The lawyer,the ABC and who else?
The war on whistle blowers has now reached new heights in Australia, with Attorney-General George Brandis demanding the prosecution of the former ASIS officer who revealed ASIS’s shameful spying on the East Timorese Cabinet, with the possibility of a jail term. And Brandis appears to have gone further than Obama’s, also pursuing lawyer Bernard Collaery.
Collaery has not returned to Australia from London, where he has been based while pursuing East Timor’s case against Australia at the Hague, having been tipped off that he would be prevented from leaving again if he did.
The ASIS whistle blower — whom we can’t identify under intelligence laws — had his passport seized in an ASIO raid last year and has been prevented from leaving Australia.
Gung-ho Brandis might want to imprison a whistle blower and a lawyer who assisted him — and...the ABC, which broke the story, they are in the frame too.
There’s one person who will be feeling very uncomfortable about the prospect of the East Timor matter seeing the inside of a courtroom: Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Vivienne Thom.
Her account of the circumstances relating to the ASIS whistle blower’s interaction with her predecessor, Ian Carnell, have been directly and explicitly contradicted by a statement in Hansard from Collaery.
Thom has refused to even acknowledge any contradiction, let alone explain why Collaery says he has documents showing Carnell advised the whistle blower to pursue his own legal action, and Carnell acknowledged the engagement of Collaery by the whistle blower, however Thom claims no such interaction ever happened.
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