Leaked Prism data reveals Australia tapped phones of Indonesian PM and wife
Data leaked by former NSA private contractor Edward Snowden has revealed that Australia's intelligence services attempted to listen in on the personal phone calls of the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife.
Edward Snowden
The revelation has come at a delicate stage of relations between the two nations since the newly elected Abbot Government has ramped up its rhetoric over national sovereignty over the issue of asylum boats from the nation.
The leak has been published jointly by Guardian Australia and the ABC.
“The leaked material is a slide presentation, marked top secret, from the Australian Department of Defence and the Defence Signals Directorate, or DSD , dealing with the interception of mobile phones as 3G technology was introduced in Asia,” The Guardian reported.
“It includes a slide titled Indonesian President Voice Intercept, dated August 2009 and another slide, titled IA Leadership Targets + Handsets, listing the president, and the first lady as having Nokia E90-1s, Boediono as having a Blackberry Bold 9000 as well as the type and make of the mobile phones held by the other targets.”
The newspaper reported that the leaked data includes slides detailing infographics of calls on the President’s Nokia phone over 15 days in August 2009, detailing the numbers called and calling a phone, the duration of calls, and whether it was a voice call or SMS.
Last month it was disclosed that Angela Merkel’s mobile phoned had also been bugged by the US.
The Guardian report alleges that help is being provided to Government intelligence services from telecom and internet companies.