Australian Security Intelligence Organisation

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Australian Security Intelligence Organisation  link Website
File:ASIO building.jpg
File:ASIO.svg
Abbreviation	ASIO
Formation	16 March 1949
Headquarters	Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Leader	ASIO/Director-General of Security
Staff	1,739
Sponsor of	Institute for Regional Security
The Australian domestic intelligence agency, tied to Anglo-American agenices

See also Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the Australian foreign foreign intelligence agency.

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) is an Australian intelligence agency. From its foundation in 1949, ASIO has been largely unaccountable and frequently used as a political tool.

File:Charles Spry Allen Dulles.png

Under the headline "ASIO: Made in USA", Counterspy published this obsequious letter from Charles Spry (Director General of ASIO from 1950 to 1970) to Allen Dulles

Activities

1973 Chilean coup d'état

Full article: 1973 Chilean coup d'état

The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was involved in the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, as officially admitted in 2021.

Control

Professor David McKnight concluded that ASIO "had been used as a political tool during the long reign of the Liberal-Country Party coalition from 1949 to 1972."

In 2014, writing about the 1975 Australian coup d'état, John Pilger noted that on "The day after his election, [Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam] ordered that his staff should not be “vetted or harassed” by the Australian security organisation, ASIO – then, as now, tied to Anglo-American intelligence".

"Foreign interference"

Full article: Chinese interference in Australian politics

In November 2019, The Age reported that "Late on Sunday Australian Security Intelligence Organisation director-general of security Mike Burgess issued a statement entitled "Foreign interference". He said ASIO "takes seriously" the allegations reported by The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald and 60 Minutes at the weekend about Mr Zhao as well as claims by young Chinese defector Wang Liqiang, who said he had worked as a spy in Hong Kong and Taiwan."

Creating "terrorists"

With start in 2021, ASIO started an entrapment operation on a 13-year-old autistic boy with a fixation on the Islamic State, after his parents sought help from the authorities. The boy, given the pseudonym 'Thomas Carrick' by a court, spent three months in custody before he was granted bail in October 2022. He was investigated and charged with two "terrorism" offences by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT), which comprises Australian federal police (AFP), Victoria police and ASIO members. An online covert operative was tasked with communicating to Thomas using two personae: a 24-year-old Muslim man from NSW, and a more extreme person located overseas. The operative chatted with Thomas on 55 of the next 71 days, including during breaks at school and late at night. The first persona introduced Thomas to the second, more extreme, persona, who encouraged him to make a bomb or kill an AFP member.

On 8 August 2021, Thomas sent a photo to the operative which showed him wearing his school uniform, a hoodie and a face mask and holding a knife with "ISIS" written on it in marker, and asked questions like whether he could join the kids' section of Islamic State. The boy also asked his mum to buy bomb-making ingredients such as sulphur and acetone.

A 2023 children court ruling found that an undercover officer had "fed his fixation" and "doomed" the rehabilitation efforts. The court also found that JCTT deliberately delayed charging Thomas with offences until he turned 14, as it made it harder for him to use the defence of doli incapax, the concept that children are not criminally responsible for their actions. The court found that "The rehabilitation of TC was doomed once the [operator] connected online... befriended TC and fed his fixation, providing him with a new terminology, new boundaries and an outlet for him to express, what was in part, his fantasy world."

Mossad guiding investigation

In 2025, ASIO relied on Israeli intelligence agencies to "determine" that Iran was behind a two 2024 fires, including against a non-zionist ultra-orthodox synagogue in Melbourne and a restaurant in Sydney. Based on the "investigation", the Australian government expelled of the Ambassador and closed the Iranian embassy in August 2025.