EX-SBS RADIO BOSS UNAWARE OF ASIO PHONE TAP
by Sasha Uzunov
Mr Peter Horton (pictured above), the former Melbourne radio station manager of Australia’s multicultural public broadcaster SBS, has told TEAM UZUNOV of his surprise that Australia’s domestic counter-intelligence service was tapping SBS telephones.
“If I had known, I would have let the management in Sydney know about,” he said. “I would ask why was ASIO tapping the phones? I don’t think that SBS office receptionists or staff knew about it.”
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), according to newly de-classified files, monitored an SBS radio journalist and newsreader with the Macedonian language program, Mr Boris Trajkov, before and during his tenure at SBS (1975-2000). TEAM UZUNOV broke the story in a previous blog.
The 66 page file on Mr Trajkov has surveillance notes and transcripts of tapped (bugged) telephone conversations, including a 1983 phone call made by a member of the public, a listener, to what is believed to be the SBS Radio (3EA) Melbourne Croatian language program.
Because of the 30 year rule relating to the release of government documents, it is unknown if ASIO kept monitoring SBS telephones or if any other SBS staff member had their phone bugged.
TEAM UZUNOV provided a copy of the bugged phone call transcript for Mr Horton to read.
The ASIO file can be viewed at the National Archives of Australia website
Mr Horton said that as Station Manager had he become aware he would have questioned the reason for and the legality of ASIO tapping SBS telephones.
The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) caters to Australia’s many ethnic groups and consists of two components: television (which was established in 1980) and radio (established in 1975 as two stations in Melbourne known as 3EA and 2EA in Sydney).
Mr Horton was Melbourne SBS Radio Station (3EA) Manager from 1988 to 1996 before serving two years as National Marketing Director. He left the public braodcaster in 1998 to set up his own successful marketing business LOTE.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Monday December 10, 2012
ASIO MONITORED SBS JOURNALIST – BORIS TRAJKOVBy Sasha Uzunov
Australia’s domestic counter-intelligence service monitored a Melbourne SBS Radio journalist before and during his tenure at the multicultural public broadcaster because of his association to Yugoslav diplomats during the 1970s and 80s, newly de-classified files reveal.
The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) opened a file in 1971 on Mr Boris Trajkov who joined SBS Radio (then known as 3EA) in 1975 as a Macedonian language program newsreader and journalist until his departure in 2000 from SBS.
read on….
Dobrze powiedziane!
SBS not only was bugged by ASIO it also had two operatives within the organization. One of the technical operators was once visited by ASIO officers and interviewed because he hasd contacted and visited the Iraki Embassy in Canberra.
The Embassies surveillance unit of ASIO visited him at his home then at his office at his request and allowed them to interview him. The interview was a benign affair and the matter closed.
What the SBS staffer found interesting is that the two gentlemen from ASIO who he had signed into the visitors book had 'vanished without trace' a few months later from the book.