Yesterday The Age published a strange article by Ben Saul, professor of international law at the University of Sydney. The article argued that, by trying to prevent Australians from fighting in the Syrian insurgency, the Australian government is complicit in the Bashar al-Assad regime’s brutality. This post discusses some problems with the article.

The article’s key argument was that: “…while our government opposes Assad’s terror, Australian law paradoxically criminalises anyone who fights for the rebels – yet allows Australians to fight for President Bashar al-Assad.”

It ended with: “… we should not actively assist Assad by criminalising those who legitimately try to get rid of him, and by giving a free pass to those who fight for him.”

However, this “free pass” claim is false. It is illegal for Australians to fight for either side in Syrian conflict. Australians who fight for Assad face prosecution just as those who fight against him do, though not necessarily under the same laws.

In normal circumstances Australians can legally serve in a foreign military, but in this case it’s illegal because we have sanctions on Syria. Both the Federal Police and the Attorney-General’s Department have released official statements declaring that it is illegal for Australians to fight for either side. So the article’s underlying premise is simply wrong.

Unfortunately, there were other incorrect statements in the article. It argued that “… our federal terrorism law criminalises anyone who uses political violence against any foreign government. This includes violence limited to military attacks on military targets in a civil war and which does not target innocent civilians, and which may precisely aim to stop government attacks on civilians.”

This is again false. It is next to impossible to convict an Australian under federal terrorism laws for supporting a foreign insurgent organisation unless that organisation is one of the (currently) 17 proscribed by the Attorney-General.

This was demonstrated from 2007-2009 when an attempt use terrorism laws to prosecute three Victorian Tamil Tiger supporters fell apart. After the terrorism charges failed, the three men were charged and convicted under older legislation, Section 21 of the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945. Similarly, late last year a Melbourne man accused of trying to join Papuan insurgents was charged under old legislation, the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978. Our terrorism laws do not cover these situations.

Of these laws, the Crimes (Foreign Incursions and Recruitment) Act 1978 is the most relevant for Australians fighting against Assad, as it criminalises participation in foreign insurgencies.

Saul considers this law problematic, but it is a necessary law. Australia has an international obligation to prevent its territory being used as a base for violence against other countries, regardless of the nature of the regimes in those countries.

If a state allows its citizens to engage in private warfare against foreign countries, then that state itself is in effect engaging in warfare against that country. Whether Australia should be at war with another state is a decision for an elected government, not random citizens.

So preventing its citizens from engaging in hostile acts against other countries is a legitimate prerogative of the state. Australians don’t have a “right” to grab a gun and go shoot people overseas, and there are a hundred better ways to help people than joining a foreign insurgency.

This leads to the biggest problem with the article, the assumption that Australians joining the insurgency will help achieve democracy and human rights in Syria.

This is extremely doubtful. Let’s assume, dubiously, that a Free Syrian Army (FSA) victory will automatically produce a democratic regime that respects human rights. Even then, it’s unclear how a bunch of untrained foreigners turning up in their ranks will help.

The FSA itself is under no illusions that much good will come from overseas volunteers, particularly when the regime is trying to portray the rebellion as foreign-inspired. Just a fortnight ago the FSA’s political and media coordinator stated “we reject any presence of foreign fighters, regardless of where they are from. We have said that what we are missing in Syria is weapons, not men.” The Assad regime is more pleased about foreigners joining the insurgency than the insurgents are (though the extremist factions of the insurgency are very happy to receive foreign fighters).

Even if foreign fighters meaningfully contribute to an FSA military victory, we can’t assume that will achieve a humanitarian outcome. As Saul himself acknowledges, “even the mainstream rebel groups have the blood of innocents on their hands.” While the horrors of Assad’s regime are beyond doubt, the violence and chaos in Iraq after America deposed Saddam Hussein show that we shouldn’t make any assumptions about what will happen when Assad is gone.

Also, the article doesn’t address the national security based concerns about Australians fighting in Syria, which is surely relevant in a discussion of whether the government has right to prevent its citizens from taking part. Nor did it mention the government’s sanctions against Syria, which undermine the claim of complicity in the regime’s brutality. Admittedly an 800 word op-ed can’t address every angle, but those are big things to leave out.

However, on one point I partly agree with Saul. In a recent article I did implicitly suggest that it would not be wise or necessary for the government to prosecute all returning fighters and that they should take a highly discriminate approach, focusing specifically on threats to Australia. Most of the returned fighters will pose no domestic threat, and some might even prove willing and well-positioned informants.

But that’s entirely different to arguing that the government has no right to prosecute them, or that doing so makes us complicit in Assad’s brutality. That argument is as absurd as claiming that opposing Assad’s regime makes someone complicit in terrorism.

Update 1:

Ben Saul has provided a thoughtful response in the comments below, which is most welcome.

With regards to his second paragraph, I’m not convinced our federal terrorism law functions in the way he describes, but will look into it a bit more before responding.

Also, two major reviews of counter-terrorism legislation are being tabled in Parliament today. They will likely be very valuable reports that shed a lot of light on how our counter-terrorism laws function, but will probably be overshadowed by the Budget.

The latest EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Report came out today. Using this report and the previous six ones, I’ve made this chart of jihadism-related terror arrests in the EU during the past seven years.

The blue line at the top shows the total number of these arrests annually across the EU (except for the UK), while the other lines show arrests for key countries.

