Extract from The Guardian
Intelligence agency wants right to question children as young as 14, claiming Australians are being radicalised at a younger age
A key Australian intelligence agency says it needs expanded powers to
question suspected foreign spies and their helpers, because there are
more currently operating in the country than at the height of the Cold
War.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) has also defended a proposal to gain the power to quiz children as young as 14 over terrorism matters, saying the agency holds significant concerns about the trend of Australians being radicalised increasingly early in life.
A bill introduced to parliament this month would expand Asio’s existing powers to subject people to compulsory questioning – which it has used 16 times since 2003 but only for terrorism-related intelligence gathering.
The bill would remove more intrusive detention powers that allow a
person to be held for up to seven days for questioning of up to 24 hours
during that time – a highly controversial measure that Asio says it has
never actually used.The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (Asio) has also defended a proposal to gain the power to quiz children as young as 14 over terrorism matters, saying the agency holds significant concerns about the trend of Australians being radicalised increasingly early in life.
A bill introduced to parliament this month would expand Asio’s existing powers to subject people to compulsory questioning – which it has used 16 times since 2003 but only for terrorism-related intelligence gathering.
At the same time, though, the reach of the compulsory questioning power is to be extended beyond terrorism to include espionage and acts of foreign interference along with politically motivated violence.
“The threats posed today by espionage and foreign interference operate at a scale, breadth and ambition that has not previously been seen in Australia,” Asio says in a submission to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security, which is reviewing the proposed laws.
“Espionage and foreign interference are affecting parts of the Australian community previously untouched by such threats, even during the Cold War.
“There are more foreign intelligence officers and their proxies operating in Australia now than at the height of the Cold War, and many of them have the requisite level of capability, the intent and the persistence to cause significant harm to our national security.”
The submission builds on Asio’s recent warnings about the heightened threat of foreign interference. The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, said earlier this year that the nations included China, Iran and Russia.
Dennis Richardson, a former defence department and Asio chief, has also previously warned China was “very active in intelligence activities directed against us” including in the cyber realm but also keeping “a watchful eye inside Australian Chinese communities” and deploying other soft-power levers.
According to the new submission – which doesn’t name any particular countries – Asio investigations have discovered foreign interference operations directed at government and industry figures, the media, members of diaspora communities and commercial investment decision-makers.
Australia’s military modernisation program is one of the “attractive targets for espionage by foreign states seeking to gain an advantage to the detriment of Australia’s security and prosperity”.
Asio says it has also seen foreign states “seeking to monitor and control the activities, opinions and decisions of sections of the Australian community in a way that impinges on freedom of speech, association and action”.
It is understood Asio regards the compulsory questioning power as “another tool in our toolbox” to target espionage and foreign interference.
While it often needs to monitor such activities covertly, it says there may also be a need to disrupt activities and seek information through direct questioning. Australia would want to gain an understanding of the damage done, including what had been provided to a foreign adversary and the potential flow-on effects.
It is believed that in some cases the security services may not mind if the questioning of a suspected spy prompted the country involved to rapidly extract the person from Australia, because disrupting the threat may be Asio’s top goal. But the legislation would provide the ability for authorities to seize a person’s passport and travel documents if required.
While people would not be “detained” as such, the bill would allow the person to be searched for safety reasons and to ensure they did not destroy evidence or tip people off. If they fled they would be committing an offence and the police could be called.
Asio has indicated the extended questioning power could also be useful in addressing the growing threat posed by neo-Nazis and rightwing extremists.
It is understood there was some discussion within the agency of potentially extending the compulsory questioning power to all of Asio’s security responsibilities – which also include sabotage, acts promoting communal violence, and serious threats to Australia’s borders. However, a decision was made to limit the reach to threats that can cause significant harm: espionage and acts of foreign interference and politically motivated violence including terrorism.
In its submission, Asio says the terrorist threat remains unacceptably high, with three counter-terrorism disruptions in the past year: two cases motivated by Islamist extremism, and one by extreme rightwing ideology.
Since May 2015, it says, one terrorist attack – the murder of NSW police employee Curtis Cheng by a 15-year-old shooter – and three disrupted plots have involved teenagers under the age of 18. Asio is worried “that vulnerable and impressionable young people will continue to be at risk of being ensnared in the streams of hate being spread across the internet by extremists of every ideology”.
The agency argues it is not asking for “a fishing licence” to question minors. In those cases the attorney general has to be satisfied the person poses a direct threat of committing politically motivated violence – not that they merely know someone else planning an attack. The attorney general must also weigh up the child’s best interests.
The bill would also allow Asio to use tracking devices with internal authorisation in certain circumstances, rather than requiring a warrant. Given the trend towards lone actors or small groups using easy-to-acquire weapons, Asio argues surveillance teams need flexibility to move quickly.
Critics say the bill represents a further widening of national security powers. The dean of law at the University of New South Wales, George Williams, argues aspects of the bill – including the ability to question 14-year-old children – were “troubling” and a case of “overreach”.
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