Thread by @stilgherrian

The other day the Independent National Security Legislation Monitor (INSLM) Annual Report for 2019-2020 was released. inslm.gov.au/node/190

This thread contains a few highlights. Not a comprehensive summary, just some stuff for me personally.

Obviously a big thing was the review of the TOLA Act (the encryption legislation). Here’s @ashabeeeee’s report on that. zdnet.com/article/inslm-…

And here’s the report itself. inslm.gov.au/reviews-report…

As an aside, last month I did a summary of where all this is up to as we start the new parliamentary year: “Australia’s tangle of electronic surveillance laws needs unravelling” zdnet.com/article/austra…

“The current National Terrorism Threat level remains at ‘PROBABLE’. This threat level has not changed since November 2015... Since September 2014, there have been seven attacks and eighteen major counter-terrorism disruption operations in response to potential attacks.”

There’s a bunch of other statistics on offences and charges and prosecutions which are presumably sources from elsewhere, but this is a handy summary.

Interesting comments here in the “narratives underpinning the terrorist threat to Australia”, and the expansion of the far-right terrorism risks.

“Intelligence agencies have warned that the scale of foreign interference activity against Australia’s interests has reached levels not seen since the Cold War. These activities are aimed at undermining Australia’s national security, open system of government and sovereignty.”

One might well suggest that the biggest factor “undermining Australia’s open system of government” is the government itself and its demonstrated extreme reluctance to provide transparency, but I digress.

There’s a big section on ‘Alan Johns’ [a pseudonym] matter, that bloke who was “charged, arraigned, convicted on his plea of guilty, sentenced and served his sentence — without public awareness of any of this.” At the very least it’s a good intro for anyone new to the story.

The INSLM can’t look at the case isolation, because their role is about the effectiveness of the legislation, not the conduct in a specific case. However you’ll certainly learn a lot by reading it and following up the references.

It also touches upon “the circumstances of Mr Collaery, ‘Witness K’, Mr Roberts-Smith and Fairfax Media,” which INSLM points out are “fundamentally different”. Fascinating stuff. All journalists should read it. That’s pars 49–77.

Finally, at least for me and this thread, there’s two useful tables.

One lists the five pieces of Commonwealth intelligence-related legislation passed in 2019–2020.

The other is a “selection of the reportable cases concerning convictions for terrorism offences”.

In summary, there’s nothing really new in this report, but it’s certainly handy for wonks who like to wonk over national security legislation. End of thread.

https://twitter.com/stilgherrian/status/1361097182653288448

If you find this sort of thing useful, you might like to pledge a few bucks to The 9pm Autumn Series 2021. the9pmedict.com/autumn2021

Only slightly related, but that’s more useful for me this week than a coffee-sized tip at the usual stilgherrian.com/tip.