Enjoy.

This chart excludes EU countries with few, if any, jihadism-related arrests. Therefore the “Total EU (ex UK)” figure at the bottom of the columns is often larger than the total of the eight countries listed. UK figures are not included in Europol reports because the UK doesn’t provide its terrorism statistics in a manner compatible with the rest of the EU.

It’s worth remembering that jihadism is only one part of the diverse terrorism threat facing Europe. The report released today found a total of 219 “failed, foiled and completed attacks” in the EU during 2012. There were 6 jihadist attacks, 18 far-left attacks, 2 far-right attacks, 167 separatist and 26 unspecified attacks.

You can find the last seven EU Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports here.

I had an article published in The Conversation yesterday about the domestic security threat that may result from Australians fighting in the Syrian insurgency, particularly in light of Jubhat al-Nusra’s pledge of allegiance to al-Qaeda.

The article was also prompted by The Australian reporting on Saturday that the “number of Australians believed to be fighting in Syria has doubled in less than six months to about 200, and ASIO is concerned that at least 100 are fighting for radical al-Qa’ida offshoot, the al-Nusra Front.”

The figure of 200 Australians fighting came from “one senior government source”, and the number was seemingly endorsed earlier today by ASIO Director-General David Irvine.

I was sceptical of such a high figure, so in the article I pointed out some reasons to be cautious about it:

“This new figure cannot currently be verified, and should be treated cautiously until more information comes out. The estimate is higher than the ICSR’s maximum estimates for any European country, and one third of their maximum estimate for Europe as a whole. This seems doubtful, particularly as Australia usually has far lower rates of jihadist activity than many European countries.

Open-source research by myself and my colleague Shandon Harris-Hogan has found 17 cases of Australians allegedly involved in jihadist activity in Lebanon between 2000 and 2012. If the estimate of 200 Australians involved in jihadism in the Syria-Lebanon region since the outbreak of the Syria conflict is accurate, it represents an unprecedented escalation.”

Another reason for caution appeared a few hours after the article was published. Foreign Minister Bob Carr was interviewed on 7:30 and stated the following:

“There was a global figure quoted on the weekend in an interview I did that I can’t confirm or deny. The number of Australians who actually had been participating in the fighting would be a good deal lower than that 200 figure that was quoted. That 200 figure, if it is right, would include people who are raising money, expressing sympathy, people who have been described to me as Jihadist tourists turning up in a trouble spot.”

So it’s worthwhile being sceptical of unusually high estimates.

There is nonetheless substantial Australian involvement in the insurgency, raising serious security concerns. I hope you enjoy my article about it.

There has been some progress towards achieving due process for Australia’s “legal black hole” refugees. These are 60-odd people who the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has certified as genuine refugees, but then kept detained because ASIO gave them adverse security assessments.

The independent reviewer, retired Federal Court Judge Margaret Stone, has ensured they can now receive ASIO’s reasons for judging them a security risk. However, human rights advocates have pointed out the limitations of Stone’s role, and that it’s doubtful “the independent reviewer process will give refugees enough to be able to defend themselves effectively.”

A bigger question is why should an adverse assessment result in indefinite detention at all?

Given that ASIO’s adverse security assessment are being posited by the government as so serious as justify their current treatment, it’s worth reflecting on what an adverse assessment actually means.

At a talk in February 2012, Director-General of ASIO David Irvine used the following words to describe adverse assessments for visa applications:

“ASIO has, over the years, developed very careful processes that enable us to eventually make a predictive judgement as to whether this person might be a potential security risk to Australia, and the security here being defined in terms of section 4 of the ASIO Act. Someone who might be coming to Australia to conduct espionage, someone who might be coming to Australia to conduct an act of sabotage, someone who might be coming to Australia to conduct an act of terrorism, and so on.” [after 1:35:00, emphasis added]

Australia is detaining people indefinitely based on a predictive judgement that they might pose a security risk.

The type of risk does not necessarily involve direct danger to Australia. The available information (which is limited, but fortunately more is coming out) suggests that the adverse assessments are based on less immediate security concerns.

Most of the people detained are Sri Lankan Tamils suspected of involvement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elaam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers). A recent High Court case, Plaintiff M47/2012 v. Director-General of Security & Ors, allowed insight into the issues at stake in one adverse assessment, which revolved around the refugee’s alleged support for LTTE violence in Sri Lanka, not any threat of violence in Australia.

Involvement with the LTTE (or its subsequent incarnations) is a legitimate security concern, as Australia has an international obligation to prevent its territory being used as a base for violence against other countries. And sometimes support networks for external insurgencies can become threats to their host country. But there is a huge difference between a security concern and something that necessitates detention.

Some of the adverse assessments are not LTTE-related and likely have nothing to do with violence, such as one teenage Kuwaiti refugee reportedly deemed a security risk because his father was involved in people-smuggling.

So the detained refugees are hardly people suspected of planning to shoot up a shopping centre if released.

This is a weak basis for indefinite detention, and ASIO itself has not stated (at least publicly) that this treatment is required. The government, not ASIO, makes the decision to detain them, and in the February 2012 talk David Irvine said:

“ASIO does not have a view, and certainly not a public view, on whether people who receive adverse assessments generically should be held in detention or not. There are other ways, and other solutions, to that problem, and is up to the government to examine all the possibilities and make its decision.”

