14 DAY TRIAL // Australians are slightly behind on this, but it seems they’ve finally launching an investigation to see what information the Snowden leaks could hold on the country’s intelligence programs.
According to a local source, the country’s top spy agency, ASIO, has expressed great concern over the materials leaked by Snowden and has decided to carry out an audit to figure out what more could come to light in the coming months.
Although Australia is a close partner of the United States and often gets data and reports from the NSA, they’ve barely made headlines until now.
Today, however, ABC and The Guardian have published a new top secret document regarding Australia’s Defense Signals Directorate who has apparently put a tracker on the mobile phone of Indonesia’s president, his wife and senior officials.
“Certain material that has been released by Mr. Snowden that is now in the public realm is of very great concern. That material is Australian material. It is obviously of very great concern to the Australian government, ASIO director David Irvine told the Senate.
“Now, they’re looking into conducting an audit of intelligence it has shared with foreign agency, namely the NSA, to assess what sort of material could be out there at the moment. “We have a good idea of what information we have shared with other allied and friendly agencies, but I won’t go into that,” Irvine said.
The NSA itself has been trying to figure out what files Snowden took for over five months now, and despite some statements that they’ve figured it all out, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Last week, NSA director Keith Alexander told the media that Snowden could have taken up to 200,000 files, which indicates they actually have no idea what information is out there.
As for Australia, it’s surprising they’re only now investigating the issue, considering for how many months the Snowden saga has been going on.