Aussie government spying on Indonesia

[Gharib]

Hi everyone, I have noticed that there are a great deal of aussie members now on RF than there were a few years back. Welcome to all.

I would like to discuss the issue of our government spying on Indonesia, if anyone has any input on the matter.

Personally I think it is pathetic. I'm sure everyone knows to an extent that most governments (developed countries) spy on others but it's a new low to spy on your next door neighbour and closest ally for some other country, in this case, the US.

The worst part is that it tapped the Presidents personal phone, that of his wife and of his top ministers.

Am I the only one who sees this as idiotic. Not to mention that we've hit an all time low on the intelligence scale when it comes to our PM. We couldn't have had a more worse person lead this country in this situation.

Any thoughts?

 

[Thana]

Hi everyone, I have noticed that there are a great deal of aussie members now on RF than there were a few years back. Welcome to all.

I would like to discuss the issue of our government spying on Indonesia, if anyone has any input on the matter.

Personally I think it is pathetic. I'm sure everyone knows to an extent that most governments (developed countries) spy on others but it's a new low to spy on your next door neighbour and closest ally for some other country, in this case, the US.

The worst part is that it tapped the Presidents personal phone, that of his wife and of his top ministers.

Am I the only one who sees this as idiotic. Not to mention that we've hit an all time low on the intelligence scale when it comes to our PM. We couldn't have had a more worse person lead this country in this situation.

Any thoughts?

Totally agree.
Tony Abbott is a dipstick.

However, I think Indonesia is overreacting a little, I mean firstly it happened in 2009.
Second, It was phone tapping (Which is not something that calls for violence against Australians which is what some Indonesians have threatened)

Bloody Hell, Can't believe this happened.
And that we actually had the audacity to do it.

Kinda ashamed of my country, for the first time in my life.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

I dont understand why the "worst part is that it tapped the Presidents personal phone, that of his wife and of his top ministers"

If any form of surveillance is to be done by one country on another - than it is precisely these sorts of individuals whom would be the most logical targets: Senior individuals in each branch of government, the military and relevant organisations(eg very large companies, those involved in rare mineral production or those involved in high tech with military applications, etc) as well as those they are likely to share confidence with. (as opposed to common citizens) It is also worth noting that individuals in such position are highly likely to be aware that the role is a high value target for information gathering activities even prior to their accepting the position, further diminishing the impact of such intelligence gathering activities (the same cannot really be said to be true for individuals associated with them).

TBH it was not long ago when we feared Indonesia might have invaded and indeed after this period subsided we became concerned by the growing levels of violent religious fundamentalism given that historical context it is unsurprising that spying was conducted and indeed the australian government would have not been doing their job were they to have neglected gathering data (in much the same way that we should expect that the Indonesians might about us - just like the US is, the Chinese are and just about every other country (and even some businesses) with enough money to have an intelligence department).

What is potentially disturbing is when we come to discussing the potential scope of information gathering activities: who to target, why are they being targeted, under what circumstances should gathering occur, how should gathering be conducted, exemptions etc.

 

[Apex]

You mean the US is not the only one who spies on other countries?

 

[apophenia]

Of course Australia is spying on Indonesia. Every country has intelligence services, and gathering information is their job. No doubt Indonesia does the same.

The real problem here is that Abbott has shown such contempt for Indonesian sovereignty in the way in which he has presented and implemented his 'stop the boats' policy. He has acted as though Indonesian sovereignty doesn't exist. The decision to tow or escort boats into Indonesian waters without negotiating with the Indonesian government was apalling ignorance, and obviously deeply offensive.
Also, having been caught out in ham-fisted spying, he should have humbly apologised, even if spying is 'situation normal'. He is coming across as an insensitive offensive bogan - probably because that is what he is.

 

[psychoslice]

yes most countries do probably spy on each other, but the difference is Australia was caught out, and because of that they should apologize, if any other country was found to be spying on Australia, I bet Australia would want an apology.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

*Nods*

The appropriate course of action here would be to publicly show remorse and espouse something which could in some way be considered to be an undertaking not to engage in such actions in the future while privately contacting them to apologize for allowing this to become public and therefore putting their leaders in a difficult position by which they have been forced to take action and perhaps throwing them some form of allowances to make up for the gaffe (all the while with the tacit understanding that the surveillance will continue but simply be better concealed).

