Australian Federal Police raid Canberra home of government official
The Australian Federal Police have raided the home of an officer of the Australian Signals Directorate, the nation’s cyber spy agency, who is also a former adviser to coalition ministers and husband to the ambassador to Iraq.
National
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The Australian Federal Police has raided the home of a government intelligence official in Canberra.
It comes as the AFP remains under fire over controversial raids on the home of a News Corp journalist and the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in June.
News Corp, publisher of this masthead, has confirmed with neighbours the AFP raided the home of Cameron Gill early yesterday morning in the Canberra suburb of Griffith.
Mr Gill reportedly works for the Australian Signals Directorate, the nation’s foreign signals and cyber warfare eavesdropping spy agency, and is married to Australia’s ambassador to Iraq Joanne Loundes.
He had been seconded from the department to work in the offices of Turnbull government ministers Dan Tehan and Mal Brough, both of whom occupied defence-related portfolios.
Three police cars arrived about 7am yesterday after advising lawyer Kamy Saeedi that a raid would be taking place.
Four officers wearing forensic gloves left shortly after 9.30 leaving two other unmarked cars and several officers inside the home.
Six more officers left about 2.30pm and another car load shortly after that.
The officers declined to speak as they left, some carrying items which appear to have been taken from the home.
Mr Gill’s lawyer Mr Saeedi also declined to formally comment.
“It’s a very complex situation at the moment, there is a lot going on... it’s sensitive and I cannot comment,” he said, declining to name his client or what he witnessed during the raid.
His office began receiving calls about the matter around 7am.
The officers arrived with a warrant and a typed four-point checklist of forensic digital “procedures” for “AFP procedures for examination of items moved under the Crimes Act”, including electronic stored devices and hard copy (Pics of this in system).
A spokesman for the AFP confirmed police were conducting the search but said it did not relate to “any current or impending threat to the Australian community”.
“The search warrant activity is in relation to a Commonwealth official,” he said.
“As this is an ongoing matter, it would not be appropriate to comment further at this time.”
An AFP spokesman declined to comment about the raid, which involved at least 12 officers at the home.
News Corp Group Executive Campbell Reid said: “We have always said the AFP raids on journalists were not intended to intimidate journalists but the people who have the courage to talk to journalists.”
“Today we are seeing that process of intimidation continue.”
It’s unclear if this raid is connected to the earlier raids on the ABC and News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst.
The AFP has refused to name the Commonwealth official being investigated at this stage.
The AFP’s raids on media in June into press freedoms and calls for stronger protections for journalists and whistleblowers.
Officers from the AFP raided the ABC head office in Sydney over a story about special forces operations in Afghanistan in early June.
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The ABC story by Dan Oakes and Sam Clark ran on July 10, 2017 and covered the controversial severing of dead Taliban fighter’s hands in Afghanistan.
The story said it was based on secret defence documents and caused a bitter rift within the Australian Defence Force.
Just one day earlier, the nation’s top cops descended on News Corp reporter Smethurst’s Canberra home.
The raid was conducted over a story she wrote, published in April 2018, that said the Defence and Home Affairs ministries were discussing radical new espionage powers that would see Australia’s cyber spy agency, the Australian Signals Directorate, monitor Australian citizens for the first time.
Following the raids on journalists, Canberra’s increasing culture of secrecy was called out at a press freedom summit in Sydney last week.
News Corp spokesman Mr Reid last week slammed the government for only appearing to believe in freedom of speech “when it’s an away game”.
As yesterday’s raid was being carried out, Australian Law Council president Arthur Moses, addressing the National Press Club, urged the media to continue questioning the Commonwealth’s growing national security powers, and “not just those that are threats to your freedoms”.
“Enacting laws in the name of national security without testing them can result in overreach and the erosion of basic freedoms,” he said. “Do not be quiet Australians. That is not your job.”
Originally published as Australian Federal Police raid Canberra home of government official
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