killing democracy...

defend it

David McBride was almost out of Sydney when his phone lit up.

It was his ex-wife. Something was wrong.

She rarely called when she knew he was behind the wheel.

“She said, ‘I’ve got to tell you something. I’ve got a news alert on my email that said the ABC offices have been raided over the Afghan files’,” McBride says.

“We both kind of nervously laughed, and she said ‘I’ll speak to you later’.”

As McBride continued the long drive home from Sydney to Canberra, federal police were busy sifting through sensitive documents at the ABC’s Sydney headquarters. They had the power to add, copy, delete or alter anything relevant to the 2017 Afghan files exposé on special forces misconduct in the Afghanistan war.

The warrant listed McBride as the police’s first subject of interest. McBride unleashed powerful forces when he decided to go public years ago with what he discovered as a military lawyer serving in Afghanistan.

Those forces have already exacted a crippling toll.

“[My ex-wife] would probably say – and I think there’s an element of truth in it – it killed David McBride,” he says. “The man that she married was killed by the defence force, and I’m someone who’s different.

“Doing something like this, taking on the whole government, it sends shockwaves through your life, and not much survives, really.”

Wednesday’s raid on the ABC prompted outrage among civil rights groups, transparency campaigners, journalists and unions. It came just a day after federal police searched the home of the News Corp reporter Annika Smethurst, searching for documents related to her coverage of proposed new surveillance powers for the Australian Signals Directorate. 2GB host Ben Fordham’srevelation about asylum seeker boats attempting to reach Australia from Sri Lanka is also the subject of a home affairs investigation, as the department attempts to identify his source.

The raids have not occurred in isolation. Multiple whistleblowers who revealed government wrongdoing are currently being pursued through the courts with alarming vigour.

The government is prosecuting Witness K and Bernard Collaery, who revealed an unlawful spy operation against Timor-Leste during oil negotiations. Richard Boyle, the tax office worker who revealed the government’s heavy-handed approach to recovering debts, faces a long stint in jail if convicted.

Assoc Prof Joseph Fernandez, a journalism lecturer at Curtin University, has spent years studying source protection and the Australian media. He says the consequences of this week’s raids are clear, regardless of whether journalists are charged.

“Such raids, regardless of what happens here to journalists or to others, will have an immeasurable censoring effect on contact people have with journalists,” Fernandez says.

“In my research in this area over the years, it was clear that even senior public servants are apprehensive about having contact with journalists, even about mundane things, in the wake of laws that enable the authorities to track down sources.”

The McBride matter had been bubbling away for some time before Wednesday’s raid. Guardian Australia understands police have been talking to the ABC since at least September, trying to find a way to access the documents without resorting to a very public raid. The ABC did not hand over the documents. The AFP also maintains there was no notification to the home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, before the raids. He was alerted only after they took place, the AFP says.

But critics have raised suspicions about the proximity of the raids to the federal election and the time that has passed since the original publications.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jun/08/it-sends-shockwaves-throug...

By Gus Leonisky at 9 Jun 2019 - 7:11am
Gus Leonisky's blog
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who authorised the search warrants?...

At the end of more than eight hours of the police accessing and viewing thousands of files under the watch of the ABC's lawyers, the AFP downloaded about a hundred files on two USBs and sealed them into a special evidence bag.

The ABC now has two weeks to challenge the terms of the warrant as well as claim privilege over the contents of the documents before the AFP can unseal that bag and potentially use the files as evidence.

The ABC's managing director said its journalists' sources were safe.

"The ABC stands by its journalists, will protect its sources and continue to report without fear or favour on national security and intelligence issues when there is a clear public interest," David Anderson said.

But what do the raids on the ABC, and on News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst a day earlier, mean for journalists and their sources? How could the ABC's headquarters be raided? And does press freedom exist in Australia? We answer some of your most common questions.

What authority do police have to access journalists' files?

The AFP has powers to execute search warrants as part of an investigation into possible breaches of Commonwealth law.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-06/abc-raids-what-they-tell-us-about...

Some CONservative government "agencies" authorised the search warrants. Who are they? Who are the morons who head them and why Scott Morrison praise them while Turnbull did not "act on these", as we understand it.

scummo guns against the abc

By Gus Leonisky at 9 Jun 2019 - 7:19am
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why you should be worried...

assange hair

By Gus Leonisky at 9 Jun 2019 - 8:51am
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moving in the other direction...

