By Pia Bobeff
You may have seen the Hanna Neumann building as you make your way back and forth between lecture halls and colleges. But what so few of us have seen is the fifth floor, home to the ANU x ASD collaboration.
The collaboration began in 2018 and arose during the Hanna Neumann building’s design process, which cost the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) $12 million. The building is adorned with code, including the fifth level’s glass meeting wall, which fit together to form a large codified message.
This design is fitting, with David Jamieson, a cryptanalyst for the ASD, saying that “cryptography is a puzzle”, and that if people can decipher the coded signs throughout the building, they will understand what the collaboration entails.
However, the fifth floor is perhaps the university’s biggest secret. It is accessible to only a select few, and according to the collaborations’ website, one must receive baseline security clearance before entering and be an undergraduate mathematics student, either looking to complete their Honours or summer research project at the Co-Lab. Rumour has it that it looks like any “public service office”.
The ASD is described by the ANU as “an intelligence and security agency within the Australian Defence Portfolio”. It has three roles:
- Inform: covertly collecting foreign signals intelligence to provide accurate information.
- Protect: the provision of “proactive advice and assistance” to upgrade the control of cyber risks .
- Disrupt: the application of “offensive cyber capabilities offshore to support military operations and to disrupt terrorism, cyber espionage and cyber-enabled crime”.
According to the ASD’s website, the partnership provides a “collaborative research environment” for ASD and ANU staff and students alike, one which allows them to “conduct complex research into Australia’s toughest national security problems”.
The aim of the collaboration is to encourage research in areas of “mutual interest” to both parties, to provide staff and students greater training activities, and to advance career opportunities for ANU students.
A spokesperson from the ANU stated “the ASD-ANU Co-Lab is a highly valued and strategic part of how ANU contributes to the National mission by helping to solve national security challenges and nurture Australian talent”.
One thing that is not a secret is that the Co-Lab has recently come under scrutiny from the ANU student population, with Students for Palestine Canberra creating a petition calling for the Co-lab to be closed, and for all links between the ANU and the “drive for imperialism” to be “severed”.
Receiving 73 verified signatures, the petition argues that the ASD has “almost definitely played a role in the US strikes” that occurred earlier this year. This is given as the ASD is involved with and oversees Pine Gap, which allegedly provides the USA with “indispensable” information.
In a statement to Observer, Students for Palestine Canberra convenor Tasmyn Smith, stated that the ASD’s role in Pine Gap and continued relationship with the ANU is “indicative of the priorities of our university”. Smith remarked that ultimately “universities should be places of education for the betterment of our society” rather than “places where deals are done with various weapons’ companies and institutions on the basis of profit and imperialism”.
Reflecting on the petition, Smith stated that “students have a role to play in resisting attempts to channel our education into war, murder, and genocide”. Whilst the ANU declined to provide a comprehensive comment on the matter, the rise in outrage against the collaboration makes one wonder if the partnership will make it to the agreed 15 years.
However, this controversy does not bring us any closer to deciphering what really goes on on the fifth floor and it begs the question if we will ever know …
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ANU Observer 