Much of the activity of most national intelligence/security agencies is secret ... secret from "independent" observers, from competing agencies in the 'intelligence community' and of course from the public. That means in the near term it is impossible for anyone outside the magic circle to rigorously appraise claims about the benefits of particular initiatives and determine whether money is being well spent. Responses to independent reviews are thus as much a matter of faith as of hard fact. (With the benefit of history - through for example the release of archival material, memoirs by intelligence operatives at the end of their careers and the occasional public inquiry after something has gone embarrassingly wrong in a way that couldn't be spun - it is clear that many spooks were misdirected, incompetent, egregiously wasteful or dismissive of legal frameworks.)
The Prime Minister's media statement indicates that the review found the agencies are "performing well following a period of significant growth to deal with the security challenges of the 9/11 decade".
• Australia and its citizens are safer than they would otherwise have been as a result of intelligence effortsThey would say that, wouldn't they.
• Our intelligence capabilities have contributed significantly to the global security effort
• Australia has built intelligence capabilities broadly commensurate with our growing security challenges
• The current basic structure of the Australian Intelligence Community (AIC) remains appropriate, including the operational mandate of agencies
The Prime Minister commented that -
the Australian intelligence community played a vital role in keeping Australians safe and protecting Australia’s security interests. The review demonstrated that the investment in the intelligence community over the past decade had resulted in more capability and increased performance.The overview [PDF] notes that the Review was primarily concerned with six agencies – Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS), the Defence Imagery and Geospatial Organisation (DIGO), the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO), the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) and the Office of National Assessments (ONA). After consultation with what a dyspeptic reader might characterise as the usual suspects the authors considered "six key issues" -
1. How well the intelligence community is positioned to support Australia’s national interests, now and into the future;They conclude that -
2. Development of the intelligence community over the last decade, including implementation of intelligence- related reforms;
3. Working arrangements and relationships between the intelligence agencies and policy and operational areas of government;
4. Working arrangements and relationships between the intelligence agencies and their international partners;
5. Arrangements and practices within the intelligence community for collaborative work, including legislative arrangements; and
6. Level of resourcing dedicated to the intelligence community and apportionment of resources across the community, noting that any future proposals would need to be offset consistent with the Government’s overall fiscal strategy.
• The intelligence community has grown substantially over the last ten years in response to increasing demand, mainly in relation to terrorism, fighting wars and countering espionage (including cyber attacks), proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and people smugglingReaders wanting insights into the AIC might benefit from consulting Democratic Oversight of Intelligence Services (Federation Press, 2010) edited by Daniel Baldino, Terror, Security & Money: Balancing the Risks, Benefits & Costs of Homeland Security (Oxford University Press, 2011) by John Mueller & Mark Stewart, reports by ASIO and its peers to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence & Security (JCIS) or even works such as Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State (Little Brown, 2011) by Dana Priest & William Arkin - the latter illustrative of confusion, proliferation and intelligence community driven real estate development.
• The investment made in building up the intelligence agencies has been justified and rewarded with more capability and increased performance
• That capability and performance has enabled Australia’s agencies to make an effective contribution as a member of the international intelligence partnerships and their relationships with those partners are at a very high point which some interviewees described as ‘the strongest they have ever been’
• The investment made in the intelligence agencies has resulted in improved capability and performance in Australia but it also gains Australia access to intelligence from international partners (through its contribution to common intelligence objectives) which Australia could never acquire by itself
• The intelligence agencies are working well together. They understand the need to cooperate and are paying close attention to developing fusion centres and other cooperative working arrangements (such as the Counter-Terrorism Control Centre) which have been developed over the last few years and will continue to evolve in future
• The intelligence agencies are also beginning to work more effectively with the other members of the recently expanded National Security Community. This evolution will take time – as is the case with any requirement for a significant shift in corporate behaviour – and it should be focused on those areas of common activity where closer cooperation can produce better results. The Review did not detect any lack of willingness to further develop these cooperative working arrangements
• The principal new challenges for the next five years or so will be to better align the AIC’s priorities with the new geo-political and technological realities facing Australia as a middle power with global interests.