From Tony Kevin

I had the pleasure of hearing Yevgenia Markovna Arbats, Russian independent journalist, political scientist, radio host, and chief editor of the Moscow-based New Times magazine, in public conversation at the Australian National University, Canberra on 5 June. The event was advertised by ANU as a discussion of…

…the interplay between Russia’s domestic politics and its disposition to shape events beyond its borders. Forthright journalist and radio host on Russia’s only remaining liberal radio station ‘Moscow Echo’, Yevgenia Albats has risked controversy and criticism throughout her 20+ year media career. Also holding a PhD in political science from Harvard University, she is one of the most qualified people to talk about her homeland to ever arrive on Australia’s shores.”

The audience was predominantly from Australia’s intelligence and related think-tank communities, emeritus and present, with a sprinkling of academics and diplomats.

Feeling rather like Daniel in the lions’ den, I was pleasantly surprised by Yevgenia Markovna’s talk and responses. I had expected the usual anti-Putin sneers and condescension towards Russia, favoured by Russian emigre and dissident journalists appearing in Western media: people who feed and are fed by Western Russophobia.

Arbats proved to be a more interesting and complex presenter than this. Her main themes as I understood them are worth noting.

She gave a basically optimistic picture of Russia today, long on anecdote, and avoiding many of the usual sweeping negatives. She rejected Western stereotypes of a Russia that oscillates endlessly between phases of authoritarianism and relaxation, and that Russia is now moving back into a more repressive phase.

She noted that all European countries have had cruel and undemocratic histories, to which Russia is no exception. She was optimistic about Russia’s present democratic prospects and rejected the stereotype that the Russian people are unsuited to democracy. She emphasised that Russia is not the Soviet Union and there is no prospect of going back to that repressive model. She noted the growth of volunteerism and local democracy in the regions.

She liked living in Russia and had no wish to emigrate, despite problems with censorship of her journalism. She proudly noted the recent public raising of $370,000 in Russia to help ‘New Times’ pay a crippling fine for failing to register as an agent of foreign influence.

She said Russian political parties were insignificant, it was effectively a one-party state. She blamed selfish and greedy leadership elites for Russia’s present problems as she saw them. Though Putin’s popularity had now declined from its peak after the Crimea annexation, and people felt poorer now, she did not expect any successful popular revolution from below.

She expected Putin to ensure his own safety in a succession plan, as Gorbachev and Yeltsin had done. Political change was likely to come, if it came at all, from power struggles within the governing elite. She hoped that change would be peaceful when it came.

She rejected the stereotype of inevitable conflict between Russia and China. She noted that it is hard for Russian elites to accept that Russia’s economic strength has been overtaken by China’s. She did not see evidence that China has any designs on Russian territory or resources. She noted the difficulties facing Chinese investment in Russia: high-interest rates in both countries, and lack of local labour forces in Russia. She thought that Russia’s natural resources assets would become less significant as the world moves away from reliance on oil and gas.

She did not say much about renascent Russian military power, beyond that it was starving the civilian economy of much-needed high technology, the same mistake the Soviets had made.

Other things Yevgenia Markovna did not speak on, but on which one would have liked to hear her views: problems in Russian-US relations and in maintenance of international peace under the aggressive and erratic Trump leadership; new more fluid possibilities for international cooperation as global structures based on US hegemonic power wane in importance and new structures like BRI and EAEC move into the vacuum; the impact on Russian domestic politics of American information warfare and efforts to foster regime change, through disruptive political actors like Browder and Navalny, especially since the events in Ukraine post-2013.

I was graciously offered the first audience question. I commended Yevgenia Markovna on her surprisingly positive and optimistic picture, rather different from the usual negativity and disdain from Western and Western-sponsored information warriors.

I referenced my background as a former diplomat in Brezhhnev’s Russia and my three recent private visits there, my love of and respect for Russia, including for its leadership elites. To her reply that perhaps I needed to spend more time in Russia to get to know it better, I said that I would love to be able to afford a flat in Yalta or Sochi.

