AN ALLEGED Canadian spy compromised Australian intelligence
information in an espionage case that has sent shock waves through
Western security agencies.
The alleged sale of top secret
intelligence to Russian agents by naval officer Jeffrey Paul Delisle has
been the subject of high-level consultation between the Australian and
Canadian governments and was discussed at a secret international
conference of Western security agencies in New Zealand this year.
Australian
security sources have privately acknowledged that the massive security
breach compromised intelligence information and capabilities in Western
intelligence agencies, especially the US and Canada but including
Australia's top secret Defence Signals Directorate and Defence
Intelligence Organisation.
Information released under
Australian freedom of information legislation shows the high
commissioner to Canada, Louise Hand, discussed the case with Stephen
Rigby, the national security adviser to the Canadian Prime Minister,
Stephen Harper, soon after Sub-Lieutenant Delisle's arrest on January
14.
Her cabled report, classified "secret - sensitive" and
sent to Canberra on January 30, has been redacted in full on security
grounds. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation was briefed
on the case through liaison with the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service.
Sub-Lieutenant Delisle worked at the Royal
Canadian Navy's Trinity intelligence and communications centre at
Halifax, Nova Scotia. Much of the information he allegedly sold was
much more highly classified than the WikiLeaks cables and included top
secret signals intelligence collected by the ''Five Eyes'' intelligence
community of the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Sub-Lieutenant
Delisle was arrested after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
concluded he was passing classified information to operatives, believed
to be members of the Russian military intelligence service.
The
Canadian government has, for diplomatic reasons, avoided publicly
identifying Russia as the foreign power involved but several Russian
diplomats were recalled to Moscow before the end of their postings.
Precisely what type of information was allegedly passed has not been
publicly disclosed. But intelligence sources in Canada and the US have
been reported as privately confirming it involved top secret signals
intelligence.
Sub-Lieutenant Delisle's access reportedly
covered signals intelligence produced by the US National Security
Agency, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters, Canada's
Communications Security Establishment, Australia's Defence Signals and
New Zealand's Communications Security Bureau.
Australian
security sources told the Herald his access was "apparently very wide"
and that "Australian reporting was inevitably compromised".
"The
signals intelligence community is very close. We share our intelligence
overwhelmingly with the US, UK and Canada - often more people read
Australian reporting overseas than here in Australia," one former
Defence Signals Directorate officer said. "So it's perhaps no surprise
that a junior officer in faraway Halifax can compromise our material.''
Australian
security sources have suggested the Russians would have been interested
in a wide range of material, not only relating to the US and Canada,
but to China, North Korea, Pakistan and Afghanistan - ''all areas that
DSD makes a contribution towards covering".
Australia has said it will not comment on the case and it is its usual practice not to do so.
Sub-Lieutenant
Delisle will appear before the Nova Scotia Supreme Court for a
preliminary hearing in October. He is charged with communicating
classified information to an unnamed foreign entity over nearly five
years - between July 6, 2007, and January 13, 2012, when he was
arrested. He faces possible life imprisonment if convicted.
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