The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation apparently still has some concerns about the encryption law that was passed by Parliament on 6 December, despite there being no changes to the draft that was discussed by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Security and Intelligence.

But you and I will not be able to know what the great minds at the spy agency — which, by the way, has yet to catch a single spy — are thinking.

The contents of the ASIO submission are apparently meant only for the eyes of the committee. Secrecy hints at dark and deep secrets, of matters that are just too dastardly for the average man or woman to know.

Governments and law enforcement the world over control the people in their countries through fear and ASIO is certainly good at this.

ASIO appeared before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security andin open committee on 26 November, with other government agencies, all of whom were pushing for the bill to become law before Parliament rose for the year on 6 December.

At that time, Duncan Lewis, the head of ASIO, had to admit that there was no specific threat on the radar of his agency. All the wisdom he could offer was that Christmas is a time when the threat is generally high.

Asked why the country's threat level could not be raised, he again was forced to admit that to do that, ASIO would have to have knowledge of a specific threat.

The bill was passed on 6 December but just 12 days later, the PJCIS said it would begin a fresh review.

The new review has asked for submissions and will submit a report by 3 April.

On a totally unrelated note, Wikipedia tells me that Asio is a genus of typical owls, or true owls, in the family Strigidae. The genus Asio contains the eared owls, which are characterised by feather tufts on the head which give the appearance of "ears". The genus name Asio is the Latin name for a type of eared owl.

How is this related to what appears above? I leave it to you to figure out, dear reader.