ASIO is really interesting to this person too …

Persons of Interest is a three-part documentary on ASIO which commences screening on SBS on Tuesday, January 7 at 8.30pm. I haven’t seen it yet but Dr Cam and I interviewed filmmaker Haydn Keenan (and academic Victoria Stead about PNG and refugees) back in July for the SUWA Show — you can listen to that interview here (13:30). As Haydn points out, it’s less a history of ASIO than an account of its activities as told through the personal histories of four ‘persons of interest’: Gary Foley, Frank Hardy, Albert Langer (Arthur Dent) Michael Hyde and Roger Milliss. (Of related interest: East Timor institutes proceedings against Australia in relation to documents seized from office of Australian lawyer, December 24, 2103, re ASIO raid of December 3 on the office of Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery.)

See also : ASIO’s all-seeing eye, Rick Feneley, The Age, January 3, 2014 | Film buff David Stratton’s starring role on ASIO spy cam, The Age, January 4, 2013 | Persons of interest caught in ASIO’s net, The Australian, January 4, 2013.

Otherwise : Your rights with ASIO – advice for activists (Dale Mills) (May 16, 2013) | ASIO &/Or Anarchy (November 14, 2012) | Nicola Roxon, ASIO, and a growing number of links across some sort of groups who are anarchist, others who meld into some religious, sometimes… (April 17, 2012) | ASIO, fascism and anti-fascism (cont.) (on October 18, 2011) | ASIO, fascism and anti-fascism (October 12, 2011) | ASIO ~versus~ WikiLeaks : The WikiLeaks Amendment (July 7, 2011) | Three cheers and a loud huzzah for The WikiLeaks Amendment! (July 5, 2011) …

For a broader historical view, see Jenny Hocking, Beyond Terrorism (Allen & Unwin, 1993) and Frank Cain, The Origins of Political Surveillance in Australia (Angus & Robertson, 1993).

Chorus:
ASIO ASIO ASIO
They’ll never know
ASIO ASIO ASIO
They’ll never know

The WMDs aren’t in Bahgdad
They’re still under my bed
ASIO they’ll never know
Andrew Bolt runs a sleeper cell
And Costello used to be a woman
Claimed it all on Medicare
Johnny Howard is running JI
And I helped write The Flood Report that said

Chorus

Why our intelligence agency would get it wrong
On such enormous scale
Legitimise a war for oil
And keep the ones they want in jail
But don’t try to fight it
No right to remain silent
Don’t speak your mind
Cause you’re not alone
They’ve bugged your house
And tapped your phone

Chorus

How to silence thought
Keep opinions near
Fake security
Controlled by the fear of being jailed for shit
Then being told to deal with it
No rights, no calls, no lawyers
Can’t you see that things have changed?
Is this what it means to be free?

Chorus