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Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

mainichi.jp

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Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#21

Post by wavefunction »

hammock wrote: post #13
IIAOPSW wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This honestly makes me suspicious. Arm of government says opposition of current government is corrupted. How convenient. I don't know if ASIO is/isn't/could be weaponized as a political tool or if the sort of person that ends up there can/does use their position to push their personal politics. But it is plausible that it happens and by the nature of the organization such a hypothesis can't really be scrutinized.

>This honestly makes me suspicious. Arm of government says opposition of current government is corrupted. How convenient Didn't this happen during Obama's presidency, when Hillary and Trump were running?

No, I recall a bunch of suspicious meetings between Trump, his sons, his close confidants and known Russian intelligence assets (keep in mind that includes people like ambassadors) that they lied about having happened until we were presented with evidence that they did, at which point they tried to downplay them.

That's my recollection at least.

Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#23

Post by taberiand »

threeseed wrote: post #15
IIAOPSW wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This honestly makes me suspicious. Arm of government says opposition of current government is corrupted. How convenient. I don't know if ASIO is/isn't/could be weaponized as a political tool or if the sort of person that ends up there can/does use their position to push their personal politics. But it is plausible that it happens and by the nature of the organization such a hypothesis can't really be scrutinized.

ASIO has levelled claims against people connected to government ministers as well e.g. Gladys Liu. Australia doesn't have the same level of deep bipartisanship that exists in the US so I wouldn't assume that our intelligence agency is a political tool.

It's a bit of a win-win for China, either they corrupt the Labor party or they get caught sow suspicion against the Labor party

Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#25

Post by IIAOPSW »

phantomathkg wrote: post #14
IIAOPSW wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This honestly makes me suspicious. Arm of government says opposition of current government is corrupted. How convenient. I don't know if ASIO is/isn't/could be weaponized as a political tool or if the sort of person that ends up there can/does use their position to push their personal politics. But it is plausible that it happens and by the nature of the organization such a hypothesis can't really be scrutinized.

will you say the same if ASIO can table the evidence that a particular candidate is really having relationship or funded by Chinese? Do you really want Australia heavily depending on China like what happened in Australia previously?

I'm going to go with a slightly higher bar. It is perfectly plausible that these particular candidates really do have some relation or funding from the PRC. But can you say for sure that ASIO doesn't systematically fail to scrutinize the connections and funding of Liberal party politicians?

The inherent problem with what I've said is that its a very plausible and precedented thing for a spy organization to do, but it is also a fundamentally untestable hypothesis because you can't really scrutinize the work of spies. So the state of reality where ASIO is earnestly fighting corruption looks the same as the state of reality where ASIO are a political tool. How can you be certain which reality you are in?

Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#26

Post by Gustomaximus »

They also have put significant investment into media, especially towards controlling anything Chinese language.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/beijing-controls-chi...

And universities are targeted for both students and lecturers.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-57647418

Personally I feel this behaviour is counter productive to Chinese interests long term as in an open society these actions become public. For any good it does, it will also generate mistrust, ill feeling and potentially by extreme groups as leverage for fear/hate.

Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#27

Post by gumby »

As an Australian living in California I’m surprised we don’t see more such issues in California elections. There is out-of-state but still US money in referendum questions but that seems to be it, despite the fact that California’s economy is a lot larger than Australia’s.

Australia is of strategic value to China, as it spent the last 20 years as a Chinese mining province, so I can understand their wanting to meddle in Aussie elections (if these allegations are true). But why not California?

Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#28

Post by MonkeyClub »

stanislavb wrote: post #10

Now imagine how many similar cases there are around the world that haven't been "discovered" officially. Both China and Russia are using similar tactics. I guess, at the time being, China is the more dangerous one as CCP is much richer than poor war-focussed Russia.

> Both China and Russia are using similar tactics.

Are you perhaps forgetting another major player?

Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#29

Post by YXNjaGVyZWdlbgo »

csdvrx wrote: post #18
iamthemonster wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really only a matter of time before an app called Bribr "democratises lobbying" by allowing users to make microtransactions directly to their elected representatives for influence.

And why not? Lobbying is legal if it follows the rules. If something similar could be made legal yet crowdsourced, I would see that as progress for democracy, a "lobbying as a service" open to all: if 50M people are ready to put $1 to lobby for something they care about, it's a shame we don't currently let them be properly heard.

In this particular instance it's illegal.

Re: Australian spy agency disrupts foreign election interference

#30

Post by IIAOPSW »

hammock wrote: post #13
IIAOPSW wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This honestly makes me suspicious. Arm of government says opposition of current government is corrupted. How convenient. I don't know if ASIO is/isn't/could be weaponized as a political tool or if the sort of person that ends up there can/does use their position to push their personal politics. But it is plausible that it happens and by the nature of the organization such a hypothesis can't really be scrutinized.

>This honestly makes me suspicious. Arm of government says opposition of current government is corrupted. How convenient Didn't this happen during Obama's presidency, when Hillary and Trump were running?

Yes. And those accusations were true. And, quite possibly, these Australian accusations are also true. It may or may not be a convenient truth, or a truth withheld until a convenient time, or a similar truth about the other party might also be known to be true but not released. Or maybe Labour really is the more corrupt party and ASIO are earnestly working to protect Australian interests. All of these hypothesis are congruent with the evidence.

There's a difference between being skeptical of politically convenient press releases versus being a contrarian that just assumes anything politically convenient must be a lie.

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