I'm not given to conspiracy theories, incompetence being so much easier to imagine, but one thing gives credibility to Clive Palmer's otherwise nutty CIA phantasm about US influence in Australia.

It is Julian Assange, a story that hinges on the uncomfortable relationship between truth and power.

We expect truth-telling from our four-year-olds but not from our politicians. In the case of Assange, truth is actively and repeatedly punished.

This implies that, as you move up through society's power strata, there's a point where morality flips.

A sort of moral inversion layer, beneath which the rules apply but above which they're reversed.

The modern Labor Party seems to illustrate this as well as anyone.

It seemed rather a giggle last year when, after their electoral drubbing, NSW Labor felt the need for ethics classes to learn how to be "honest with ourselves and ... the people we represent". But prolonged electroconvulsive therapy might have been more in order, for whichever thread you pull, the last decade of Labor emerges like an episode of the Jason Bourne film franchise.

Start anywhere. Say, at Mark Arbib. Arbib, then a Labor senator crucial in deposing a first-term prime minister and crowning Julia Gillard, was later revealed as a secret US government source. He also owned a beachfront apartment in Maroubra, built by a Labor donor developer, as did Labor's former NSW treasurer Eric Roozendaal, both in the very same block where Moses Obeid, son of Labor MLC Eddie, also resided.

For two years Arbib stayed in the Canberra apartment of Alexandra Williamson, staffer to Gillard and daughter of the embattled HSU boss Michael Williamson.

I tell you, it's the Philippines out there. When Craig Thomson popped up as an electoral contender the ALP must have kicked his tyres, seen his dodgy log-book and thought, yep, he's one of ours. Bring him in.

I mention all this not just to illustrate that high-level grubbiness is so normal we almost expect it, but to highlight a more sinister possibility; that we, like the Philippines, are a puppet US state, where truth comes second to power.

This kind of talk I've always resisted. Yet it is now undeniable that, at US behest, Julian Assange stands to lose his liberty, indefinitely, for telling the truth. And the very same Labor Party, with its CIA-assisted PM and its concern for truth re-education, lifts not a finger to help him.

It's quite clear that Assange is not guilty - not of rape, not of treason. As Malcolm Turnbull, responding to Gillard's "illegal" claim, told a Sydney University law school audience last year, it is prima facie clear that Assange has broken no Australian law.

In words of one syllable, the Australian Federal Police agrees. There has been no breach of our law.

Christine Assange says when she began investigating this, it was like slipping through a wormhole into another, shadowy world where the rules do not apply. Australian lore sees her son as a cult-outlaw in the time-honoured tradition, a modern folk hero, wrongly maligned for helping us to see into that wormhole.

Assange has been under house arrest for 15 months. His family are in hiding and governments all over the world vilify him. A US sealed indictment could deliver decades in prison, or worse, his lawyers claim. Yet he has not been charged. Not with rape. Not with terrorism. Not with hacking. Not even with condomless sex.

The man is an Australian citizen in fear of his life, victim of a massive miscarriage of justice. But our government does nothing.

Were it anyone else - even on a genuine charge, formally laid - Gillard, Roxon and Carr would be over there, holding hands, pressing buttons, making tea. But because it's Assange, and because he's been telling inconvenient truths about Big Brother, he is guilty until proved otherwise.

The sex charges are clearly ridiculous and the Swedish justice system so convoluted as to be, if you'll excuse the pun, impenetrable.

Yet the Sweden-US bilateral extradition agreement requires neither charge nor evidence. The minute he lands in Sweden, Assange can be locked up in solitary, incommunicado, and indefinitely without charge.

Or he can be shuffled straight onto the US extradition plane and, under sealed indictment, into the secret horror of a grand jury. There will be no judge, and no defence materials. Just a jury drawn from the most militarised area of the US - Alexandria, Virginia.

This is weird. Assange didn't do the evil stuff. He exposed it (names redacted).

But join the dots. Over the same period, Karl Rove has been advising the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, known as ''Sweden's Reagan''. Julia Gillard, flipped into power by CIA-friendly Mark Arbib, describes herself rhythmically as "a true mate" to the US, "an ally for the 60 years past ... an ally for all the years to come". And in our Parliament a raft of sinister legislation has appeared.

Labor's special amendments to the Extradition Act allow the same, proofless ''streamlining'' of extradition from Australia. Its so-called "WikiLeaks Amendment" allows ASIO to spy, at the Attorney-General's discretion, on known supporters - despite the AFP's view that no law has been breached. And its controversial Cybercrime Security Bill allows routine collection and surveillance of private emails, texts and other personal data.

As Gillard told Barack Obama last year, "you can do anything today". Assange's story will make a great film, in years to come; Jason Bourne with a dragon tattoo. But it's not fiction. It's real. We may yet be forced to recognise that Gillard's ''anything'' may include totalitarianism by stealth. And this is Labor.

