Indonesia Demands Australia Explain After Embassy Spying Claims
Source: Business Week
Indonesia is demanding an explanation from Australia after a newspaper reported that its neighbor was using embassies in locations such as Jakarta to conduct electronic spying on Asian governments.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said nations may have the technical capacity to intercept information. “But the cost in terms of trust, in terms of the damage that may be resulting, is something that we must all reflect on,” he told reporters in Perth today, where he is attending a regional meeting. “If Australia was itself subject to such an activity, do you consider it as being a friendly act or not?”
Jakarta has summoned Australia’s ambassador Greg Moriarty, Indonesia Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene said by mobile phone message today, without giving further details.
Australian embassies are secretly helping intercept phone calls and data across Asia as part of a U.S.-led global spying network, the Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday, citing information from American whistleblower Edward Snowden and a former Australian intelligence officer. U.S. and German officials have so far failed to resolve differences over spying in a meeting prompted by allegations that American intelligence bugged German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s mobile phone.
Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-11-01/indonesia-demands-australia-explain-after-embassy-spying-claims
The Aussies are in this with us, apparently...
(Interestingly, we caught an Australian spy in the US not too very long ago... 2004? 2005?)
