The Greens have called for a parliamentary inquiry into intelligence overreach after revelations that Australian intelligence attempted in 2009 to listen in to the mobile phone of the Indonesian president, his wife and their inner circle; and revelations this week that Australian intelligence offered to share meta-data about ordinary citizens with foreign intelligence partners in 2008.
On Thursday night, that Senate panel voted unanimously to expand the scope of its inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, to address not only whether the intelligence was well founded but whether public statements and testimony on Iraq by government officials "were substantiated by intelligence information".
WHEN commissions of inquiry investigate intelligence failures of extraordinary magnitude, their conclusions inevitably have an overwhelming influence on the conduct of intelligence chiefs and their political masters for generations to come.
The Greens senator Scott Ludlam has called for a parliamentary inquiry into "intelligence overreach".
The criminal investigation, which has reached into the White House, the Pentagon, the National Security Agency and the C.I.A., appears to be the most sweeping inquiry into intelligence disclosures in years.
IF TONY BLAIR hoped that his announcement of an inquiry into intelligence failures in Iraq would defuse the argument, he must have been disappointed.
That sets up a possible clash with the proposal by the White House last week for a commission that would stay away from an inquiry about intelligence failings.
Since Congress began its inquiry into intelligence lapses, the White House has pursued a more muscular strategy to demonstrate it is moving aggressively to deal with the continuing threats.
A Congressional inquiry into intelligence activities before Sept. 11 found 12 reports over a seven-year period suggesting that terrorists might use airplanes as weapons.
On July 14th, a British inquiry into intelligence on Iraq's putative weapons of mass destruction (WMD), headed by Lord Butler, a former top civil servant, delivered a broadly similar verdict to the Senate committee's, but in a kindlier tone.
Yet the reports do not entirely let Mr Rumsfeld off the hook.One report, an internal army inquiry into intelligence activities at Abu Ghraib headed by Major-General George Fay, blames the abuse on "a small group of morally corrupt soldiers and civilians".
