I know how it sounds when people start thinking that Australia’s intelligence agencies are catering their public statements in a conscious effort to mess with them, but in the bunker we’re beginning to wonder if that’s the case.
Having set up our stall as Australia’s leading media campaigner against agencies of various forms of state power doing cutesy social media, ASIO’s effort yesterday feels kind of personal. It’s a word search. With a printable version:
I don’t know, I just keep seeing words like “raids” and “whistleblower”.
As always, the question that leaps to mind: who is this for? The many eight-year-olds who follow Australia’s domestic spy agency on Twitter, and also have access to a printer, an appliance now exclusively found in offices and the homes of people well into their 50s? And of course, just as it was with its first tweet — “I spy a new Twitter account. We thought it would be fun if you followed us for a change” — the decision-making process, the rationale that leads to these ideas entering the public domain, is destined to remain forever remain, given the agency’s exemption from freedom of information laws.
Again, our theory is that this kind of thing can only be aimed at irritating us. It’s not like this stuff works for them — at time of writing, the word search has accrued a total of seven retweets and 11 likes.
