So, who is the spy or the traitor?

It is a question a lot of people are asking right now. The head of ASIO, the Downunder "intelligence" service, has said that a former politician used his/her position to "spy" for another country. Apparently the politician in question passed over information to another country, information they should have kept to themselves.

Now people are demanding to know who that person is or was. I can actually think of a few who might well have been the person in question. I don't think anyone doubts which country was involved. Nor do I doubt that this sort of thing is still going on. 

It is still going on but a good deal more discreetly and subtly than before. People who are accused of such behaviour do not always realise they are giving away such information. Many of them, although not all, would be appalled to think they had actually done something which might harm their country.

Over the course of my work I have signed more than one "official secrets document"...at least that is how I will put it. It sounds dramatic but all it means is that I have undertaken to keep any information I might gain in the course of my involvement to myself. It has not been difficult to keep those undertakings because I have usually been very low down the line of "people who matter". I do not have a high level security clearance of any sort. If I did I most certainly would not be talking about it. I might well have been - or would be - putting someone else's life at risk. 

So why do people do it? The obvious answer is "money" of course but there are also people who do it because their allegiances lie elsewhere. There are still others who do it because they are afraid not to do it. They are afraid of harm which might be done to others they love or of the potential damage to their own reputation.

Demands to know who the person was or is are to be expected. Do we have a right to know? The answer to that is not straightforward. The ASIO boss says the person in question is no longer involved and that the present laws were not in place at the time of the behaviour. He says nothing can be done. Perhaps that really is the case. There is also something else which occurs to me and that is the involvement of a third country, a security partner. They may well know what is going on, almost certainly do, but they may not want it known either. 

Whatever occurred we are not likely to know. The real problem is that not knowing "who" leaves every former and present politician in the country under the questions, "Is or was it you?" and "What did you know about it?"