Espionage
I’ve written before about how, at the age of 25, I discovered that my father was a very senior member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, MI6.
I was visiting him in Washington, where he was serving in what had once been Kim Philby’s job - as the SIS liaison with the CIA. One reason that he chose to tell me on that visit, I think, was that during my stay at his house in Washington, some of his colleagues from London would also be visiting.
He needed to know that I would not say or do anything untoward. I was, after all, a long-haired journalist working for the Sydney rock station Double-Jay. Not exactly prime security material.
Continue reading "How ASIO got it right during a time it got so much wrong" »
The plummeting sales of newspapers worldwide have brought about an epidemic of soul-searching about the future of journalism: do people still want straight reporting in the age of blogs? Is there room any longer for large reporting organisations like newspapers and network TV News? Above all, who’s going to pay?
Whatever the answers to those questions, it’s a good time to be reminded of what journalism can be at its best, and the Washington Post has produced exactly such a reminder. If you read nothing else this week, bookmark this site.
Over two years, two Washington Post reporters have been assembling an investigative series into what they call Top Secret America, and the results are fascinating.
Continue reading "Quality journalism exposes the counter-terror industry" »
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DD Ball says:
Interesting if true. Maybe the Post is now reporting as Fox has, as the Post should have but didn’t for all those years, because the left don’t talk about such things. The left’s shortcomings include an intolerance to differing views, and so they miss all these things. Yes the collapse… Read more »
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Shane From Melbourne says:
You don’t bite the hand that feeds you oil- even if some of that oil money does come back in the form of terrorism….. Read more »
In the latest development in the fake passport controversy, Britain has expelled a senior Israeli diplomat and demanded a public assurance that Israel will not misuse British passports again.
This is in response to Israel’s Mossad spy agency allegedly killing a Hamas leader in Dubai in January, with the assassination team using forged foreign passports, including at least three from Australia.
However, you don’t have to be a chest thumping, Alexander Downer-like armchair warrior who relishes assassination to realise that western countries, including Australia, are overreacting.
Continue reading "Let’s not overreact to Mossad’s hit on a terrorist" »
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Dan says:
Paine, do whatever you want. However, you have only proved how ignorant you are (not just about international relations but about logic and debate), and how arrogant you are to think you have the capacity to judge other people, especially when they are involved in discussions which do not concern… Read more »
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Dan says:
Pine, if you are going to respond to me, at least indicate what you are responding to!!! 1) What the heck are you talking about? 2) What the heck are you talking about? 3) You should reread my exchange! I was simply pointing out that the reason Mossad would… Read more »
To the casual observer the Israeli embassy in Canberra looks like any other diplomatic mission in the leafy suburbs of Deakin and Yarralumla. Appearances can be deceiving.
The inside of Israel’s chancery building is more like a mini-fortress than the well-to-do family home visible from the street. Visitors are treated with all the caution you would expect from the world’s most suspicious and fearful regime whose enemies are everywhere, even quiet and peaceful Canberra.
There are no friendly receptionists offering cups of tea and visitors are greeted by lean looking men with crew cuts and bulges under their arms, ear pieces permanently in place. There are no smiles, no small talk, just searches, scans and an array of CCTV cameras.
Continue reading "Behind the no-nonsense world of Israeli security" »
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Dan says:
Pine, the only thing tiresome is that you presuume to know more about logical fallacies than I do. I don’t need to google anything; perhaps you should! (BTW there is a difference, but then you wouldn’t know much about that would you?) Read more »
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James says:
Well the proof will be in the pudding as to whether this makes Israelies safer or not. Ultimately I don’t think you can secure peace by killing people. Read more »
Oh the things we do for money.
Sometimes in life we have to compromise. It’s all well and good to have lofty ideals but occasionally there comes a time when the need to feast on something other than a cheese toastie overrides intellectual snobbery.
Students believe in all kinds of things they’ll eventually throw away. So, I thought, why not start throwing early? After all, how many grungy radicals do you know who, on leaving uni, ditched Trotsky for Swarovski?
Continue reading "True confessions: My time with Young Liberals" »
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H of SA says:
jake, an ad hominem is against a person, not an ideology. An attack on an ideology can never be called an ad hominem - the key is the hominem part, where hominem is supposed to remind you its againt a human. Read more »
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Carly says:
“Finally, considering that you self describe as left wing, that you would work for a libertarian think tank is something I find appalling.” You mean like the lunatics invaded the Labour Party? Wake up to yourself…the smoke you are selling is no longer being bought…there is no right or left… Read more »
I was 25 when my father first told me he was a spy.
It was 1977, and I was in New York as a tourist, on my first visit to the United States, and Dad was living in Washington.
I had not seen him since 1971, when I had spent two months with him and my stepmother travelling around Mongolia, where he was then Britain’s Ambassador. We were not estranged: we had just been living or working in different parts of the globe throughout that time.
Continue reading "The spy who loved me: how Dad came in from the cold" »
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tony says:
kim philby is the man responsable for tipping of comunist leaders in eastern europe, about things that were going to happen. This resulted in thousands of deaths and may have changed the course of history! In my opinion he is on par with the worst scum of earth! Read more »
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Leah says:
There was really nothing wrong with John Sawers’ wife putting those details on Facebook. It was common knowledge who John Sawers was and what he looked like and it would not have been difficult for anybody to find out where he lived. He wasn’t a ‘secret’ agent whose occupation was… Read more »
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