How embattled PM played 'jihad' card – theage.com.au

How embattled PM played ‘jihad’ card

JONATHAN PEARLMAN – The Age

February 24, 2010

KEVIN Rudd toughened his terrorism blueprint to highlight the threat from jihadist and home-grown terror despite resistance from officials within his department and the Attorney-General’s Department who were concerned the language was inflammatory and counter-productive…

Continuing the government’s national security theme yesterday, Mr McClelland, Immigration Minister Chris Evans and Home Affairs Minister Brendan O’Connor announced plans to extend ASIO’s mandate beyond the prevention of espionage and terrorism. The changes will allow ASIO to investigate foreign intelligence it was previously stopped from pursuing to help crack people-smuggling syndicates…

”This is quite a significant change,” said David McKnight, who has written extensively about ASIO. ”It highlights a trend that’s pushing ASIO into the investigation of crimes rather than national security. The tendency is for ASIO to operate more like a police force.”

The government will also expand ASIO’s ability to tap phones and intercept communications…

via How embattled PM played ‘jihad’ card. – theage.com.au

A police force acts very differently to an intelligence agency, and they view and judge information differently. A police force expects its evidence to be tested in public and in the courts. Not so for an intelligence agency where much of the evidence in a case could be hearsay, malicious rumour or just plain delusion (remember Curveball and the intelligence that was quoted for starting off George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq).

I expect that we may hear a platitude from the PM along the lines of: “Now don’t you worry about that”. And we would have heard something like that coming from Queensland before…