Yet most of our elected leaders see these security assessments as justifying the current system, which involves locking people up for potentially the rest of their lives. This is no exaggeration, as one adversely-assessed refugee has committed suicide and several more have attempted to.

This is why it is important to be aware of what an adverse security assessment from ASIO actually means.

These are not people proven to be dangerous, like paroled criminals. Indefinite detention is already at odds with liberal democratic norms, but in this case it’s worse because the detention is based simply on predictive judgements that someone might pose a risk.

Australia does not indefinitely detain convicted terrorists who planned acts of violence in Melbourne and Sydney.  It makes no sense to indefinitely detain people because of vaguer and less immediate security risks, and is not necessary.

It is difficult to find a single security expert who supports the government’s current approach, and several have expressed various forms of opposition to it. A report by the Joint Select Committee on Australia’s Immigration Detention Network also contains examples of expert opposition.

Our security agencies have extensive resources and powers to address the various risks these individuals may pose. Many conditions can be placed on released refugees to ensure this, including restrictive measures such as electronic tagging if in some cases there does turn out to be evidence of direct danger to Australia.

There are already many laws in place to allow this, and if neccesary new laws can be passed. As a Canberra Times editorial pointed out, “the legal and administrative mind is capable of devising any number of variations of supervised or monitored freedom, parole and conditional rights of residence in ways which secure all of the relevant interests.”

In short, the assumption that the ASIO assessments show that these refugees pose a danger that requires the current regime of indefinite detention is baseless. This is no knee-jerk critique; I have often defended ASIO and supported some of its most controversial powers. But its adverse security assessments do not justify the horror of indefinite detention.

Update 1:

The human rights volunteer organisation Right Now has kindly published a version of this post, with some edits.

Evan Smith from Hatful of History made a comment below “The Murphy raid” that’s worthy of a post in itself. This post presents the comment then adds some further points:

“….I’m very interested in how the Australian government reacted to the prospect of political violence in Australia in the 1970s. It seems that under the Gorton-McMahon governments, the primary concern was potential violence stemming from the left, such as the anti-Vietnam War and anti-Apartheid movements. Only under Whitlam is there any real assessment of the threat posed by Croatian nationalists and other anti-Communists in Australia.

When the Public Order Bill 1971 was introduced into Parliament (which included a Part dedicated to the protection of foreign embassies, consulates and representatives in Australia), Whitlam asked for the details of attacks upon foreign embassies and consulates over the last decade. The reply from the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Hansard, House of Representatives Parliamentary Debates (written answers), 7 April, 1971, 1651-1652) showed that 22 attacks had occurred since 1966. Of the serious attacks (such as arson or bombings) the embassies of Yugoslavia and the USSR experienced more (5 each) than those of the USA, South Africa and South Vietnam (4, 1 and 2 respectively).

Labour MP Horace Garrick complained that despite the emphasis by the Liberal Government on the issue of ‘law and order’ and the protection of foreign representatives, it ‘was not interested in law and order… when bombs were thrown by Fascist terrorists into the Yugoslav Embassy in Hawthorn’, adding ‘it appears that the Government condones this type of violence, as the only reaction to date has been to declare the Embassy a public nuisance and to ask the occupants to vacate the premises.’ (Hansard, House of Representatives Parliamentary Debates, 20 April, 1971, 1711)

Shortly after the POA came into effect, an internal report by the Commonwealth Police showed that during 1971 there was an increase on attacks on the South African embassy, coinciding with the demonstrations against the Springboks rugby tour, but these were mainly limited to anti-apartheid slogans being painted on the embassy walls, compared with the bomb attacks directed against the Yugoslavia and USSR embassies (Commonwealth Police Force Central Crime Intelligence Bureau, ‘Politically Motivated Violence and Vandalism in Australia 1971’, January 1972, pp. 7-13, A432 1985/6648, NAA).

Despite Labor’s suspicion that the Liberal Party and the security forces were in close contact with Croatian terror groups, a secret Cabinet document on political violence and terrorism in Australia prepared by the Attorney-General, Ivor Greenwood, for the McMahon government shows that the A-G believed that the ‘Yugoslav problem’ was ‘the greatest single problem’ for Australia’s national security. However Greenwood did advise against a Royal Commission into terrorism and violence (into the Yugoslav migrant community and/or wider political/terror organisations). (Ivor J. Greenwood, ‘Terrorism and Violence in Australia’, 28 September, 1972, pp. 8-9, A432 1972/5776, NAA)

However the issue was taken more seriously by the Whitlam and Fraser governments, who were concerned with the rise in international terrorism during the 1970s and were particularly warned by ASIO about anti-Communist emigres and the Ananda Marga. Disturbances outside Old Parliament House in the late 1970s by both groups encouraged the government to believe that these groups both posed a significant security risk. Also, with the number of sieges occurring at embassies in Europe increasing during the 1970s, as well as the kidnapping of foreign representatives, the Fraser government introduced the Crimes (Internationally Protected Persons) Act 1976 to give greater powers to police to stop potential acts of terrorism against foreign representatives and far greater penalties for those found guilty of offences against the Act. Andrew Hiller observed, the maximum penalties for offences under the 1976 Act, such as assaulting an internationally protected person, were ‘considerably in excess’ of those offered under the Public Order Act. (Andrew Hiller, Public Order and the Law, Law Book Company, Sydney, 1983, p. 195) The Fraser government drafted a report to examine whether further powers were required to stop AM and the Ustashe from conducting attacks inside Parliament House, but National Archive records seem to show that the report was not followed up.

