Nexus - 0212 - New Times Magazine-pages

Page Content (OCR)

GK: The question I get asked all the time is "how do they keep all this a secret?” B-M: It's easy. Everybody protects his job. And I'll tell you another thing. Most of these guys in national security, what do they do? They either sit down listening all day, or running their computers or re-listening to tapes. Some of these jobs are very menial. He comes home. His wife asks him something. "It’s secret. I can’t tell you". It's also a means of protection. It’s easy. This guy starts talking publicly... he's gone. And there's another thing. Each person has a very small amount of knowledge, unless you get to a senior level, and once you get there you're part of the system. Each person has this very small thing he does. In twenty years how many people have broken rank? Not that many who are sufficiently up there to know. But my question today is what is it all for? GK: That’s what we would like to know! B-M: When you look back at it, it's a whole load of bullshit crap, bureaucrats keeping people in work and keeping tabs on their opponents. GK: But is all this surveillance capability so powerful now that it’s impossible to resist unfair government practice? B-M: It’s hard to resist unfair government practices. It’s very hard, I mean, how do you do it? You're fighting ghosts basically. But bureaucracies can be fought if you know how they operate. It’s hard, but you can do it, you know, stay ahead. GK: You're suggesting that it’s more bureaucracy out of control than some grand conspiracy then? B-M: Yep! That's what it is. I never ran into any "super-com- mission". That's what it is. Friends with mutual interests protect- ing each other’s powerbases or their own powerbases. That's how it goes. I don't see it as one grand conspiracy. It's just there's tech- nology and bureaucrats, they want to do their job well, so the col- lection becomes larger and larger. More collection and more infor- mation. GK: What happens when interests collide then, say on a national level? B-M: Then you have a fight. That’s what they call a "crisis"! GK: Are we heading to a point where this is all too fragile, this reliance on technology and a “balance of terror"? B-M: Would your life be any different if you were not moni- tored? Probably better. But the average person, what does he care? The way I see it, you go to work, you get your house, you give half of what you earn toward the house, at the age of 60 you own the house and live off your pension. You stay in line, you get the house. I mean, this whole issue of mortgage is ... make sure they get married at a certain age, you have two children, and that’s how everybody's in line. You work all your life to pay your mortgage, and if you don’t work you lose your house. Perform or... GK: In terms of gathering information on people, are there any moral criteria as far as the intelligence community or bureaucrats are concerned? B-M: Moral criteria about what? If you’re targeting somebody, you're targeting somebody. bullet wound to the head and his death was termed a suicide. Friedrich was a close ally of Lt, Col. Oliver North and (Amiran) Nir. He had a lot of knowledge about the Iran-contra and Inslaw cases. Nir died in a plane crash in Mexico.” It is interesting to note that when the current affairs show Page One ran a story on John Friedrich and the NSCA scandal on 27 March 1989, they went out of their way to make it look like Friedrich had engineered the entire fraud perpetrated by the NSCA. They ended their report with an interview with Friedrich’s replace- ment at the NSCA, asking, "Is he (Friedrich) the sort of man who would contemplate suicide?", the reply, “I’ve tried to think that through in my mind, I believe that it would be possible, but I of course can't say if that is what’s happened" This was seventeen months before Friedrich's alleged suicide actually took place. Could it be that Friedrich’s "suicide" was actually a disappear- ance planned well in advance due to the heat that was being put on the NSCA by investigators, and the questions being raised by the public? Since when is suicide the expected behaviour pattem of a "failed businessman"? It seemed to me to be a very odd question to finish the report with, but it is worth noting that Channel 10, the television station that ran Page One, was owned by Christopher Skase at the time of the report, another of the well-connected and high flying West- Australian businessmen who has since fallen from grace. In an article written by himself, Friedrich posed questions about how businessmen like Alan Bond and Christopher Skase became so wealthy, so fast. It's likely he knew exactly how and why. As for the true nature of the NSCA's activities, Friedrich wrote, “TE ‘intelligence’ means the world of covert government action, both Australian and overseas, then yes, we were involved in some intel- ligence work.. I don't know how people can really believe that it was possible for one man to make happen all that existed at Sale and elsewhere. And if I was getting the nod from people above, why were they giving it? There are ten so-called joint United States-Australian government installations in Australia. The Americans want to have people around who can keep an eye on these installations, who can respond, if necessary, to threats to those installations. The US has valuable and important facilities here. It likes to know they are safe. Much of my career is bound up in this fact ... there was considerable interest in the NSCA Victoria Division in a number key areas of government and indus- try, including the Department of Defence, the Federal Police, some State police forces, the Foreign Affairs Department, and the Attorney-General’s Department.” No doubt many of these government departments would have been ecstatic to get hold of a computer program with the surveil- lance capabilities of Promis. Perhaps Friedrich was the man who connected them to the people who were marketing it afte References: 1. Interviews by the author with Ari Ben-Menashe, conducted 29 Jan 1991 and 8 Feb 1991. 2. ‘The Inslaw Affair’ Investigative Report by the Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, 102d Congress, 2d Session. Report 102-857. 3. Profits of War by Ari Ben-Menashe, Allen and Unwin Pty Ltd., Sydney, 1992. 4. Spy vs. Spy; by Zuhair Kashmeri, The Toronto Globe and Mail, Sat 20 April 1991. 5. "L, Spy: John Friedrich in his Own Words” by John Friedrich, The Sydney Morning Herald, Sat. 12 Oct 1991. 6. “Reagan-Era Inslaw Scandal” by Harry Martin, Spotlight, 23 Sept 1991, Washington, USA. Another interesting connection may well lie in the cover-up of the activities of the National Safety Council of Australia, Victorian Division, and the activities and alleged "suicide" of it's director, John Friedrich. In the 23 September 1991, issue of the American political newspaper Spotlight, the following passage appears: "Two weeks before Casolaro's death in early August, John Friedrich was found dead in Sale, Australia, He suffered a single 14*NEXUS The National Safety Council Link FEBRUARY-MARCH '93