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uncle rupe is pissed off...

uncle rupe reflects...
Angry protests rise from the Murdoch camp about the publication by The Guardian Australia and the ABC of the scoop news that the Australian government is tapping the phone of the Indonesian President, his wife and assorted others.

ThunderBolts lit up the sky. These media organisations ''had breached national security … unnecessarily antagonised the Indonesians … and betrayed Australia''. National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden was described as a ''criminal fugitive''. The voices were familiar and, once again, uniform.

Perhaps they were upset that their brothers and sisters from the News Corp arm in Britain were before the courts for conspiring to publish intercepted telephone information, while the journos at The Guardian and the ABC were dancing around scot-free.

If the Snowden documents about the NSA hoovering-up the electronic communications of the world had been plonked on a reporter's desk at News Corp they would have been thrown in the bin, because Snowden is a ''criminal'' (even though no court has found as such).

Tons of embarrassment would have been saved and everyone could get on with incomparable exposures, such as the salaries of ABC celebs or Nathan Rees' extra-marital affair. The hacks at Holt Street can slump back in their chairs, exhausted and satisfied at the triumph of their ''free speech'' campaign.

It's all rather odd. In the past 20 years or so, journalism has been turned on its head. Many of my contemporaries in the game had thought it was their duty to publish the secrets of state, to enlighten the public as to what's really going on.

Great cases have been fought to defend that right.

But now we find serried ranks of salaried writers believing it is their duty to cosy-up to and protect the government, particularly their preferred government, from any embarrassment.
The embarrassment was made all the more apparent yesterday in the British edition of The Guardian. It reported that the usual arrangement where Five Eyes countries did not spy on each other - the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - no longer applied. In fact, the NSA spies on other Five-Eye citizens, even where the partner government ''has explicitly denied the US permission to do so''. The Snowden material reveals that ''partner countries'' must not be informed about this US double-cross.

So while it is important for us to be informed that the NSA is spying on the citizens of an ally nation, it is not desirable for the Indonesians to know explicitly that we are spying on their President.

It wasn't always the case that secret information was off-limits to the News empire.

In 1958 Rupert Murdoch, from his fortress at the Adelaide News, is reported to have written: ''In the race between secrecy and truth, it seems inevitable that truth will always win.''

In 1987, the Murdoch-owned Sunday Times published an extract of Peter Wright's Spycatcher, which the British government was anxious to suppress. The book told of a mole within MI5, plots against PM Harold Wilson and eavesdropping on high-level Commonwealth conferences. Interesting thought … was MI5 eavesdropping on Prime Minister Tony Abbott's private conversations during the recent CHOGM in Sri Lanka?

The Spycatcher case brought on lots of interesting jurisprudence. The House of Lords in Britain didn't much like Wright and sought to ban the book on the basis of the judges' idiosyncratic views about the author, who wasn't a party to the action.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/howling-of-the-hacks-confronted-by-some-real-news-20131121-2xyfd.html#ixzz2lLNgTEKj

spy catchers...

Most government do not like the activities of their spies being published.... Except when the government is pissed about something... Remember Valerie Plame... The US government did not like her husband having exposed that the evidence used by Dubya that Saddam was trying to acquire nuclear weapons — was a complete fraud. 

And all the media obliged in the "revelation" fed by the government, his wife, Valerie, was a spy...

rupe's revenge...

rupe's revenge

 

Whether it's true or not, the merde-och gutter press publishes the (counter-) article above... Indonesia cannot confirm nor deny the allegations as "no-one comments on matter of intelligence"... So one can have a field day on this subject WITH NO PROOF... The problem of Australia spying on the Indonesian President is that there ARE solid PROOFS... And by the way, Bugalug Tony's spy network might still be doing it, despite having reported a failure in 2009...

the secret-secret tapes...

Senior correspondent Barry Everingham [independent Australia] has been leaked translations of several telephone conversations recently intercepted by Australian intelligence agencies.


Translation of telephone call from First Lady to Indonesian Ambassador

I was worried when I heard that PM Abbott was once a priest. But I hear from someone in the Australian Embassy he is happily married and has three daughters. I can without any worries introduce  him to the grandchildren.


Translation of telephone call from the President to his Ambassador in Canberra

This boat people thing is going in all directions and getting nowhere. In the name of Allah – may His name be praised – what kind of people are we dealing with in Canberra?

Who thought up the crazy idea that buying our fishermen's boats would halt the migration of asylum seekers? Don't those clowns realise the money they get will buy bigger, better and safer boats and the numbers will increase.