This has been incredibly inconvenient for the Indonesians (even ignoring the fact that they were spied on) in terms of the pressures this puts on them to react in a way that preserves national integrity and manages the perceptions of indonesians (particularly hardliners) that their government is 'strong' and represents their interests well.

 

[Satyamavejayanti]

Am I the only one who sees this as idiotic. Not to mention that we've hit an all time low on the intelligence scale when it comes to our PM. We couldn't have had a more worse person lead this country in this situation.

Any thoughts?

You do know that it was the labour government who was the government in Power when this happened, so our former PM is the one who should apologize.

Why Blame our current PM, Rudd resigned just before the poop hit the fan, and why should the Libs apologize for the Labor mistake?

Although We (I say "we" because if our PM apologizes it is not him personally its the entire country, as he represents our entire nation not himself) may have to apologize sooner or later to stop this getting out of hand and to protect Australians in Indonesia, but it is not like the current Government nor the PM have some kind of personal agenda with the Indonesians.

And if the Indonesians have stopped co-operation for the boat people thing, are they just going to let those who come on boats die?

Maybe we should stop the 500 mil in aid we give them, as it seems they really don't like us there anymore.

Violence erupts at Australian embassy

 

[Treks]

Here I was thinking everyone spied on each other. Just we were unlucky enough to get caught.

Maybe it would help if we stopped our live export to them again. *fingers crossed*

 

[psychoslice]

Here I was thinking everyone spied on each other. Just we were unlucky enough to get caught.

Maybe it would help if we stopped our live export to them again. *fingers crossed*

But what if they dropped our live export and got it from somewhere else, why should the cattle industry suffer because of dumb politicians.

 

[Treks]

I'm just worried about the cattle. I guess the best thing to do is try to police them more on it. But it's incredibly off topic so I'll just shut up.

 

[Gharib]

Totally agree.
Tony Abbott is a dipstick.

However, I think Indonesia is overreacting a little, I mean firstly it happened in 2009.
Second, It was phone tapping (Which is not something that calls for violence against Australians which is what some Indonesians have threatened)

Bloody Hell, Can't believe this happened.
And that we actually had the audacity to do it.

Kinda ashamed of my country, for the first time in my life.

Yes people there seem to be overreacting quite a bit actually. Some protesters have called for war while others have said that they would start to target Aussies who travel there.

No one here is happy about the spying or the lack of apology or the stupid way the situation is being handled but what do tourists have to do with it?

 

[Gharib]

I dont understand why the "worst part is that it tapped the Presidents personal phone, that of his wife and of his top ministers"

If any form of surveillance is to be done by one country on another - than it is precisely these sorts of individuals whom would be the most logical targets: Senior individuals in each branch of government, the military and relevant organisations(eg very large companies, those involved in rare mineral production or those involved in high tech with military applications, etc) as well as those they are likely to share confidence with. (as opposed to common citizens) It is also worth noting that individuals in such position are highly likely to be aware that the role is a high value target for information gathering activities even prior to their accepting the position, further diminishing the impact of such intelligence gathering activities (the same cannot really be said to be true for individuals associated with them).

TBH it was not long ago when we feared Indonesia might have invaded and indeed after this period subsided we became concerned by the growing levels of violent religious fundamentalism given that historical context it is unsurprising that spying was conducted and indeed the australian government would have not been doing their job were they to have neglected gathering data (in much the same way that we should expect that the Indonesians might about us - just like the US is, the Chinese are and just about every other country (and even some businesses) with enough money to have an intelligence department).

What is potentially disturbing is when we come to discussing the potential scope of information gathering activities: who to target, why are they being targeted, under what circumstances should gathering occur, how should gathering be conducted, exemptions etc.

I understand that, but it's not like a president talks about national matters on his personal phone. Just this morning in the news this topic of why it was wrong to tap his personal phone was completely uncalled for. The guest speaker mentioned the fact that a President doesn't use his personal phone for such things, instead they use secure lines.

It's not like he'd call his wife and tell her about the recent decision that Indonesia is going to take regarding the boats.

