January 31, 2018
OPEN SOURCE IT ALL:
The Cabinet Files : Hundreds of top-secret and highly classified cabinet documents have been obtained by the ABC following an extraordinary breach of national security. (Ashlynne McGhee and Michael McKinnon, 1/30/18, ABC)
The Cabinet Files is one of the biggest breaches of cabinet security in Australian history and the story of their release is as gripping as it is alarming and revealing.It begins at a second-hand shop in Canberra, where ex-government furniture is sold off cheaply.The deals can be even cheaper when the items in question are two heavy filing cabinets to which no-one can find the keys.They were purchased for small change and sat unopened for some months until the locks were attacked with a drill.Inside was the trove of documents now known as The Cabinet Files.The thousands of pages reveal the inner workings of five separate governments and span nearly a decade.Nearly all the files are classified, some as "top secret" or "AUSTEO", which means they are to be seen by Australian eyes only.But the ex-government furniture sale was not limited to Australians -- anyone could make a purchase.And had they been inclined, there was nothing stopping them handing the contents to a foreign agent or government.The Australian Federal Police (AFP) lost nearly 400 national security files in five years, according to a secret government stocktake contained in The Cabinet Files.The Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet regularly audits all government departments and agencies that have access to the classified documents to ensure they are securely stored.The missing documents are not the same files the ABC has obtained.
The classified documents lost by the AFP are from the powerful National Security Committee (NSC) of the cabinet, which controls the country's security, intelligence and defence agenda.
The secretive committee also deploys Australia's military and approves kill, capture or destroy missions.Most of its documents are marked "top secret" and "AUSTEO", which means they are to be seen by Australian eyes only.The exchange does not reveal any investigation by either the secretariat or the AFP into how the documents were lost, who lost them, or where they might be now.It also does not reveal the nature, nor the content of the missing NSC documents.Troop deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq, counter-terrorism operations, foreign relations and Australia's border protection were among the top-secret and sensitive issues decided in the five-year period.The cabinet secretariat's general practice was to give up searching and write off lost documents if they could not be found after consecutive audits, according to another document in The Cabinet Files.
The exposure of such state secrets will be...absolutely non-consequential.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 31, 2018 3:18 AM