14 DAY TRIAL // News broke out earlier today that the Aussie intelligence agency had no issues, and actually volunteered, to share with the Five Eyes members data about the country’s citizens. The country’s prime minister, Tony Abbot has no qualms about this and states that everything was done within the law since gathering telephone and email metadata is allowed.
“We as an Australian government will always act to safeguard our national interest and to protect our citizens. Our security organizations will always act in accordance with the law and they will always act with appropriate safeguards in place,” Abbot told reporters.
Furthermore, he states that he is unaware of any illegality and urged anyone with evidence to the contrary to come forward.
According to a leaked file from Edward Snowden, the DSD, currently Australian Signals Directorate, was more than willing to share “bulk, unselected, unminimized metadata as long as there is no intent to target an Australian national.”
Metadata, while it may seem as a lot less than actual phone conversations or emails content, since it only provides information such as phone numbers, email addresses, dates, times, locations and the duration of the calls, it can actually be used to paint a pretty accurate picture of someone’s personal life by connecting the necessary dots.
This isn’t the first time Australia ends up in the spotlight thanks to the connection it has with the American intelligence agency, the National Security Agency. Furthermore, since Australia is part of the Five Eyes, alongside Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand, more documents could resurface at any time, given their sharing policy.
Moreover, a few weeks ago it was revealed that the Australian intelligence agency tried to tap the phones of the Indonesian president, his wife and those of several government officials, which caused a diplomatic rift between the two nations.