Scott Parkin

The difficulty that confronts us, potentially, is that the Attorney-General has got power under the National Security Information Act to certify conclusively that revealing the contents of the report would adversely affect Australia’s national security interests. And if he certifies that, then any court hearing our challenge will have to hold a private hearing in which the court considers whether or not to allow the evidence to be produced in court. And in that process the statute directs the Judge to give primary weight to the conclusive certificate of the Attorney, which looks (and it’s never been tested) but it looks as though it gives him the chance to stymie the process of examining the basis for the report.

On 30 September 2009, the Federal Court ruled that ASIO did not need to produce the supporting documents.

ASIO's appeal of the order was heard by the full bench of the Federal Court in Melbourne on 28 February 2008. On July 18, 2008, Justices Jessup, North and Ryan rejected the appeal and ordered ASIO to produce the list of documents.

On May 22, 2007, Parkin's supporters released a report, Where the bloody hell are you?, which included 26 statutory declarations detailing Parkin's political activities in Australia prior to the adverse security assessment. On the same day, legal counsel for ASIO head Paul O'Sullivan told the Federal Court that ASIO did not rely solely on information relating to Parkin's activities in Australia. The following day, O'Sullivan refused to answer questions before a Senate committee about the accuracy of his previous evidence that Parkin's security assessment was related to his activities in Australia.

On November 2, 2007, Sundberg ordered discovery of documents related to the case, including Parkin's adverse security assessment, a classified ASIO "determination" setting out the criteria applied by ASIO in making the security assessment and records of ASIO's advice to the Minister for Immigration which led to the cancellation of Parkin's visa

In January 2006, Newsweek reported that the Pentagon's Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA) agency had monitored and filed a report on a June 2004 protest organised by Parkin's group, Houston Global Awareness Collective. According to Newsweek, CIFA filed a report on the protest in its database after 10 members of Parkin's group distributed peanut butter sandwiches to employees at Halliburton's Houston headquarters, in protest at allegations that Halliburton overcharged for military food contracts in Iraq.

On November 3, 2006, the Federal Court ruled that lawyers for Parkin and ASIO confer on the release of documents detailing the allegations against Parkin. On November 3, 2006 the ABC reported that Parkin, Sagar and Faisal won "the right to know why ASIO gave them adverse security assessments".

On November 28, 2006 ASIO was granted leave to appeal this decision after lawyers for the security agency argued that providing a list of documents relevant to the Parkin, Sagar and Faisel case would cause "irreparable harm" to Australia's national security. On May 22, 2007, the full bench of the Federal Court revoked ASIO's leave to appeal and ordered the matters be heard by the primary judge.

While Parkin was visiting Australia in 2005, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) contacted him to request an interview, which he declined after being advised that it was not compulsory. Shortly after, he was assessed by ASIO to represent a threat to national security, leading to the cancellation of his visa and his detention by Australian Federal Police and immigration officials on September 10, 2005.

While in Australia, Parkin participated in an anti-war protest outside the Sydney headquarters of then-Halliburton subsidiary KBR on August 31, and was also reported to have attended the 2005 Forbes Global CEO Conference protest. On the day of his detention, he was due to give a workshop entitled: "Bringing Down The Pillars - People power strategies against war and capitalism".

On October 31, 2005, Director-General of Security Paul O'Sullivan gave evidence before a Senate Estimates Committee that Parkin was not involved in any violent activity in Australia. O'Sullivan also told the Committee that the adverse security assessment was related to Parkin's "behaviour subsequent to his arrival in Australia".

On 6 December 2005, the Attorney-General released the public version of a classified report [1] by the Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, Ian Carnell, detailing his investigation into the circumstances of Parkin's deportation. The public version of the report concluded that the adverse security assessment was made in accordance with legislative requirements. The report dismissed media allegations that Parkin had advocated "rolling marbles under the hooves of police horses", but did not detail any other specific allegations against Parkin. Carnell wrote:

In December 2005, lawyers acting for Parkin lodged a Federal Court challenge seeking to quash the adverse security assessment. Parkin's lawyers are also acting for two Iraqi refugees, Mohammed Sagar and Muhammad Faisal, who received adverse security assessments from ASIO and were held in immigration detention for over five years. The case may test the power of the Attorney General, under the National Security Information Act, to prevent particular evidence from being heard in an open court.

Scott Parkin (born 1969, Garland, Texas) is an anti-war, environmental and global justice organizer, former community college history instructor, and a founding member of the Houston Global Awareness Collective. He has been a vocal critic of the American invasion of Iraq, and of corporations such as Exxonmobil and Halliburton. Since 2006, he has worked as an campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network, organizing campaigns against Bank of America, Citibank, TXU and the Keystone XL Pipeline. He also organizes with Rising Tide North America.