I think further research should be conducted into this topic (I have a paper currently under review relating to these issues, btw) and you are correct that the ‘Murphy raid’ should resonate more in the recent political history of Australia. It’s great to see someone drawing on the history of counter-terrorism in Australia to illuminate contemporary practices and concerns….”

This comment is most welcome. He has dug up a bunch of interesting sources and the data on attacks against diplomatic facilities is particularly useful.

I’d be interested to know whether the PLO threat has come up much in his research. The Munich Olympics terror attack certainly panicked the government (see below), and from 1972-73 letter bombs were being sent to Israeli diplomats and Jewish businessmen throughout Australia. One PLO faction, the May 15 organisation, is believed to be behind the 1982 bombings of the Israeli Consulate and the Hakoah Club in Sydney. This investigation was recently reopened.

Also, Evan Smith is correct to dispute “Labor’s suspicion that the Liberal Party and the security forces were in close contact with Croatian terror groups”. Many on the left at the time thought that ASIO and the Liberal Party were in cahoots with violent Ustasha groups. But they were not, which is why the Murphy raid didn’t uncover evidence that ASIO was concealing information about the threat.

As he points out, in these Cold War years the Liberal Party and ASIO nonetheless did tend to be dismissive about security threats from the right and paranoid about those from the left. Conceptions of national security are not simply ideologically-neutral, but are often shaped by the dominant political forces of the time. For an example from another context, see this passage from Robin Corey recently cited on Abu Muqawama:

“Throughout much of US history, as legal scholar Randall Kennedy has shown, the state has deemed the threat to the physical safety of African Americans to be an unremarkable danger and the protection of African Americans an unworthy focus of its attentions.

… At the most fateful moment of white-on-black violence in US history, in fact, the national government deemed the threat to African Americans a relatively minor item of public safety, unworthy of federal military protection; by contrast, it deemed the threat to employers from striking workers an public emergency, worthy of federal military protection.”

Similar cases can be found throughout Australia’s security history. The state’s dismissive approach to the Ustasha threat in the 1960s and early 1970s was a more recent, milder version of this.

For those interested in further research on the history of counter-terrorism in Australia, Professor Mark Finnane gave a fascinating talk which is available here. He argues that one of the first (pre-Whitlam) drivers for Australia’s counter-terrorism measures was neither Ustasha nor Ananda Marga activity, nor Cold War demagoguery. Instead it was the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics during the tail end of the McMahon Government.

The key book addressing the history of Australia’s counter-terrorism architecture is Terror Laws: ASIO, Counter-Terrorism and the Threat to Democracy by Jenny Hocking. However, its central arguments are unconvincing. In effect, it argues that counter-terrorism measures were introduced as a deceitful attempt by ASIO and conservatives to reintroduce “counter-subversion” (such as monitoring of dissidents) in the wake of the 1978 Hilton Bombing. She argues that a similar process occurred after 9/11. As Finnane’s talk shows, this version of events doesn’t match the empirical record.

Another flaw of Hocking’s book is that it portrays the 1954 Petrov defection as simply a plot by Menzies to win an election, when it was a genuine success against serious Soviet espionage operations. As David McKnight argues here (paywalled), abundant archival information released over past decades has made this dismissive view of Soviet espionage unsustainable.

While I agree with her take that the process of conceiving of national security priorities and developing policies is inherently political (as discussed above), it does not follow that security threats like terrorism and Soviet espionage were largely exaggerated or fabricated. One should be able to take a critical stance towards the state without disregarding actual threats or treating all security measures as sinister plots.

The book’s still worth buying, but read it (as always) with a sceptical eye.

I’d also recommend two articles by Mark Finnane. One is Long Gone, But Not Forgotten which is about the Queensland Special Branch, and the other is The Public Rhetorics of Policing in Times of War and Violence: Countering Apocalyptic Visions (paywalled).

Update 1:

Evan continues this discussion over at Hatful of History. Another relevant post of his is UK counter-terrorism and Israel in the 1970s: Correspondence from Christopher Mayhew to Lord Balniel 1973. It discusses of how the UK faced the dilemma of trying to stop the PLO using British territory as a base for violence, but also of stopping Israel assassinating PLO representatives in the UK. This resembles how Australia experienced violence by both Ustasha groups and Yugoslav intelligence in 1960s and 1970s.

Update 2:

In the comments below, Evan answers my question about the PLO threat.

As you can see, the blog’s title and header pictures have changed. I started blogging just under a year ago, and, having found that I enjoy it, decided to revamp the site.

The new title, “the Murphy raid” refers to a pivotal event in Australia’s security history. This post explains this bit of history, the pictures, how they relate to the blog, and reflects on my experience of blogging so far.

What was the Murphy raid?

On 16 March 1973, Attorney-General Lionel Murphy and senior Commonwealth Police officers forcibly entered ASIO’s headquarters in Melbourne. Murphy suspected ASIO was withholding information on terrorist threats and undermining the newly elected Whitlam government.

The Yugoslav Prime Minister was due to visit Australia and there were concerns that local Ustasha groups were planning to assassinate him. The Ustasha was a Croatian fascist movement that had been allied with Germany in World War Two and had active networks in Australia. Dreaming of overthrowing Tito’s communist regime, Ustasha supporters bombed Yugoslav diplomatic buildings and social clubs throughout Australia in the 1960s and 70s. In 1962 and 1973 they launched unsuccessful military raids into Yugoslavia.