I noted that her own opportunities as a writer, broadcaster and editor in Russia as she had described them today suggest to me that Russia’s present political situation and trends might be better than she assessed them. I did not have time to say that, on my experience, it is hard for Australian writers to find ways to express in print or online contrarian views on the need for greater Western respect for and dialogue with Russia.

As Russia moves towards greater democracy, Australia is sadly moving in the opposite direction: as seen in today’s disturbing news of police raids on Australian journalists’ homes and the ABC. I suggested that our two countries’ present levels of freedom of public expression might perhaps not be very different.

https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/13/in-conversation-yevgenia-albats-at-anu/

Tony Kevin is a former Australian senior diplomat, independent writer and author of Return to Moscow, University of Western Australia Publishing, March 2017.

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By Gus Leonisky at 16 Jun 2019 - 7:14am
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punished because of an ideological obsession...

Veteran journalist Kerry O'Brien has warned the ABC is being punished because of an "ideological obsession", in an impassioned Logies speech that saw him turn the crosshairs on his own industry for failing to "cut through fake news".

Key points:

Kerry O'Brien said cuts to the ABC were "driven more by the desire to punish"
The veteran journalist said the media industry must share responsibility for the "great failures of our time", including climate change
He described the failure to reconcile Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australia as a "glaring gap in this nation's story"

The former Four Corners and 7.30 presenter was last night inducted into the Logies Hall of Fame, and used the occasion to defend the national broadcaster in the wake of successive budget cuts, which he said were "driven more by the desire to punish and by an ideological obsession [rather] than because the public broadcaster was inefficient".

"The ABC is still forging its way through strong headwinds, probably never threatened more than it is today by a combination of forces — cash-strapped in a totally disrupted, digitally driven industry and still confronting the same, sad, ideological (arguments)."

Referencing this month's raid on the ABC's Ultimo office by Australian Federal Police, O'Brien urged the nation to ensure the public broadcaster — which he described as "one of the most precious institutions we have" — was not being diminished.

"And now, even the [Australian] Federal Police, some of whom have themselves leaked to us in the past, have seen fit to raid the place," he said.

The tone then took a marked turn as the Walkley Award-winning reporter homed in on his own industry.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-01/kerry-obrien-logies-hall-of-fame-...

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By Gus Leonisky at 1 Jul 2019 - 11:29am
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you can say what you want and I will shut you off...

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt is hosting a Global Conference for Media Freedom in London today. Meanwhile, 400 miles away in Strasbourg UK government lawyers are fighting for the right to continue spying on the press.

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism today brings a case to the highest human rights court in Europe against the UK intelligence agencies’ mass snooping on press and public and the severe impingement on media freedom that this surveillance entails.

The case is being heard in the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) at the same time as Hunt hosts an event with 1,000 media and civil society representatives from across the world aimed at fighting for the protection of journalism and journalists’ sources.

As Hunt makes his address in London, in Strasbourg the British government will defend its regime of mass surveillance of data — including journalistic communications — claiming it is a crucial part of the toolkit the intelligence services have to protect the public. Sir James Eadie, QC, who represents the government on legal issues of national importance will lead that defence.

The Bureau, alongside a number of human rights groups, brought its case against the mass surveillance programme after Edward Snowden, the former CIA operative and whistleblower, revealed how intelligence agencies, including GCHQ, were storing and monitoring a huge swathe of our data communications.

This surveillance can include most journalistic communications, including correspondence with sources and as such is an intrinsic intrusion on press freedoms. Without adequate protection from such snooping journalists are unable to communicate freely with their sources, or offer anonymity.

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2019-07-10/uk-hosts-press-...

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By Gus Leonisky at 13 Jul 2019 - 11:22am
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from the pollies to your daily...

A public relations firm boasting two former Liberal party senior advisers has purchased two regional Tasmanian newspapers, installing as editor a controversial former adviser to the Premier.

Key points:

The newspaper purchases follow Font PR's acquisition of the Derwent Valley Gazette
Two partners at Font PR have been credited with helping mastermind the Coalition's strong showing at the federal election
Another former staffer to Will Hodgman has been announced as the new editor of Font PR's new papers

In a Facebook post on Friday night, Font Public Relations announced it had purchased both The Sorell Times and The Tasman Gazette.

Both papers were formerly owned by Temperate Zone Tasmania, a private company based in the state's south-east, which also owns the East Coast View community newspaper.

