I Spied

Latest Episodes:

Ep 52: Cloudy with a Chance of Pitfalls Oct 31, 2021

Show notes

This week we are joined by investigative humourist and the billboarding bad boy of climate activism, A Rational Fear's Dan Ilic to talk about the security threats of climate change. What are the threats? What should our response be? Are our military and intelligence services prepared for what is to come? And can David use a chunk of rainforest and an abandoned marijuana plantation to help save the world? Get your overcoats on because a storm is coming!

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Ep 51: Observe and Report Oct 24, 2021

Show notes

DG of Security Mike Burgess recently submitted the annual ASIO Report to Parliament, and like the dutiful guardians of the Australian intelligence community that we are, we’re having a good, hard look at how the year has been for our plucky internal security service. How is espionage and terrorism shaping up as threats, who are the hot targets for 2022, and how does ASIO rate its own performance? ASIO declares itself to be “Ordinary Australians who do extraordinary things”, but we’ll let you be the judge.

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Bite Sized: OctoPopov Oct 21, 2021

Show notes

Another in the bite size anthology of real life spies that inspired Ian Fleming in a futile effort to get Universal to give us tickets to No Time To Die. This week, we have found someone quintessentially Bond - an educated playboy with a penchant for fast cars, faster women and a dab hand at double crossing. And Fleming first met him in a casino in Portugal playing baccarat!
A man who spent WWII working for MI6, the FBI and the Abwehr but played exclusively for himself.
The name’s Popov… Dusan Popov.

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Ep 50: Toebbe Or Not Toebbe Oct 17, 2021

Show notes

Clear your dead drops and check your six for a tail as this week we look at the arrest by the FBI of nuclear physicist Jonathon Toebbe and his school teacher wife Diana for attempting to sell secrets to a “foreign government”. Who might that “foreign government” be, how did a peanut butter sandwich figure in this story, and what could have motivated the Toebbes to seek out their country for a fist full of cryptocurrency? And how did this intelligence scandal compare to the case of John Anthony Walker Jr, a US Navy Warrant office who led a spy ring that undermined US military and intelligence operations for nearly two decades? Strap in for some good, old-fashioned skullduggery as we look at why seemingly normal people turn traitor.

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Bite Sized: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Oct 14, 2021

Show notes

In their continued desperate attempt to get tickets to No Time To Die, David and Michelle look at the members of MI6 that inspired Fleming in his creation of James Bond. From a backwards skiing crack shot who saved a Norwegian village, to a Russian speaking schoolboy with a penchant for pretty women and fast cars, this bite size ep goes to show that however fantastic fiction may be, it doesn’t hold a Martini to the truth.

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Ep 49: Rebel Without a Pause Oct 10, 2021

Show notes

With anti-vax and anti-lockdown protests roiling in cities across the Eastern seaboard, David and Michelle look back at the “Golden Age” of protest of the late 60s & early 70s, when peaceniks, aboriginal rights activists and bra-burning feminists came under ASIO’s watchful eye. Why were Australians so quick to protest, why was ASIO so focused on the demonstrators, and what did feminists do to stop the spooks from listening in to their conversations? And what does all this mean in the age of Covid?
Dust off your gas mask, hold your placard high, prepare to man (or woman) the barricades and chant:
Hey hey! Ho ho! That guy with the camera is from ASIO!

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From Russia With Love - Bond Bonus Bite-size Oct 07, 2021

Show notes

To celebrate the release of No Time to Die (and in a shameless ploy to scam tickets to the premier) David and Michelle are taking a look at the real-life Bonds that may have inspired Ian Fleming in creating 007. This week: Codenamed “Ramsay”, Richard Sorge was a hard-drinking, motorbike-riding, womanising intelligence officer who literally changed the outcome of WWII. Regarded by Fleming himself as “the most formidable spy in history”, Sorge’s story has everything: Nazis, Communists, torture, several wives and 52 mistresses in Japan alone. And he managed to thwart an invasion! He was such a Bond he has to be 001.

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Ep 48: (I Heard That) Lonesome Whistle(blower) Oct 03, 2021

Show notes

What do US diplomatic cables, videos of US military malfeasance, Swedish sexual assault charges and an Ecuadorian lavatory all have in common? Australia’s elusive homegrown hacker: Julian Assange. From his early teenage days cracking the US DoD mainframe to the formation of Wikileaks and the unprecedented classified leaks of Chelsea Manning, we look at how Julian went from a person of interest to the AFP to a possible target for kidnapping or assassination by the CIA. Data dumps, classified leaks, it’s no wonder Assange spent so long living in a diplomatic dunny.

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Ep 47: Das Boof Sep 26, 2021

Show notes

Like the classic German U-boat film, Australia’s submarine program looks to be languishing on the bottom of the ocean. This week we dive, dive, dive into the depths of Scott Morrison’s ham-fisted handling of our French alliance and just what we can expect from the AUKUS agreement. What sort of subs might we get, what will our partners expect in return, and how are the neighbours going to respond with the idea of an Australian nuclear navy? And are the Collins class subs really that bad? Stand by to blow ballast while we see if we can bring these tin cans’ troubles to the surface.

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Bite Size: We All Live in a Ghetto Submarine Sep 23, 2021

Show notes

With everyone talking about Morrison’s AUKUS-ward handling of the French submarine contract, we’ve decided to have a quick peek at one of the forgotten submariner successes of the RAN: a story of Russian nuclear subs, a maverick Navy commander and an Oberon sub called HMAS Orion. A tale of naval daring-do that launched the purchase of the oft-maligned Collins Class subs, which decades later has us virtually high and dry for some new boats. Thanks to podcast fanboi Salty Sea Dog for pointing us in the direction of this cracker of a yarn.

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