But the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) was relatively indifferent to this terrorist threat. ASIO was chiefly concerned with Soviet espionage and the perceived menace of the time, communist subversion. The NSW Police Force had uncovered evidence that a Ustasha group planned to assassinate the Yugoslav Prime Minister, which was passed through the Commonwealth Police to Murphy, but ASIO denied knowledge of these threats.

Not trusting ASIO’s assurances that they had no information to support these concerns about assassination threats, the Attorney-General entered their Melbourne headquarters on St. Kilda road. Murphy declared to the ASIO staff that “it is our policy to bring open government to Australia” and demanded to know if they had been hiding information from him. Murphy questioned the officers for hours while Commonwealth Police carted off documents.

It created a media storm, prompted a crisis in Australia-America intelligence relations, and became scandal for the Whitlam government (as the raid was accused of endangering security). Some ASIO officers were so outraged by the elected representative enforcing his authority that they speculated that Murphy was a KGB agent, and launched an investigation. Whitlam later described the raid as his government’s “greatest mistake”, but it marked the beginning of many positive changes.

The event, widely reported as “the Murphy raid”, is not widely known today. I wish it were better remembered, and so I’ve named my blog in honour of the event, which relates to the three key themes I blog about: security, terrorism, and human rights.

Security

The Murphy raid was also a key event in making Australia’s security services more democratically accountable.

ASIO has had a shady history. Under the management of General Spry, a Cold War hardliner and partisan of Menzies, ASIO successfully foiled some Soviet espionage operations. However, it also carried out mass surveillance on political dissidents it considered “subversive”, usually on the left. The organisation also attacked perceived enemies by using intimidation, dirty tricks, selective leaks to friendly journalists, and damaged people’s careers.

For that reason, the newly elected Labor government was unable to trust ASIO’s judgements about the threat of Ustasha terrorism, believing that ASIO was in denial over a far-right terrorist threat.

The Murphy raid signified changing times for ASIO. From 1973 on, the Cold War hardliners were gradually purged and measure after measure was introduced to make ASIO and other agencies more accountable.

In 1974 Whitlam established the Royal Commission on Intelligence and Security, which dug up, examined and condemned many of ASIO’s activities, leading to reforms.

In 1979 a new ASIO Act was passed, which narrowed the scope of “subversion” as a security concern and requiring ASIO to focus more on tangible security risks like “politically motivated violence”, while maintaining its focus on espionage and other traditional threats.

In the same year a Security Appeals Tribunal was established for citizens who failed ASIO’s security assessments, and the organisation was required to report to Parliament annually.

In 1983 Prime Minister Hawke established the Royal Commission on Australia’s Security and Intelligence Agencies (RCASIA). This was the second Royal Commission into ASIO, and the first one for the other agencies.

Following this second Royal Commission, Attorney-General Gareth Evans successfully pushed for amending the ASIO Act in 1986 to remove “subversion” as a security interest altogether.

In 1987 the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security was established, which has been described as “a standing Royal Commission on all Australian intelligence agencies”, and celebrated 25 years of existence in February 2012.

In 1988 the Parliamentary Joint Committee on ASIO, ASIS and DSD was created, providing further oversight, and after the Cold War ended the security agencies experienced further reviews and inquiries, though no subsequent Royal Commissions.

So from the Murphy raid onwards, the trend has been one of increasing accountability for Australia’s intelligence agencies, even when accompanied by expanded budgets and new powers.  Unfortunately, there are still some areas where accountability is lacking, and overall Australian intelligence agencies are less open and accountable than those in some other Western democracies.

This is an important but under-studied issue. Intelligence-gathering is a necessary function of the state, and is vital for tackling crime and national security threats. Intelligence-gathering helps protect citizens’ security, rights and ultimately democracy, but only if there is adequate democratic oversight and accountability mechanisms.

The appropriate role of security agencies in a democracy is a key theme of this blog. It’s represented by the first photo, which shows the Wireless Message Sender used by Ivan Fedorovich Skripov, Soviet spy caught by ASIO.

Terrorism

The Murphy raid also marked one of the first times an Australian government regarded terrorism as a major security issue. In one sense the Murphy raid was a failure, as he did not find evidence that ASIO had been hiding information from him. However, he did find something damning.

What he found was that ASIO had little information on the Ustasha threat at all. This confirmed public perceptions that ASIO was neglecting a key security issue. There had been a surge of Ustasha bombings in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane during 1972 (which injured people and damaged property but fortunately cause no deaths) and the authorities appeared helpless. An editorial in the Sydney Mirror asked:

“Just what does the Australian and [sic] Security Intelligence  Organisation actually do?… At enormous expense ASIO screens migrants. At enormous expense it operates a network of spies and informers from its ugly, but expensive, headquarters in one of the choice parts of Sydney, Kirribilli. They’re a dab hand at tagging woolly academics; they’re adept at keeping an ear to the nations campuses. But when terrorists explode bombs in Sydney, ASIO hasn’t a clue”

The raid and subsequent events prompted security services to focus more on terrorism than before. Before the end of the year, a meeting between all Police Commissioners and Commonwealth officials established the first National Anti-Terrorist Plan, and much of the counter-terrorism architecture that has lasted to today. Later legislative changes ensured that terrorism would become one of ASIO’s prime security concerns.

