NSA sided with Australian intelligence over a U.S. business

Under the administration of President Obama, the National Security Agency has brazenly trampled upon the Fourth Amendment on a massive scale. Its national director has lied to Congress with impunity, it has broken its own privacy rules thousands of times, and its employees have used its vast resources to spy on their love interests.

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Now the agency’s track record has become even more abysmal. A leaked document has revealed that the NSA actively helped a foreign government conduct surveillance of an American business.

Last year, an American law firm was hired by Indonesian officials to provide assistance in a trade dispute. The document shows that the Australian Signals Directorate was surveilling the firm – thought to be Chicago-based Mayer Brown – and approached the NSA for assistance.

Australia told the NSA that “information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included.” This didn’t seem to be a problem for the NSA, which was apparently happy to support the monitoring of its own people by another sovereign state.

The documents do not indicate that the law firm, or the trade talks it was involved in, posed a potential threat to American security. Instead, it says that the ASD “has been able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested U.S. customers.”

Given Australia’s relationship with Indonesia, its eavesdropping on the American firm is unsurprising. The ASD, after all, was keeping tabs on foreign actors “to support Australia’s national interests.”

Yet the interests of U.S. allies are not synonymous with our own. It should be concerning that Australia felt so comfortable approaching an American agency for assistance in surveilling Americans. One might think that the NSA would seek to protect law-abiding nationals who do business abroad, not help foreign agencies spy on them.

Indonesia has recalled its ambassador to Australia, and diplomatic ties between the two nations are expected to be frozen for at least six months.