'Australia's core values are at risk from within', silenced whistleblower warns

Conference organisers have also cast doubt on the Australian Cyber Security Centre's explanation for sidelining the speakers, saying a panel with Edward Snowden was no more than a "thought bubble".

The Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Cyber Security Centre told Senate estimates last week it had asked the organisers of the 2019 CyberCon to drop former National Security Agency senior executive Thomas Drake and Melbourne University academic Suelette Dreyfus, because of a proposal for the speakers to appear on a panel with Mr Snowden via video-link.

Mr Snowden leaked details about the NSA's secret mass surveillance programs to the press, after witnessing the persecution Mr Drake suffered when he blew the whistle through official channels.

Mr Drake was accused of leaking classified information to the media - an allegation he has always denied - and faced up to four decades in prison.

Australian Cyber Security Centre head Rachel Noble said the speakers were "known public advocates for unauthorised disclosure or the leaking of classified information outside of legitimate whistleblowing or lawful whistleblowing schemes".

She also said there had been a risk that "those speakers would express views that are inconsistent with Australian government laws and our processes and our values".

Her admission came in the same week major media outlets blacked out their front pages in protest of creeping government secrecy and the erosion of press freedom.

READ MORE:

But Mr Drake said he was never invited to be a part of such a panel. Instead, he'd been offered a speaker's slot in November 2018 to talk about the golden age of surveillance.

"It appears clear that my past as a National Security Agency whistleblower and my associations were held against me and strike at the heart of why I was removed as a speaker," Mr Drake told The Canberra Times.

The Australian Information Security Association - which runs CyberCon - has also broken its silence to confirm there had been no such proposal.

"It was a thought bubble by one of the speakers as Snowden has a new book being released and was never seriously considered," the association said in a statement.

"The Australian Information Security Association supports and encourages freedom of speech. The unfortunate circumstances surrounding this particular matter have been reviewed already and mechanisms are being established to ensure it doesn't happen again, and that the 2020 CyberCon facilitates a range of topics, speakers and opinions within the context of cyber security."

The Australian Signals Directorate and Australian Cyber Security Centre refused repeated requests for comment.

Mr Drake said the incident was emblematic of the secrecy seeping into Australia.

"My removal as a speaker from CyberCon is the first time I was ever censored anywhere," he said, noting he had given lectures in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane in 2014 with no issue.

Mr Drake said Ms Noble's comments begged the question whether the agency considered "secrecy" an Australian value.

"It is my understanding that Australia's values include respect for the freedom of the individual, freedom of speech and association, parliamentary democracy, the rule of law, fair play, and pursuit of the public good," Mr Drake said.

"I can only say that true freedom is bound by law and if rules trump law then Australia's core values are at risk from within. Clearly I was not granted the same courtesy and instead was regarded as a threat and risk that she decided to silence."

Mr Drake said the situation in Australia was "most concerning" to him, as fundamental democratic values and principles were under direct attack around the world from increasingly autocratic governments.

He warned that the use of national security to suppress the press and the voices of whistleblowers increased authoritarian tendencies in even democratic governments.

"The real danger to civil society in Australia is that these same tendencies give rise to extra-legal autocratic behavior and state control over the institutions of democratic governance under the blanket of national security as the excuse to protect the state," Mr Drake said.

"Sacrificing core Australian values for the sake of security and secrecy ultimately is a losing proposition where Australia ends up of losing both and not congruent with its core values."

He also said Australia's whistleblower laws failed to properly protect officials who tried to report wrongdoing.

"Australian public interest disclosure laws are also a mixed bag and conflicted patchwork with huge carve outs for national security and immigration, nor do they adequately protect a whistleblower from reprisal, retaliation, or retribution," Mr Drake said.

"It is quite clear that not all disclosures - even when done in the public interest - are protected by law in Australia and appear to turn into exposure channels for the whistleblower.

"At the federal level, whistleblowers face career suicide for public interest disclosures, and if deemed as unauthorised disclosures by the government, those disclosures are even considered criminal."

Long-awaited changes to whistleblower laws are on hold until the findings from twin parliamentary inquiries on press freedom are finalised, officials from the Attorney-General's department told senators last week.