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Australian newspaper raided after publishing stories about war crimes and government surveillance

U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Jason Robertson

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The Australian Federal Police raided Australia’s ABC news offices earlier this month, as well as the home of journalist Annika Smethurst. When searching the offices, they had a search warrant with two specifics names on it, journalists Sam Clark and Daniel Oakes. Clark and Oakes published a piece called “The Afghan Files” in 2017, based largely on military documents that were leaked to them which detailed war crimes investigations being conducted into the activities of the Australian Special Air Service and commandos.

“The Afghan Files” is a seven-part story that takes an in-depth look at the alleged killings of unarmed civilians by Australian Special Operations soldiers in Afghanistan. It reads in part:

The documents, many marked AUSTEO — Australian Eyes Only — suggest a growing unease at the highest levels of Defense about the culture of Australia’s special forces as they prosecuted a bloody, secretive war against insurgents across a swath of southern Afghanistan.

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  • Avatar
    Tobias P

    I do hope they’re paying royalties to Netflix, this plot is plain plagiarism on their Secret City series. although they’re mixing season 1 and 2 together, not a wise decision with regards to storytelling, but then maybe that’s the point.

  • Avatar
    Daniel

    100%. And most of the people there, think like subjects, rather than citizens as well.

  • Avatar
    Alan t

    God help them.
    How sre the eyeballs doing?

  • Avatar
    Yankee Papa

    Alan,
    In spite of many “good intentions”, one of the downsides of being “subjects” rather than citizens. New Zealand was able to legislate entire classes of weapons out of the hands of thousands of law abiding cit…uh, er… subjects within weeks… because of a lack of fixed constitutional rights regarding self defence (there is no legal right to possess firearms of any kind for self defence…)
    Here in the U.S. some decades ago, the Supreme Court was considering overturning a law because…being vaguely written… it gave the government the power to do not only what was intended… but some un-Constitutional things as well. The government attorneys said that the Court need not concern itself… the government would never abuse the legislation. The Court laughed them out of the building. “Good intentions” count for nothing… it is the power in hand… A government of laws… not men…
    -Yankee Papa-

  • Avatar
    Alan t

    So if I understand this right, the journalists were investigating overreach by the government with regards to spying on the civilian population. And the government response to this was to raid juurnalists homes looking for evidence of where their information came from? I think I have that right.
    That is some seriously scary s***