I Spied

With anti-vax and anti-lockdown protests roiling in cities across the Eastern seaboard, David and Michelle look back at the “Golden Age” of protest of the late 60s & early 70s, when peaceniks, aboriginal rights activists and bra-burning feminists came under ASIO’s watchful eye. Why were Australians so quick to protest, why was ASIO so focused on the demonstrators, and what di...

To celebrate the release of No Time to Die (and in a shameless ploy to scam tickets to the premier) David and Michelle are taking a look at the real-life Bonds that may have inspired Ian Fleming in creating 007. This week: Codenamed “Ramsay”, Richard Sorge was a hard-drinking, motorbike-riding, womanising intelligence officer who literally changed the outcome of WWII. Regarded by Flemi...

What do US diplomatic cables, videos of US military malfeasance, Swedish sexual assault charges and an Ecuadorian lavatory all have in common? Australia’s elusive homegrown hacker: Julian Assange. From his early teenage days cracking the US DoD mainframe to the formation of Wikileaks and the unprecedented classified leaks of Chelsea Manning, we look at how Julian went from a person of intere...

Like the classic German U-boat film, Australia’s submarine program looks to be languishing on the bottom of the ocean. This week we dive, dive, dive into the depths of Scott Morrison’s ham-fisted handling of our French alliance and just what we can expect from the AUKUS agreement. What sort of subs might we get, what will our partners expect in return, and how are the neighbours going...

With everyone talking about Morrison’s AUKUS-ward handling of the French submarine contract, we’ve decided to have a quick peek at one of the forgotten submariner successes of the RAN: a story of Russian nuclear subs, a maverick Navy commander and an Oberon sub called HMAS Orion. A tale of naval daring-do that launched the purchase of the oft-maligned Collins Class subs, which decades...

With President Biden ordering the FBI to finally release its findings into the logistics behind 9/11, this week we finish up our retrospective by addressing the camel in the room: Saudi Arabia. With 15 of the 19 hijackers being Saudi citizens, the mastermind behind the attack being a member of one of the Kingdom’s most successful business families and accusations of Saudi government involvem...

In this bite size episode, we’d like to thank all of our listeners for sticking with us for the last year. To be honest, David is surprised Michelle hasn’t quit while Michelle is equally as surprised that David’s hasn’t been bagged and shipped off to a black site. We also look at some of our more interesting Twitter followers and explore a spy’s options once they leav...

This week we look at how intelligence services around the world changed in the aftermath of 9/11. From Canada politely deciding not to spy on foreign powers, to France’s uncompromising attitude to terrorism, to Australia’s increasing police & intelligence powers, we look at how the West armed itself for the War on Terror. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Twenty years ago 19 men hijacked four airliners and changed the world. While we remember the victims and count the costs of an operation that redefined terrorism, we look at how the US found itself so open to the brutal attacks that took place on 9/11. The US has the largest, most sophisticated and best funded intelligence community in the world, but it seems bigger isn’t necessarily better,...

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In three short months Afghanistan went from a US quagmire to a Taliban powder keg. Three short months… and twenty years. So we thought it was time to look at the tough and ancient land that has claimed yet another empirical scalp, and also the people now running it. Why is Afghanistan so intractable, how did it unravel so quickly and what happens next? To talk all things Taliban, terror and...

This week we look at how a single mum from New Zealand became one of ASIO’s greatest intelligence assets and helped take down the #1 KGB resident at the Soviet Embassy in Canberra. An episode that is full of classic, old school tradecraft: dead drops, invisible ink, secret radio transmitters and… a honey trap! And just what wort of relics can be found in the ASIO museum? Settle in for...

Not everyone likes abstract expressionism, but the CIA loved it. So much so that they literally weaponised it during the Cold War in the battle space of “winning hearts and minds”. Just how did the likes of Jackson Pollock help defeat Soviet communism, how much does the CIA have to do with arts and entertainment these days, and what exactly did the CIA think of the Bourne movies? Art i...