This was a necessary change. Many acts of terrorism (both attempted and successful) were carried out in Australia over the following decades, by supporters of many causes: Ustasha, Ananda Marga, Armenian nationalism, Palestinian nationalism, far-right Australian nationalism, far-left extremism, opposition to the Family Court, anti-abortion zeolotry, and jihadism.

Fortunately, no single one of these post-Second World War acts of terrorism ever killed more than three people. Yet political violence is a serious, if intermittent, threat in Australia and several groups have plotted mass casualty attacks but been foiled by security agencies. Globally, terrorism remains a major transnational security concern, and will likely continue to.

Terrorism is a key theme of this blog, probably its most prominent theme. It’s represented by the second photo, which shows the aftermath of the bombing of the Sydney Hilton Hotel in 1978. The attack occurred during the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and killed three people. The perpetrators were never found. Instead, three people were wrongly imprisoned for the crime, having their convictions overturned seven years later.

Human rights

Less directly, The Murphy raid also relates to the final theme of this blog, human rights.

A month after the Murphy raid, Yugoslavia announced that it had executed three of the Croatian-Australians accused of carrying out an incursion into the Communist state. The Australian government rightly objected, highlighting a dilemma that recurs today.

Australia has an international obligation to prevent its citizens or residents from posing security threats to other countries (more so now with passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373). However, Australia also has an international obligation to promote human rights and a duty to protect its citizens from mistreatment.

Australian citizens are often arrested overseas on suspicion of terrorist activities (Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks are merely the most well known examples). Sometimes they are tortured or face less-than-transparent judicial proceedings, creating both moral and practical problems for counter-terrorism cooperation.

Moreover, Australia itself has not been innocent of human rights abuses, sometimes carried out in the name of counter-terrorism and security. This was also seen in the aftermath of the Murphy raid.

The Whitlam and then Fraser governments rightly cracked down on Ustasha terrorism, but the entire Croatian-Australian community became stigmatised even though only a very small number of people were involved in the violence. This has obvious parallels to the situation faced by Australian Muslims more recently.

Also, Tito’s Yugoslavia was a brutally repressive regime and assassinated its opponents abroad, including in Australia, and certainly didn’t distinguish between peaceful and violent opponents. Some of the incidents attributed to the Ustasha were actually set-ups by Yugoslavia’s State Security Administration (UDBA) and led to dodgy prosecutions. UDBA’s willingness to manipulate Australia’s legal system to take down enemies is in some ways similar to certain Mossad activities, and to the suspicions that Sri Lanka might be feeding false information to ASIO about Tamil refugees.

Human rights have rarely been an explicit theme in my writing, with the exception of articles on refugees who are detained indefinitely after receiving adverse ASIO assessments. More often human rights are an implicit theme of this blog, particularly in posts concerning the role of security agencies in a democracy. As discussed above, without democratic oversight and accountability mechanisms, security services can pose a threat to their own citizens and to democracy.

Human rights are represented by the third photo, which is an ASIO surveillance photograph of citizens peacefully protesting against the Vietnam War. At the time such surveillance was routine. This was chosen to contrast with the first photo, which represented an example of legitimate ASIO activity.

What’s it all for?

So that’s how the new title and pictures encompass the key themes I’ve been blogging about for nearly a year. This blog will continue to address these themes, and continue focusing largely but not exclusively on Australia.

Thanks to all of you who’ve been reading this blog, if I didn’t have readers I probably wouldn’t continue doing it.

I had a few key goals when I started blogging: to get feedback on ideas while they were still in the formative stage, to make myself write more, and discuss issues of interest online in greater depth than I was able to on Twitter.

It’s been a success in those ways; my only disappointment is that I’ve posted far less frequently than I had planned. Otherwise I’ve greatly enjoyed it and hope you have enjoyed reading it and that you continue to.

Finally, the 40^th anniversary of the Murphy Raid passed last Saturday without any mention in the media. This is a shame. Discussion of current security controversies should be informed by past experiences, and hopefully this blog can help that to happen.

One year ago today, Rafael Epstein and Dylan Welch reported that the SAS were engaged in espionage operations in Africa, which constituted “an unannounced and possibly dangerous expansion of Australia’s foreign military engagement.”

According to their report, the SAS were carrying out secret operations in African countries such as Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Kenya, “gathering intelligence on terrorism and scoping rescue strategies for Australian civilians trapped by kidnapping or civil war.”

I have no idea how accurate the story is, but bring it up to make a separate point: since this story broke on 13 March 2012 there has been no further information on this issue.

In contrast with the huge amount of detailed reporting (of varying quality) available on US special forces, no one in the Australian media has confirmed or contradicted anything about these reported SAS operations in Africa. The government provided only the vaguest of responses, and felt under no pressure to divulge anything.

Instead, the story was quickly forgotten about, leaving a year-long silence.

This is further evidence of a problem that journalists, academics and others have highlighted for years: Australia’s unusually high level of secrecy on national security matters. The Australian Defence Force’s restrictive media approach mean we have far less idea what our special forces are up to compared to some other democracies like the United States.  This is similar to how our intelligence agencies have blanket 20-30 year freedom-of-information exemptions that aren’t seen in comparable countries like the US, Canada and New Zealand. We also have only a handful of committed and experienced national security focused journalists digging away at these issues.

