ASIO steps in as foreign spies court ‘government figure’
The Australian domestic spy agency, ASIO, has revealed it intervened to have a government figure’s security clearance revoked because of their contact with a foreign spy agency.
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A foreign spy agency had regular contact with an Australian government figure with a high-level security access, ASIO has revealed.
The Australian domestic spy agency has revealed it intervened to have the government figure’s security clearance revoked because of the risk the contact with the foreign spook agency posed.
The case, without any identifying detail, was revealed in ASIO’s annual report for 2018-2019, tabled in federal parliament on Wednesday.
“An ASIO investigation revealed that an Australian government clearance holder was in ongoing contact with a foreign intelligence service in Australia,’’ the report states.
“We assessed this contact could allow the clearance holder’s access to sensitive classified information to be exploited.
“The clearance holder worked in an area of the Australian government of interest to the foreign intelligence service.’’
ASIO said it had conducted a security assessment of the clearance holder to determine “whether they had been an unwitting subject of an intelligence cultivation.’’
“We subsequently assessed their continued access to sensitive information allowed through a security clearance would represent an unacceptable and avoidable risk to national security from espionage and acts of foreign interference,’’ the agency said.
It said it had recommended the revocation of the official’s security clearance, and the recommendation was “accepted by the vetting agency and appropriate action was taken with the clearance sponsor.’’
The report says the agency conducted 32,887 personnel security assessments last year but did not give a figure for how many received an adverse assessment.
ASIO also revealed that a person who had provided logistics support to people “affiliated with’’ the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in the US had applied for a visa to come to Australia. ASIO intervened and the person’s visa was denied.
“We assessed the individual presented an avoidable risk to Australia’s security and issued an adverse security assessment in early 2019, resulting in refusal of the visa,’’ the report states.
The annual report, written under outgoing ASIO director-general Duncan Lewis, also said the agency was so swamped with counter-terrorism and counter-espionage investigations it was unable to fully meet its requirements for collecting foreign intelligence.
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“While the collection operations we conducted on behalf of partners during the reporting period yielded valuable and unique intelligence, the ‘partially achieved’ result acknowledges that we were unable to progress other collection operations requested by partners,’’ the report states.
“The ongoing high-tempo of counter-terrorism and counter-espionage investigations and operations continued in 2018-2019 to limit the resources available within ASIO to meet the foreign intelligence collection requirements of Australia’s foreign intelligence agencies.’’
The agency recorded a deficit of $14.4 million, of which around $6 million was overspending, and $8 million was a mandatory accounting adjustment for “employee and make-good provisions due to interest rate movement.’’