Over the years, a number of police raids have been conducted in Canberra and elsewhere in Australia to try to ascertain who might have leaked classified or confidential information to the public.
Very few of these raids were the result of a view that good governance or national security had been compromised by leaks and that such practices needed to be deterred. Rather, they were a result of ministers incensed at the disclosure of information they believed to be damaging to their public standing or reputation. As such, they were intended to intimidate or punish public servants or third parties (such as the media) for circulating or publishing that information.
The latest occurred on Tuesday when the Australian Federal Police sent a team of seven agents and two computer technicians to the home of a journalist from The Canberra Times to search for documents relating an article published in June, headlined ''Revealed: our spy targets''. The story, based on classified briefing papers prepared for Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, revealed that the Defence Intelligence Organisation kept close watch on uranium enrichment and ballistic missile development activities in a number of East Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea.
Of themselves, the briefing papers were unremarkable. No intelligence operatives were named, or operational secrets revealed. What made them newsworthy was the revelation that two Australian allies, Japan and South Korea, were the subject of intelligence-gathering activities. Even this would not have raised too many eyebrows in the Canberra intelligence community, where it is well accepted (if not shouted from the Russell rooftops) that Australia's intelligence agencies operate even in countries considered to be our closest allies, gathering information considered vital to the national interest.
For all this, the revelations came at a sensitive time for the new Government, and for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who had been criticised for failing to include Japan on the itinerary of his first world trip in February. When Rudd got round to visiting Tokyo in early June, he announced that Japan would join Australia as co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, an initiative of Rudd's to ''maintain the integrity of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty''. That Rudd's announcement was followed barely a week later by the Times article detailing the organisation's focus on Japan's nuclear activities (and which included the following quote from an unnamed intelligence officer) would have embarrassed the Prime Minister's office:
''There's no Japanese intention now to get nuclear weapons, but who knows what the world will look like in a decade or two decades' time? A disarmament commission is all very fine, but the Japanese have all the knowledge and kit to become a nuclear power in a matter of months if they wanted to, and we have to cover all the possibilities, however remote they may seem now.''
That in all probability was the reason Fitzgibbon ordered a departmental investigation into the source of the leak and why, when it proved inconclusive (as they nearly always do), the AFP was brought in. The AFP has the means and expertise to conduct detailed inquiries into how cabinet or security documents may have been leaked to the press, but getting to the source is difficult, and nearly always fruitless. One reason for this is that many of the leaks emanate from ministers themselves. The other is that both leakers and third parties take care not to incriminate themselves or their sources.
Whether out of frustration (or perhaps an unconscious desire to be seen to be loyal to their political masters), investigating police are frequently heavy-handed, as we saw on Tuesday. Nine operatives taking five hours to search a house for incriminating documents is a questionable use of police resources, given the innocuous nature of the leaked briefing papers.
On Tuesday afternoon Fitzgibbon's office issued the usual statement that politicians offer up after such raids that the decision to seek and execute a search warrant was entirely a matter for the AFP. His wish to distance himself from the AFP raid is understandable: Labor came to office promising a new era in open government, with plans to reform Freedom of Information laws, journalist's privilege, whistleblower protection and privacy laws. Tuesday's episode suggests that perhaps the Government's commitment is not as strong as voters were led to believe.
The AFP's raid was nothing less than an attempt by the Government to stifle free speech and impede the public's right to know.Whatever the difficulties in defining so-called shield laws for journalists, it is in the public interest that they be enacted soon. Until they are, journalists trying to do their job of keeping governments accountable and the public informed will continue to be harassed and victimised by authorities.
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