This is a shame.  The story raised serious questions, such as whether SAS soldiers have adequate legal protections for espionage operations, and what their status is if captured.

It also raised the question of whether decisions to deploy the military will be wise if they are made secretively and only among a small group of people, which is particularly relevant on the ten-year anniversary of the Iraq war.

Update 1:

A Lowy Institute submission reported in The Age on Thursday made a similar point about Australia’s excessive military secrecy. It stated that “Australia often lags behind our allies when it comes to defence transparency.”

Also, here are two reports about Australian strategic interests in Africa, which can provide some context for whatever deployments may or may not be happening:

AFRICOM and Australian Military Engagement in Africa
MAJ Matthew J. Cuttell, Australian Regular Army
School of Advanced Military Studies, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
2008

Africa and Australia’s Interests
Multiple authors
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
May 2009

A recent blog post by Cristina Archetti argued that online radicalisation is getting too much attention relative to other factors behind jihadist terror plots.

I agree with that, and this post present some of my own thoughts on online radicalisation (some pulled from earlier writings), and I would like to hear recommendations of further research sources from the readers.

Public discussion of online radicalisation

To argue that the role of the internet in violent extremism has been exaggerated, Archetti used the example of the jihadists recently convicted of planning a bombing attack in the UK.  She argued that the British media focused overwhelmingly on the plotter’s use of extremist material like Inspire magazine, as if it had a greater radicalising influence than their offline activity (which included training trips to Pakistan). This approach assumes “that stumbling on Al Qaeda cleric’s online sermon (or even consuming that material over time) will turn an ordinary individual into a radical bent on the mass slaughter of fellow citizens.”

Her argument counters a good deal of public discussion on the jihadist threat, including in Australia. In 2011 an Australian security specialist called for banning online extremist material, arguing that “the growing risks of internet radicalisation, especially among vulnerable youth in the West, now outweigh both the argument of security agencies in favour of monitoring online material for intelligence purposes, and the civil libertarian argument concerning free speech.”

So, is Archetti correct? Has the internet’s role been overhyped in discussions of jihadism?

Existing research

Plenty of current scholarship supports Archetti’s point. Tens of thousands of people might view online extremist material but only a very small number of them engage in violence. It’s necessary to identify what differentiates the violent few.

One large-scale research project by the UK think-tank Demos, which interviewed terrorists and compared them with non-violent control groups, found that members of the control groups had also often viewed online extremist material. The difference was that the violent ones were more likely to have shared the material with each other and discussed it as a group, showing the importance of social dynamics in radicalisation.

This can be combined with other research to show that if the group in question has access to training camps and conflict zones or includes people with previous jihadist involvement, they are far more likely to turn to violence than the many other people who view online extremist material.

For example, a recent UK Home Office report found that “the internet does not appear to play a significant role” in jihadist radicalization compared to “personal attachments to radicalizing agents.” Recent research by Thomas Hegghammer found that 46% of all jihadist plots in the West between 1990 and 2010 included a “foreign fighter”, someone who had trained or fought with a jihadist movement overseas.

While this does mean that 54% of plots occurred without the involvement of someone with overseas jihadist experience, those plots were less likely to be effective. Similarly, Anne Sternersen and Petter Nesser have shown that jihadists have not been able to acquire valuable terrorist skills through the internet. Gaining effective skills for violence usually requires physical travel.

None of the above suggests that the internet doesn’t play a role, simply that additional factors are usually needed for people to turn from online activity to terrorist plots.

Australian examples

This has particularly been the case in Australia. While Hegghammer found that 46% of jihadist plots in the West involved a foreign fighter, his data indicates that 100% of Australian plots did.

Furthermore, in Australia’s four major plots the jihadists do not appear to have first met each other online, communicated extensively online, or partaken in technologically sophisticated plots. While the publically available information on some of these plots is limited, the evidence so far suggests the internet has been less important for jihadist radicalisation in Australia than real-world social networks that include people with experience in (or access to) camps and conflict zones.

For example, the Pendennis plotters’ certainly downloaded extensive extremist material (including instructional material), and were particularly enamoured with the works of Abu Musab al-Suri. But they were also part of tight-knit like-minded groups which included multiple members had trained in al-Qa`ida and LeT camps, and had a self-taught religious leader providing a theological basis for violence in Australia. This makes it doubtful that the internet was the decisive factor behind their radicalisation.

Where to now?

If the internet’s role in jihadist radicalisation is so often overhyped, where should we turn for reliable information on what actual role it plays?

Aaron Zelin’s report on The State of Global Jihad Online is very valuable, and Peter Neumann’s Countering Online Radicalization in America looks promising but I haven’t read it yet.

Beyond those, I can’t think of other examples. I’m also conscious that there may be compelling scholarship that I’m unaware of arguing that online radicalisation is a major factor. After all, on some rare occasions individuals have radicalised online by themselves, as seen with Jihad Jane or Roshonara Choudhry.

So, readers, what further sources would recommend? Please let me know in the comments or on Twitter.

Update 1:

On Thursday, Extremis Project published a post titled Al-Qaeda’s Cyber Warfare: The Virtual World of Extremism, which provides a good example of the viewpoint I am arguing against: “The recent case of the 3 men convicted of terrorism offences in Birmingham highlights how easily people can be radicalised through the Internet by websites and online videos/sermons.”

