A moral void

That's the only way to describe the SIS, who - like their British counterparts - decided to look the other way on child abuse:

The SIS knew a young woman was being sexually abused by her father but failed to lodge a complaint with the police, effectively allowing the abuse to continue for years, a former spy says.

The ex-SIS agent said he was involved in a covert operation in the late 1980s and early 1990s that involved entering a home where evidence of the abuse was found.

He took numerous photographs showing sexual abuse was occurring.

The former agent said he was rebuffed when he told his supervisor at the time that the SIS should involve the police.

It was the mid-1990s before the police talked to the victim and it wasn't until years later that the man was convicted for sex crimes, including rape, against his daughter.

Sure, like the embassy break-ins, it was a long time ago, and the SIS was different then. The problem is that when the whistleblower went to the Inspector-General about it, the SIS threatened to prosecute them. Which seems to be a perfect illustration of the mindset of hostility to whistleblowing and oversight discussed here - not to mention perversion of the course of justice. And that suggests that, when it comes down to it, nothing has really changed after all, that "security" bullshit still trumps any sense of ethics within the organisation. And that being the case, we should defund it and shut it down permanently.