Ok, the Department of Home Affairs is up parliamentary intelligence committee's inquiry on press freedom. This includes secretary Michael Pezzullo.
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Pezzullo repeats his view that leakers should face the full force of the law. "If that involves a term of imprisonment, so be it."
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Pezzullo repeats he doesn't think there's a press freedom "crisis" . "I think there is an issue around media and government engagement." He also didn't seem to like journalists making judgement calls on national security when they don't have experience in the round.
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This goes back to what the inquiry heard yesterday arvo, that intelligence officials should be holding regular briefings with journalists. https://au.news.yahoo.com/spooks-brief-journalists-expert-084908950--spt.html …
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Pezzullo says he supports a free press exposing illegal operations by defence or intelligence agencies. But he says Australia doesn't do that. "We don't run off the book programs that are not known to this parliament."
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Pezzullo: "The free media is a last resort."
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Previous Pezzullo tweet in this thread was wrong. He was more saying he didn't know anyone at "at the Marxist-Leninist Broadcasting Corporation", as in your classic Trot papers.
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Dreyfus is having a long spat with Pezzullo and national security assistant secretary Hamish Hansford about to Home Affairs' responses to questions on notice, which included not quantifying how many journos were currently subject to warrant.https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/sep/20/home-affairs-refuses-to-divulge-how-many-warrants-sought-to-investigate-journalists …
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Now they're doing a line by line break down of Annika Smethurst's story on the proposal for Australia's cyber intelligence agency to spy on Australians without a warrant, which Mr Pezzullo says is wrong.
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The argument against the story seems more about how the technical capabilities to spy en masse don't exist, not so much that proposal was never raised.
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They are now discussing my erroneous tweet. Keneally has asked Pezzullo to clarify whether he was referring to the ABC. Pezzullo: "Most definitely not."
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Pezzullo: "Is that seriously running on social media?"
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