Anne Sternerson has a new journal article out titled ‘Bomb-making for Beginners’:Inside an Al-Qaeda E-Learning Course. It builds on the her 2008 article which I cited above:

“An article published in 2008 argued that while there is an abundance of training literature on radical forums online, the Internet does not function as a “virtual training camp” for Al-Qaeda – mainly, because there is no organized effort on part of Al-Qaeda Central to train people online. Others have argued that Internet training would never really replace real-life training because the Internet training can only transfer implicit but not tacit knowledge, i.e. the skills that can only come from hands-on experience.[13]

 

This paper argues that Al-Qaeda Central is still not making a determined effort to train followers online. However, online training courses organized by “jihobbyists” and forum administrators have become somewhat more professionalized over the past three years.”

 

Also, in the comments below Ramananda Sengupta provided the following links:

http://www.isodarco.it/courses/andalo12/doc/Zarqawi%20to%20Awlaki_V2.pdf

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1337/uk_couple_radicalised_online_accused_of_planning_to_attack_jewish_targets

http://www.strategicdialogue.org/StockholmPPN2011_BackgroundPaper_FOR%20WEBSITE.pdf

Australia’s far-right scene usually gets little media attention. Radical political movements often struggle to be noticed in the media, and that’s probably a good thing. However, it creates a discrepancy in reporting when violence is concerned.

If a far-right extremist is prosecuted for a violent crime, the arrest, verdict and sentencing are usually reported, but journalists will rarely provide day-by-day reports of the trials, interview people involved, or push to get suppression orders lifted.

This contrasts with reporting of Australia’s jihadist scene, which generates much more sustained and detailed coverage. This is partly justified because jihadism has posed a much greater threat of mass casualty violence against Australians this century, but even so the prospect of far-right extremist violence is under-acknowledged in public discussion.

For this reason it was interesting to see three news stories in the last week relevant to anyone interested in Australia’s far-right fringe. This post summarises these stories and provides background information.

Plans for Wilders’ visit

Yesterday the Sydney Morning Herald reported that far-right radicals are urging “patriots” to rally in support of Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who is touring Australia as part of his campaign against Islam. It’s unclear if they will manage a better turnout than the anti-climactic rally at the Melbourne State Library in September.

Also, a Slackbastard post shows some division on Australia’s far-right about Wilders’ impending visit. One activist, Welf Herfurth, called for rallies in support of Wilders, but then retracted it because Wilders is a Zionist.

This table helps explain some of these tensions in far-right circles. In short, neo-Nazis and white nationalists worry that a primarily anti-Muslim focus will dilute their message against Jews and non-whites generally.

A 2007 interview with Jim Saleam makes this case here. He complained about “so-called Australian patriots who are using the awareness of Islam to posit a pro-American foreign policy, which includes support for Israel” and that “Australia runs the risk of Asianization not Islamicization.”

Saleam is a leading figure in Australia’s small far-right scene. He is a white nationalist who was involved with neo-Nazism in the 1970s and has an extensive criminal history. He currently leads the Australia First Party, which recently won a seat in Penrith Council.

Slackbastard also states that another far-right group, the Australian Protectionist Party, has fallen apart. Its largest branch has disbanded and wants to reform itself using Wilders’ Freedom Party as a model. In my table I grouped the Australia First Party and the Australian Protectionist party together as white nationalists, but it is a broad category and there are significant differences between the groups. The Australia First Party leans closer to neo-Nazism than the Australian Protectionist Party ever did. For example, unlike the AFP, the APP does not cast “Jewish bankers” as an enemy.

Key APP members might now be trying to move further away from these circles and form a primarily anti-Muslim party, which would have a greater chance of achieving popular support. However, the Rise Up Australia Party is better positioned to capitalise on anti-Muslim sentiment.

Neo-Nazi being sentenced over guns and bombs

A Victorian County Court is currently sentencing a former soldier on weapons and explosives charges. He had described himself as a neo-Nazi, possessed white supremacist material, and had made notes expressing intentions to kill various people such as his former teacher.

The 23-year-old man had four guns, a silencer, bullets, a baton, a home-made knife and knuckle-duster. He had also made pipe-bombs and filmed himself testing explosives. He was described as delusional and paranoid, but very smart, with an IQ of 120.

He was not charged with terrorism offences, but with other offences such as “making improvised explosive devices for an unlawful purpose, causing an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property and a variety of offences related to manufacturing and possessing weapons.”

Violent skinhead appeals sentence

On 31 January the Herald Sun reported that neo-Nazi skinhead Shannon Hudson has lodged an appeal against his sentence for bashing a Vietnamese student.

Shannon Hudson, along with another Victorian neo-Nazi, Wayne O’Brien, had been sentenced on 12 December 2012 for the unprovoked attack. The two men were part of a skinhead group that called themselves Crazy Whiteboys. The judge described their commitment to neo-Nazism as superficial, as more of a style than an ideology: “”I am of the view that a lot of your discussions and talk about skinheads and white supremacy, and your Heil Hitler signs, were not really understood by either of you.”

You can read the sentencing document here, listen to a segment of the sentencing here, or listen to the whole thing here. A third person was involved in the bashing, but he was dealt with by the Children’s Court and no information is available on his case.

Unlike O’Brien, Hudson had an extensive criminal history and refused to cooperate with the police, so his appeal is unlikely to be successful.