The United States National Security Agency routinely shares intelligence data with Israel without first sifting through it to remove information about US citizens or the citizens of close allies including Australia, according to a top-secret agreement disclosed by US intelligence whistleblower Edward Snowden. Details of intelligence-sharing between the National Security Agency and its Israeli counterpart, the Israeli Signals Intelligence National Unit, published by The Guardian newspaper show the US government hands over to Israel "raw" or "unevaluated and unminimised" signals intelligence including "transcripts, gists. facsimiles, telex, voice and Digital Network Intelligence (DNI) metadata and content". With much of the world's internet traffic passing through US telecommunications networks, large volumes of purely US domestic communications as well as the communications of US allies including Australia are collected by the NSA's surveillance programs. The leaked memorandum of understanding, which formalised an in-principle agreement between the US and Israel in March 2009, sets out requirements "pertaining to the protection of US persons" and stresses the constitutional rights of Americans to privacy and the need for Israel to respect those rights. The memorandum further states that the Israeli Sigint National Unit recognises that the National Security Agency has agreements with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain that require it to protect information associated with persons of those US allies "using procedures and safeguards similar to those applied for US persons". "For this reason, in all uses of raw material provided by NSA, [the Israeli Sigint National Unit] agrees to apply the procedures outlined in this agreement to persons of these countries," the document states. However, the disclosure that the NSA provides raw intelligence data to a foreign country outside the close 5-Eyes partnership contrasts with assurances from President Barack Obama's administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacy of US citizens. The agreement is explicit in stating that the intelligence being shared would not be filtered or "minimised" in advance by NSA analysts to references to US persons or allied nationals. Moreover the agreement contains no indication that the Australian Signals Directorate or the NSA's other "5-Eyes" partners have been consulted on or agreed to the US-Israeli agreement. The supply of raw intelligence to Israel appears to undermine both agreements between the 5-Eyes partners concerning reporting on their own citizens and the Australian Signals Directorate's own ministerial rules to protect the privacy of Australians. The memorandum of agreement refers to only one check carried out by the NSA on the raw intelligence, saying the US agency will "regularly review a sample of files transferred to [Israeli Sigint National Unit] to validate the absence of US persons' identities". There is no reference to any checks relating to the handling of signals intelligence relating to Australian persons or other allied nationals or notification of any breaches of procedure in such cases. The memorandum of understanding allows Israel to retain "any files containing the identities of US persons" for up to a year. The same provision applies to information concerning Australian persons. Although the memorandum states that US sourced intelligence must be handled in accordance with US law, and that the Israelis agreed not to target Americans identified in the data, these rules are not backed up by legal obligations. "This agreement is not intended to create any legally enforceable rights and shall not be construed to be either an international agreement or a legally binding instrument according to international law," the document says. Although Israel is one of America's closest allies, it is not a member of the longstanding intelligence partnership between the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Israel has also repeatedly engaged in intelligence operations directed at the US and its allies. Other top-secret NSA documents reported by The Guard-ian suggest that the US-Israeli signals intelligence co-operation has been "tilted heavily in favour of Israeli security concerns" and that while Israel is an "extraordinarily good" intelligence partner "they target [the US] to learn our positions on Middle East problems". "A NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] ranked them as the third most aggressive intelligence service against the US," one NSA official is quoted saying. Israeli intelligence activities in Australia have also attracted attention in recent years. On May 24, 2010, former foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith told Parliament that the government was "in no doubt that Israel was responsible for the abuse and counterfeiting of [Australian] passports" in connection with the assassination of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the United Arab Emirates. Mr Smith further announced that a senior Israeli diplomat was being expelled in response to Israeli's actions and refusal to co-operate with Australian investigations. The diplomat, given one week to leave Australia, was embassy counsellor Eli Elkoubi, an officer of the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad. Allegations of Israeli intelligence activity in Australia have also arisen in relation to the case of Australian Mossad agent Ben Zygier who, prosecuted by Israel for espionage offences, killed himself in a Tel Aviv jail in December 2010. The Israeli Justice Ministry this week confirmed that Mr Zygier's family will receive $1.2 million compensation as a consequence of his death in custody.

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