The Intelligence Services Act 2001 (ISA) is an act of the Parliament of Australia, which was passed on 29 September 2001 and came into effect on 29 October 2001.
The ISA introduced three main reforms:
- A legislative basis for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), both of which had been previously established by executive order.
- Increased powers for the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), ASIS and DSD.
- Establishment of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) to oversee ASIO, ASIS, DSD, DIGO, DIO and ONA.
Famous quotes containing the words intelligence, services and/or act:
“One definition of man is “an intelligence served by organs.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love’s sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)