Former senior Liberal advisers Brad Nowland and Brad Stansfield are partners in the Font PR private enterprise.

"The papers will be independently edited by experienced journalist Martine Haley, who has more than 15 years experience in editorial at News Corp, both in Tasmania at the Mercury and Sydney, at the Manly Daily," the Font PR announcement read.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-13/font-public-relations-firm-buys-t...

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By Gus Leonisky at 13 Jul 2019 - 3:45pm
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before the ABC raids...

When plainclothes policemen came to the Buenos Aires Herald's office brandishing machine guns, the newspaper's staff knew they were coming.

It was 22 October 1975 and the police were looking for the small Argentine newspaper's news editor, Andrew Graham-Yooll.

A visit from armed police would normally have meant certain death, but the office had been tipped off in advance, and someone had already been able to get word out to a lawyer and to overseas news agencies, meaning the raid was on the record.

The staff kept calm and let the men in leather jackets storm around the office, waving their weapons around and making a show of destroying Graham-Yooll's files from 10 years in the job. He was in their sights because he had attended press conferences for a guerrilla group. This made him a terrorist suspect, they said.

At the time, the military was tightening its grip on the country and was months away from claiming power in a coup. Anyone considered remotely subversive was being "disappeared" - kidnapped and then jailed or murdered.

Graham-Yooll was briefly whisked away in an unmarked car with his editor, Robert Cox, who had insisted on accompanying him. The pair later recalled how they were taken to a police department and held in a cell, where music from a full-volume radio could not block out the sounds of people screaming as they were tortured in the basement.

Eventually, they were both allowed to leave.

That same week, the Buenos Aires Herald's small team did what it always did during that period. It refused to be intimidated into silence and told its readers what had happened, with a satirical column entitled "Wot, no tanks?"

Cox and Graham-Yooll went back to their desks. They had an enormous job to do. People were disappearing across the country and their newspaper was the only outlet in the country consistently reporting on it.

When Andrew Graham-Yooll died suddenly in London on 6 July, aged 75, Argentina mourned.

"It is not often when a journalist dies here that their death is on the front page across all major news sites," says James Grainger, editor of the BA Times, a new publication where Graham-Yooll had recently been a columnist. "He was a titan."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48948853

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By Gus Leonisky at 13 Jul 2019 - 8:55pm
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legitimate fake news...

In an effort to stop the spread of fake news, legitimate stories may be suffering in the process.

THE RAPID SPREAD of fake news can influence millions of people, impacting elections and financial markets. A study on the impact of fake news on the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, for instance, has found that fake news stories about Hillary Clinton were “very strongly linked” to the defection of voters who supported Barack Obama in the previous election.

To stem the rising influence of fake news, some countries have made the creation and distribution of deliberately false information a crime.

Singapore is the latest country to have passed a law against fake news, joining others like Germany, Malaysia, France and Russia.

But using the law to fight the wave of fake news may not be the best approach. Human rights activists, legal experts and others fear these laws have the potential to be misused to stifle free speech, or unintentionally block legitimate online posts and websites.

https://independentaustralia.net/business/business-display/the-consequen...

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Religions have been spreading fake news for the last 4,000 years. Fake news is not new and often belong to the "official" narratives of government —old and new. Present political parties in or out of governments spread fake news through opinions and "views" in order to get votes, Scummo and Trump included. So who is to declare what is fake news or real news in politics and economics? Press Releases? Public Relations?... Where the bloody hell are we?

See: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/964 back then in 2005...

By Gus Leonisky at 13 Jul 2019 - 9:11pm
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he had to go...

The Australian federal police commissioner Andrew Colvin will quit in September, after he revealed on Monday he will not seek an extension of his contract.

Colvin announced the end of his 30 years as a police officer in a statement describing the move as hardest of his career but “the right decision for me, for my family, and for the AFP”.

Colvin nominated implementing a health and wellbeing strategy for police officers and transforming the AFP with new technologies and thinking to deal with “rapidly changing crime types” as major achievements of his term since his appointment in 2014.

The home affairs minister, Peter Dutton, paid tribute to Colvin for his “inspirational leadership, diligence and hard work in protecting the community” and thanked him for “making Australia a safer place”.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/jul/15/australian-federa...

... for “making Australia a safer place” — except for journalists at the ABC...