Truth of Assange is stranger than fiction

& here's another glimpse of labor's proclivity for the dark arts .....

Australia's leading counter-terrorism agency has been providing intelligence to the federal government on environmental groups that campaign against coalmining.

The Australia Security Intelligence Organisation's politically sensitive monitoring of the campaigners comes after Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson warned that protests at power stations and coal export terminals could have ''life-threatening'' consequences and ''major trade and investment implications''.

Security officials have suggested privately that environmental activists pose greater threats to energy infrastructure than terrorists. But confirmation that ASIO has been monitoring and advising on security issues arising from such activism is likely to cause tensions between federal Labor and their parliamentary allies, the Australian Greens.

Greens leader Bob Brown said yesterday it was ''intolerable that the Labor government was spying on conservation groups'' and condemned the ''deployment of ASIO as a political weapon'' against peaceful protests.''Martin Ferguson is incorrigible. But it's not just Ferguson. It's the cabinet, it's the Labor government that's happy to use the police and ASIO against community groups, against ordinary people, on behalf of foreign-owned mining corporations,'' he said.

Senator Brown said he would urgently take up the issue with the government, adding that former Labor attorney-general and civil libertarian Lionel Murphy ''would be spinning in his grave''.

The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism on Tuesday confirmed ASIO's role in advising on security issues relating to protests against coalmining when it refused to release under freedom of information a December 2010 ministerial brief on the possible disruption of energy infrastructure by protesters.

The document has been wholly exempted from release because it contains sensitive information exchanged between federal, state and territory governments, and classified information derived from ''an intelligence agency document''.

ASIO is exempt from freedom of information laws and is described on its website as ''the only agency in the Australian intelligence community authorised in the normal course of its duties to undertake investigations into the activities of Australian persons''. Other FOI documents confirm that Mr Ferguson pressed then attorney-general Robert McClelland in September 2009 to see whether ''the intelligence-gathering services of the Australian Federal Police'' could be used to help energy companies handle increasing activity by coalmining protesters.

Mr Ferguson was particularly concerned about protests at the Hazelwood power station in Victoria, warning that ''protests such as this can lead to unlawful activity designed to directly compromise the delivery of essential services to Australians''.

''The risk of protest-related disruptions in the energy sector is likely to continue in the near future ... these disruptions pose a real threat to the reliable delivery of electricity and other essential services,'' he said. Such disruptions ''at critical times can have serious, and at times life-threatening, repercussions across the community''.

Mr McClelland confirmed in reply in November 2009 that the AFP ''continually monitors the activities of issues-motivated groups and individuals who may target establishments through direct action, or action designed to disrupt or interfere with essential services''.

Mr McClelland also highlighted the role of ASIO ''in intelligence gathering, analysis and advice in relation to protest activity [that] focuses on actual, or the potential for, violence''.

He said that ''where warranted, ASIO advice may take the form of security intelligence reports, notification of protest action or threat assessments''.

Other documents released under FOI have been heavily redacted to prevent disclosure of methods for ''preventing, detecting, investigating and dealing with illegal disruption to critical energy infrastructure''.

The still-classified December 2010 briefing to Mr Ferguson by his department's energy security branch followed an intelligence warning about a planned anti-coal protest in NSW's Hunter Valley. The department then ensured that the industry body Australian Energy Market Operator and power companies Macquarie Generation and TransGrid were alerted to a ''peaceful mass action'' near the Bayswater power station.

Seventy-three protesters who sat on a rail line were arrested and fined $250. Most convictions were overturned on appeal.

Former and current security sources have confirmed to The Age that ASIO has increased monitoring of protests that might disrupt energy infrastructure.

''Providing advice and intelligence to safeguard [critical infrastructure] is clearly within ASIO's responsibilities,'' one security source said. ''ASIO has a clear role, including protection against sabotage. And it's clear [environmental] activists pose a greater threat to energy facilities than terrorists.''

Security sources also highlighted The Australian Financial Review's publication last month of plans by environmental groups to ''disrupt and delay'' coal industry development through a range of measures including legal action, public campaigning and protests.

A leaked draft strategy prepared by Greenpeace campaigner John Hepburn includes proposals for more than $1.1 million to be spent on a ''field organising program'' and efforts to co-ordinate local protest groups.

A spokesperson for Attorney-General Nicola Roxon said the ''Australian government recognises and respects people's right to peaceful protest but will not tolerate unlawful or violent protest actions''.

While declining to comment on ASIO operations, the spokesperson said the agency's ''responsibility regarding protest activity is limited to activity that is, or has the potential to be, violent for the purposes of achieving a political objective''.

Protests against coalmining so far have been peaceful. Resources and Energy Department briefings show that only four protests have interfered briefly with electricity generation.

ASIO Eyes Green Groups