The Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) is the Australian government intelligence agency responsible for collecting foreign intelligence, undertaking counter-intelligence activities and cooperation with other intelligence agencies overseas. ASIS is equivalent to the United Kingdom's Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) or the United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
According to its website, the mission of ASIS is to:
Protect and promote Australia's vital interests through the provision of unique foreign intelligence services as directed by Government.
ASIS is part of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio and is housed within DFAT's headquarters in Canberra. Its current Director-General is Nick Warner.
Read more about Australian Secret Intelligence Service: History, Royal Commissions Examining ASIS
Famous quotes containing the words australian, secret, intelligence and/or service:
“Beyond the horizon, or even the knowledge, of the cities along the coast, a great, creative impulse is at work—the only thing, after all, that gives this continent meaning and a guarantee of the future. Every Australian ought to climb up here, once in a way, and glimpse the various, manifold life of which he is a part.”
—Vance Palmer (1885–1959)
“We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“One definition of man is “an intelligence served by organs.””
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)