We talk a lot about ASIO and everything it does, but what about the other Australian intelligence organisations? Who are they, what do they do and how do they shape up in the modern security environment? And just how well do they all get on with each other? Watch as we use almost every letter in the alphabet in our most acronym-heavy episode yet. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information...

The intelligence world was rocked by the news that a small Israeli company had been selling one of the most insidious pieces of surveillance software ever devised. Pegasus has been used by authoritarian governments to spy with impunity against friend and foe alike and most alarmingly, it is virtually impossible to stop. This week we look at the intelligence and privacy implications of a system tha...

  Robert J Hawke, loveable larrikin, union hard man and arguably the most popular PM in Australian history. But recently released US diplomatic cables reveal that the Silver Bodgie may not have been as left wing as we thought and the US saw him as more than a potential PM. Could it be that the Rhodes Scholar that held the world record the the yard glass was actually an intelligence source for...

Diver, Don Juan and drunk, Lionel Crabb is regarded as another of the inspirations for Ian Fleming’s greatest creation, but “Buster’s” story didn’t end like a Bond film. Last seen submerging into the icy depths of Portsmouth on a clandestine mission, theories abound as to what became of him. Did he defect, was he killed in a thrilling under water struggle or was divin...

The second part of the Lindt Cafe story takes a different twist with Michelle revealing what the day was like from inside the broadcast booth. How did the story unfold for the media, how did the police and government control the flow of information and how did this one event influence how Australia deals with extremist incidents now? And does David have what it takes to anchor this podcast? See om...

This week we take a deep breath and look at the Lindt Cafe tragedy, starting with the literal Man behind it. Who was Man Monis and how did he manage to enact the tragedy that was the Lindt Cafe Siege despite being on NSW police and ASIO’s radar? And was it truly an act of terrorism or the desperate actions of a deeply disturbed person? Part 1 of a 2 part look at a shocking event that brought...

With the arrest of Friendly Jordies’ producer Kristin Langker everyone is talking about the NSW Police Fixated Persons Unit, but how does the unit work and what guidelines does it follow? This week we have a look at what looks a lot like police overreach and the propensity for pollies to use the courts and law enforcement to stifle criticism. And David makes a confession that reveals how he...

Thanks to a listener request this week we look at former Australian Defence intelligence officer Jean Baptiste Wispeleare: an epic tale of espionage, deceit and betrayal. From his attempt to sell US secrets to his time languishing in a US prison cell we look at how he went about creating his James Bond adventure, how he was foiled and how ASIO could have gotten his security clearance so wrong. Str...

Ever heard of the Surveillance Legislation Amendment (Identify & Disrupt) Bill 2020? Not a lot of people have, so this week we look at the latest piece of legislation to give police and intelligence access to your data. How would it work, who is it aimed at, and how could it be used to sweep innocent bystanders into an investigation? And what is David apologising for now? See omnystudio.com/li...

What do you do when the intelligence organisation you worked for turns out to be compromised? This week we look at how ASIO may not have been as secure as its name suggests as history reveals that the KGB had more than one mole inside its hallowed walls. And how does it feel when you realise one of the people you worked closely with might just have been one of the moles?  A genuinely revealin...

Well, it seems Jared Kuchner’s Middle East Peace Plan wasn’t all it was cracked up to be... Quelle surprise! In light of that and the explosion of tension on the Lower Levant, this week we attempt to walk the razor’s edge and tackle the eternally intractable problem of Jerusalem, Israel and Palestine. When did it start, who’s been involved and what are the chances of a peac...

With all the sabre rattling going on over China, this week we delve back to when ASIO and Frosty found themselves involved in a War - Gulf War 1. What caused that war, what were the outcomes and what did ASIO do on the home front? And what was Frosty’s favoured outfit when the conflict began. Hold onto your shorts! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.