NSA Ally Spied on US Law Firm 162
mendax points out a story at the NY Times about evidence that the Australian Signals Directorate notified the NSA in 2013 that it was spying on discussions between Indonesia and an American law firm. The information gathered by the Directorate included material covered by attorney-client privilege. The Times says:
"Most attorney-client conversations do not get special protections under American law from N.S.A. eavesdropping. Amid growing concerns about surveillance and hacking, the American Bar Association in 2012 revised its ethics rules to explicitly require lawyers to 'make reasonable efforts' to protect confidential information from unauthorized disclosure to outsiders. ... Several newly disclosed documents provide details of the cooperation between the United States and Australia, which share facilities and highly sensitive intelligence, including efforts to break encryption and collect phone call data in Indonesia. Both nations have trade and security interests in Indonesia, where Islamic terrorist groups that threaten the West have bases."
Re: Why is this news? (Score:2, Informative)
No, Australia spied on Indonesia, and intercepted communications from US based lawyers representing them in trade negotiations with the US. Australia shared this with the US.
Re:Why is this news? (Score:5, Informative)
This is about Australia or didn't you catch that? Slashdot is an AMERICAN site. What about Snowden and the NSA?
"Five Eyes" [wikipedia.org], AC: We have a longstanding agreement with some of our select Freedom Buddies, to engage in 'intelligence sharing' and, when convenient, have one of us do what it would be illegal for another of us to do, then pass the results along, nice and squeaky clean.
I certainly couldn't tell you about the degree to which this is or isn't a wildly unequal partnership, or whether that varies by issue and location; but in this case (Australia volunteering to be oh-so-helpful to the US on a matter between the US and Indonesia), I suspect that team Australia wasn't exactly reigning the NSA in...
Re:Islamic terrorist groups that threaten the West (Score:1, Informative)
You know if you don't stand up and say enough of this shit its never going to stop.
Let me guess, .... you don't think that argument applies to terrorism too?
No one with intelligence believes the transparent, logically flawed propaganda you spew.
Not all of us are going to be swayed by your "boogeyman" arguments about terrorism. 40,000
people die in the US in vehicle accidents every year. A rational person is more concerned about
safety on the road than about any terrorist "threat".
Of course highways deaths in the US don't have any bearing on the interests of multinational
corporations which have links to the US government, so the efforts of swine like you are directed
toward fomenting fear in the US populace rather than actually DOING something which
would increase the safety of the average American in the real world.
You sicken me. Scum like you have polluted humanity since time began. During
the 1930s you wore a brown shirt and marched with the Nazis. During the 1950s you
worked to rid America of the "threat of Communism" and ruined the lives of good people
in the process. During the 1960s you worked in the Stasi in the GDR, spying on everyone.
And now you are working to convince people of lies which are a thinly veiled attempt to justify
the adventures of the US in various countries around the world where the US wants to maintain
access to various natural resources.
There is no less honorable occupation than yours. You are paid to lie. And most of us here
on Slashdot laugh at you and your amateurish attempts to convince people who are your intellectual
betters of the lame bullshit you try to sell us.
I've got more respect for a janitor than I do for you.
The janitor does honorable honest work.
You don't.
.