Will you tell Mr Abbott and Miss Bishop (not the Speaker, the foreign  minister) that they had better get rid of the insane idea that I will take kindly to the towing of boats  to our shores.

[Laughter] Bishop and Abbott — is this new government down there some kind of church?[Louder laughter]


 

Translation of another call to the Ambassador later that day

I caught that idiot Morrison on  Sky News holding a media conference but refusing to answer any questions from the media pack. I was hoping one of them might ask him what day it is and hear him say "I don't that information in my folder".

And while I have you on the line, Ambassador, can you send me a backgrounder on General Campbell? He looks as though he would rather be fighting the Taliban than trying to make Morrison look credible.

Two days later, the President again calls the Ambassador.

What's  this crap that is coming through on the cables that the Australian Embassy is bugging our telephones. You had better get out of Canberra and come home so we can discuss all this sorry mess in private.

Meanwhile, I have ordered extra staff to be put on our team bugging Abbott's and Morrison's phones — not that we are learning anything. All Abbott is doing is screaming like a Banshee  at Morrison and the last translation I got gave me the impression that Morrison is heading for a job on Australia's War Graves Commission.

Can you check that out?

If it's true, we will announce it from here. [Laughter]

----------------------------


Gus: what a great spoof... but is it a "spoof"?... Tony Abbott is an idiot...

check and publish....

Stop attacking Aunty
The Spectator Australia 
30 November 2013

This magazine rarely misses an opportunity to criticise the ABC. So readers may be surprised to find us defending Aunty at a time when our conservative friends are taking aim at the public broadcaster. Apparently the ABC’s sin was to team up with the Guardian Australia on 18 November to air intelligence secrets that Australia spied upon the Indonesian President and his inner circle, including his wife. But defend the ABC we must, and it is important to keep in mind a key issue at stake: the principle of editorial independence.

But first, does anyone seriously believe the Guardian Australia would have refrained from publishing the revelations without the ABC on board? It is a big story, analogous to the sensational revelations that the US had monitored Angela Merkel’s mobile phone for over a decade, and no self-respecting editor would have turned down the opportunity to be a part it. The only reasons not to do so would have been if the story were unverifiable, if lives were directly threatened or privacy or grief unacceptably intruded upon.

The argument that Australian lives are indirectly endangered — via Jakarta’s decision to suspend co-operation with Canberra on intelligence matters and stopping the boats — is easy to make in hindsight, but not sustainable. It is not the job of journalists to gaze into a crystal ball and be guided by all possible ramifications. Besides, we take news director Kate Torney at her word when she says the ABC took advice from our intelligence authorities and ‘redacted sensitive operational information that may have compromised national security.’

Then there is the politically inconvenient timing. It has been unfortunate for a recently elected prime minister to deal with these four-year-old allegations just as he is trying to forge closer counter-people smuggling links with Jakarta. But the suggestion the ABC ‘sat on’ the story is ludicrous to anyone who’s worked in a newsroom. We don’t doubt that a majority of journalists at Ultimo or Southbank instinctively lean left, but it stretches credulity to imagine they sit around in dark corners to do harm to a conservative government. Would those protesting about the bad timing be squealing if the Australian ran the same story prior to the 7 September election?

http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/australia-leading-article/9089581/leader-3/


Had the information landed on the desk of the editor of the Australian before the elections, there are about 110 per cent chances that they would have been published "in the national interest"... Wink wink... But the info ended up at The Guardian that asked the ABC if it wanted to be on board in the publishing of the leaks. Any newsperson would make sure the info was legit and then publish... in the national interest — contrary to what than sour pus Gerard Henderson claims...

it's time...

It is with a heavy heart but rightful anger that I now urge all decent people in this country to boycott ALL Murdoch products from newspaper to cable TV... I know it is illegal to do so but as Mr Murdoch urged us to send this country morally bankrupt by telling us to vote for the coalition, it's time to send him bankrupt...

From advertisers to readers, from writers to ACMA... This country needs to send a message to Mr Murdoch. Today if you have the courage or the gall to visit news.com.au you won't find anything on the front page in regard to the sabotage that Pyne is doing to fair education... But you will find a few discreet articles — hidden amongst an enormous amount of idiotic junk packaged to appear entertaining — designed to glorify Tony Abbott... Like the arrival of boats "has slowed down"... and such crap.

Enough is enough... The Liberal (CONservative) nazis have been back in town already too long and we need to send their head spruiker completely broke... 

We owe it to the sanity and fairness in this country.

Stuff you, Rupert.