Blind Trust

A provocative exploration of the corrosive impact of secrecy on Australian intelligence organizations effectiveness and operations

Secrecy is central to popular understandings of intelligence and how intelligence services operate. Intelligence agencies generally resist oversight and transparency, arguing that decreases in secrecy come at the cost of intelligence efficacy.

In Blind Trust, Melanie Brand challenges this view. Using archival research examining the role, functions, and public perceptions of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization (ASIO), she shows that operating in secrecy did not ensure intelligence efficacy in Cold War Australia. With little oversight from the government, ASIOs products became increasingly irrelevant to policymakers, and politicians lost sight of ASIOs value. With no external guidance or requirement to be accountable for its actions, secrecy allowed ASIOs staff to break the law and become involved in overtly partisan affairs. Finally, excessive secrecy asks for societys blind trust in an intelligence service, and ASIO lost the publics trust during the Cold War because it was able, for a time, to cover up its mistakes and exceed its authority.

This groundbreaking history of Australias domestic spy agency is relevant to the security experiences of other democratic nation-states. Blind Trust will inform students, scholars, and professionals in the fields of intelligence studies, international relations, security studies, and history.