• Australian spies have obtained 1.8 million encrypted master keys from an Indonesian telecommunications company and decrypted almost all

• Australia and the US share access to bulk Indonesian telecommunications data, including those of Indonesian officials

• New Edward Snowden documents show ASD listened to Indonesian government talks and shared what they learned with US

Australia spied on Indonesia and shared the information with the United States when the two countries were involved in a trade dispute in February 2013, a new document from whistleblower Edward Snowden shows.

Australia listened in on the communications of an unnamed American law firm which was representing Indonesia in the discussions and passed the information to the National Security Agency, according to a document obtained by the New York Times.

It is unclear what the discussions were about - but two trade disputes around that time were about the importation of clove cigarettes and shrimp, says the paper.

A monthly bulletin from the NSA’s liaison office in Canberra said the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) was monitoring the talks and offered to share any information with the US. It offered up that “information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included”.

Liaison officials asked for guidance for Australia from the NSA general counsel’s office on the surveillance. The bulletin did not specify what the guidance was, but said Australia was “able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested US customers”.

In addition, a 2012 document reveals that America and Australia share access to Indonesian telecommunications. The NSA has given Australia access to bulk data collected from Indosat, one of Indonesia’s largest telecommunications networks. This includes data on Indonesian government officials in a number of departments.

The Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has been contacted for comment by Guardian Australia.

The ASD has also obtained 1.8m encrypted master keys from the Telkomsel mobile telephone network in Indonesia and has decrypted almost all of them according to a document from last year.

According to a separate document, the US sought to “mentor” Australia to break the encryption codes used by the Armed Forces in Papua New Guinea and another document reveals the NSA and ASD run an intelligence facility in Alice Springs where half the personnel are from the NSA with particular focus on monitoring Indonesia and China. It is known that Australia and the US jointly run a defence facility near Alice Springs named Pine Gap.

The fresh round of revelations comes three months after a diplomatic dispute began between Indonesia and Australia after Guardian Australia and the ABC reported Australia had spied on the mobile telephones of Yudhoyono and his inner circle, including his wife.

The law firm retained by the Indonesian government for the trade talks was not named in the documents but Mayer Brown, a Chicago-based firm with a global practice, was then advising the Indonesian government on trade issues, the New York Times reports.

The NSA and the ASD declined to answer questions about the reported surveillance, including whether information involving the American law firm was shared with United States trade officials or negotiators.

A spokesperson for the prime minister, Tony Abbott, said he does not comment on intelligence matters. Opposition leader Bill Shorten also would not comment specifically on the allegations but said the government “needs to slip into fifth gear” to rebuild the relationship with Indonesia.

“I want to take a bipartisan tone here, security matters I don’t comment on, that is the convention that is appropriate,” he told reporters in Adelaide.

“In terms of the general implication about our relationship with Indonesia separate to the security matters, I am concerned that in the course of five and a half months Tony Abbott has taken our relationship with Indonesia from hero to zero. Indonesia is an important part of our neighbourhood and I think the government needs to do everything it can to build bridges with Indonesia and that should be a foreign policy priority.”

A spokesperson from the Australian Defence Force office said that in gathering information to support Australia’s national interests, its intelligence agencies adhered strictly to their legal obligations, including when they engaged with foreign counterparts.

According to the 2013 bulletin from Canberra, Australia was also spying on a target in Afghanistan who was an American citizen but it did not detail what action, if any, the NSA took after Australia shared the information with them.

The bulletin did not identify which trade dispute Indonesia was involved in that Australia was spying on but the country has had a few dispute with America over the years. The disputes over clove cigarettes and shrimp were ongoing at the time of the surveillance.



America bans the sale of Indonesian clove cigarettes, a major export, which Indonesia objected to the World Trade Organisation about saying menthol cigarettes were similar and still allowed in America. Indonesia won the dispute with the WTO ruling the ban violated international law.

The other trade dispute was to do with shrimp, which America said Indonesia was selling at below market prices.

The Chicago law firm Mayer Brown represented Indonesia in both cases and the shrimp claim was dropped in August.

Mayer Brown also represents Indonesia in a dispute with Australia, in which Indonesia claims Australia’s requirements for plain packaging for cigarettes were excessive.

Last year, Snowden leaked thousands of documents to media outlets including the Guardian and the Washington Post. One of the journalists to whom he leaked the documents, Laura Poitras, was bylined on the Times piece.



The NSA is not allowed to target American citizens or businesses for surveillance without a warrant, although it is allowed to intercept communications between Americans and foreign intelligence targets. Information disclosed by Snowden has included the NSA’s collection of the telephone records of millions of Americans.

The agency has also come under fire for eavesdropping on heads of state, including the German chancellor Angela Merkel, and for working in industrial espionage.

In November 2013, it was reported that the NSA and its Australian counterparts had worked together on a surveillance operation covering a 2007 United Nations climate change conference in Indonesia. The report caused the Australian government considerable diplomatic embarrassment.

A Chicago law firm, Mayer Brown, was advising the Indonesian government at the time covered by the newly released document.

A lawyer from the firm who was involved in the talks told the Times: “I always wonder if someone is listening, because you would have to be an idiot not to wonder in this day and age. But I’ve never really thought I was being spied on.”

The lawyer added: “None of this stuff is very sexy. It’s just run of the mill.”

The NSA “declined to answer questions” about the reported surveillance.