 

[Gharib]

yes most countries do probably spy on each other, but the difference is Australia was caught out, and because of that they should apologize, if any other country was found to be spying on Australia, I bet Australia would want an apology.

Spot on. We all know they all do it, but when you get caught you have to apologize if an apology is demanded. Indonesia didn't overreact at first, they remained calm and simply asked for an apology and an explanation. But our incompetent 'ape' made a banana out of the situation.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

I understand that, but it's not like a president talks about national matters on his personal phone. Just this morning in the news this topic of why it was wrong to tap his personal phone was completely uncalled for. The guest speaker mentioned the fact that a President doesn't use his personal phone for such things, instead they use secure lines.

It's not like he'd call his wife and tell her about the recent decision that Indonesia is going to take regarding the boats.

I agree it sounds like it would likely be a very low value information source (though I would also note that it could potentially be a less filtered discourse in terms of being more forthcoming about the occurrence and detail of upcoming major impacts on his private situation - which could correspond to significant domestic and international events though unlikely to indicate the nature of those events, thus it would be a secondary or even tertiary source with a very low to low chance of an unguarded comment of moderate to high value might be obtained)... That said, I doubt the information obtained from a private line of this nature would be worth the potential risk and thus inadvisable unless there were either extremely significant concerns or else there were very few other information gathering options available (outside those two possibilities I just dont see the payoff to be worth it).

 

[Gharib]

I agree it sounds like it would likely be a very low value information source (though I would also note that it could potentially be a less filtered discourse in terms of being more forthcoming about the occurrence and detail of upcoming major impacts on his private situation - which could correspond to significant domestic and international events though unlikely to indicate the nature of those events, thus it would be a secondary or even tertiary source by which an unguarded comment might be of moderate to high value)... That said, I doubt the information obtained from a private line of this nature would be worth the potential risk and thus inadvisable unless there were either extremely significant concerns or else there were very few other information gathering options available (outside those two possibilities I just dont see the payoff to be worth it).

Remember though, it was done for the US, Australia had no reason to tap their personal phones. Well the records released by Snowden certainly don't show it. In 4 years the spying happened one time for the US data gathering crap, not for us.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

We seem to do a lot of things against our (especially long term) interests for the sake of either expediency or assisting allies and the returns are often not particularly impressive.

 

[apophenia]

We seem to do a lot of things against our (especially long term) interests for the sake of either expediency or assisting allies and the returns are often not particularly impressive.

Now that politicians are mostly my age or younger, it is even more obvious than it ever was that they are clueless bozos. Seriously. They don't have educations tailored to politics, they are just average wackers off the street. Somehow they command some respect by dint of their position and we project capacities and understanding on them, but they are just potatoes.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

We tended to have (mainly) older white men in charge until recently, the changing demographics and attitudes of the nation meant that they needed to be a little more representative (they were not) - the flip side is that a lot of the candidates brought in (and then elected) were individuals completely incapable of the job (seriously a motoring enthusiast party holding a senate seat? are you kidding me? what is his central policy agenda? is it about road transport? automobile manufacturing/import tariffs? no).

However, the surveillance is most certainly the type of tactic that we have always engaged in (including before - when our elected officials were more uniform in their old white well educated male status); this seems more about an institutional move rather than one that was initiated by the current crop of elected officials (or those from the last decade).

A public service (and additional government agencies not commonly considered part of the public service) culture has long been established that seems to be resulting in these suboptimal outcomes... perhaps were our elected officials more familiar with statesmanship and good governance they might endevour to tackle this culture with appropriate leadership, but failing that it seems to me that this is something that the public service itself needs to address - they need to step up and recognise that if the government is unable to play ball then they need to serve the public (hence their name) by altering their culture so as to result in operations that better serve the public interest and are more likely to have better returns (whether in terms of risk mitigation, economic returns on investment, higher quality mental health service provision etc). I just dont think our current political environment has resulted in a class of politician able to adequately perform in this role, so the PS must step up.

 

[NobodyYouKnow]

What people are generally unaware of, is the history here.

It wasn't so long ago, we were actually at war with Indonesia:

Indonesia

I'll just drop that there and do the bolt.

:run: