http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/2002/02/13/FFXB3ZRKKXC.html

Spy agency listened to Tampa calls


By MARK FORBES, MARIAN WILKINSON
AND DARREN GRAY
Wednesday 13 February 2002

Defence Minister Robert Hill confirmed last night that Australia's satellite spy agency, the Defence Signals Directorate, monitored communications with the Tampa during last year's asylum-seeker stand-off.

The minister also admitted that the agency had breached its own guidelines in one incident during its border protection operations but this was "an inadvertent error" and did not involve the union.

It is believed the breach involved laws relating to spying on Australian citizens.

It was alleged in newspaper reports yesterday that secretly recorded conversations, including those between the Maritime Union of Australia and the Tampa's captain, were passed on to the government to help determine its political response to the stand-off.

Senator Hill denied the government had received reports from the directorate on communications from the union. He did not deny that the Tampa's communications were monitored and refused to answer further questions, citing security grounds.

He said an examination of records by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Bill Blick, confirmed that monitoring by the directorate for border protection complied with all rules and guidelines, with one exception.

He would not provide details of the exception but said eavesdropping systems were not used for illegal purposes.

Opposition Leader Simon Crean said spying on citizens for political purposes was "outrageous and un-Australian".

The Democrats and the Greens demanded an inquiry, as did the president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry Gorman, who called the claims "extremely disturbing".

Intelligence expert Professor Des Ball, from the Australian National University Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, called for a judicial inquiry. He said the issues involved were momentous and a threat to the privacy of Australians.

The Melbourne solicitor who acted for the Tampa refugees, Eric Vadarlis, said yesterday he believed his phone contact with the ship had been deliberately jammed at a critical time in his court action. "I have no doubt that they (the government) would have done anything to thwart that case," he said.

According to evidence given to parliament last year by the directorate's director, Ronald Bonighton, Australians should not be targeted by the directorate and any interceptions of their communications should be immediately halted and expunged.

Mr Bonighton said all sensitive activities and operations at the time of the Tampa stand-off were directly approved by the then defence minister, Peter Reith.

Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott said the government had done what was reasonably necessary to protect the national interest.

"If you go back to the Tampa incident, there were very strong reports that the people on the Tampa had threatened the captain ... in order to get (him) to accede to their demands," Mr Abbott said. "Now under those circumstances it was perfectly reasonable for Australia to act in the way it did."

The directorate was established as a branch of the Defence Department after World War II to collect foreign signals intelligence. It has no power to monitor domestic communications of Australians.