\u2019s objections.<\/p>\n Far from being concerned about the draconian powers being given to the security apparatus, however, the campaign launched by the media owners, echoed by Labor, has the opposite agenda. It seeks to retain the media\u2019s capacity to manipulate public opinion so as to protect and enhance the security apparatus that will be directed against the working class.<\/p>\n This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the police-state measures in the Abbott government\u2019s barrage of \u201cterrorism\u201d laws has generated a revealing debate within the media and political establishment about the media\u2019s key role in managing and manipulating public opinion in the so-called \u201cwar on terror.\u201d At issue is section 35P of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Act. It […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":135387,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1614],"tags":[814,815,816,778],"class_list":{"0":"post-141372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-surveillance-big-brother","9":"tag-abbott","10":"tag-greens","11":"tag-labor","12":"tag-mark-keywords"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}