Review - DIRTY SECRETS: OUR ASIO FILES, Meredith Burgmann

Less of a review / more of a comment but I cannot tell you how "relieved" we should all be to know that regardless of the potential (or lack thereof) of threat to Australia, we have organisations like ASIO. Who in most examples of the files discussed in this book seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time obsessed with what women were wearing or how they styled their hair, and who was going out with whom.

A variety of reactions from a variety of people who, for the first time mostly, were able to read their own ASIO files, it's astounding how sanguine many of them are. And not surprising that many more were offended, annoyed, offended, astounded or simply flabbergasted by the contents of those files. When you consider the long-term, wide-reaching ramifications of the existence of these files, you can't help but wonder about the damage to people's lives. Which leaves you with the very real question of current day activities of the security services. Highly recommended read for anybody who thinks that those in "power" are to be blindly trusted, believed and never scrutinised.