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NSA Ally Spied on US Law Firm
mendax points out a story at the NY Times about evidence that the Australian Signals Directorate notified the NSA in 2013 that it was spying on discussions between Indonesia and an American law firm. The information gathered by the Directorate included material covered by attorney-client privilege. The Times says:
"Most attorney-client conversations do not get special protections under American law from N.S.A. eavesdropping. Amid growing concerns about surveillance and hacking, the American Bar Association in 2012 revised its ethics rules to explicitly require lawyers to 'make reasonable efforts' to protect confidential information from unauthorized disclosure to outsiders. ... Several newly disclosed documents provide details of the cooperation between the United States and Australia, which share facilities and highly sensitive intelligence, including efforts to break encryption and collect phone call data in Indonesia. Both nations have trade and security interests in Indonesia, where Islamic terrorist groups that threaten the West have bases."
RTFS. It was an American law firm. Don't worry, slashdot is still all about US news.
A US law firm been spied upon by a US gov agency via Australia with the OK of someone in the US gov?
Australia just seems to the post colonial geogrpahic tap point for the US gov fishing for US attorney-client conversations.
Skilled US staff are sheltered from directly transcribing the US voices and won't raise any legal issues.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This is the best example which embodies the core question, of who prevails: is it the law that is above the government or is it the government above the law. This particular example of spying the law firm which was representing one side simply demonstrated that the United States has been thrown back to pre-Magna carta era. Basically, if you pose a shred of risk to the establishment and you are in court, you have no chances to privacy and a fair trial. Magna carta basically stated that even the king is not above the law. Now we no longer have the laws that are not being broken by overzealous eunuchs, who are only laughing at the rest of the population . Most interestingly, last year Supreme court rejected the supreme court case brought by the lawyers about the client-attorney confidentiality citing that such fears are "unsubstantiated". Supreme court is presided by judge John G. Roberts. This is the same judge, John G. Roberts, who is appointing FISA judges and is heavily involved "overseeing". So, he said he was not aware of spying.... What a scum seated as chief justice of the country
No, Australia spied on Indonesia, and intercepted communications from US based lawyers representing them in trade negotiations with the US. Australia shared this with the US.
> where Islamic terrorist groups that threaten the West have bases
You know if you don't stand up and say enough of this shit its never going to stop. ATM we have a better chance of getting wipped out by a meteor then we do by some bad ass strapped to a bomb. I get almost side swiped at least once per day while driving on the highway. So what if we get attacked once in a while more people are killed by their diets and the chemicals used in food, there's the governmental outrage about these food terrorist companies that are causing serious damage to out health and economy.
On top of that terrorism is good for the economy and populations control.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Am I to understand, that a lawyer is complaining about something sleazy and underhanded? Really? A lawyer? The same guys who sleaze their way to the top, then get political jobs so they can sleazy their way to the top again? They are the ones complaining about something possible being sleazy happening to them? Really? Let me get you a tissue.
1) Legal
2) Protected
3) Available to anyone with the means, methods, techniques and wherewithal.
End of story.
Move along.
"Australia spied on Indonesia" was just the 'laundering' or local or needed technical step.
Material from US based lawyers ended up with the US gov - no matter the help needed or sharing with/via/for/from Australia.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Right, because Australia doesn't have any beef with Indonesia.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/15/australia-and-indonesia-are-now-in-open-conflict-says-tanya-plibersek
This is about Australia or didn't you catch that? Slashdot is an AMERICAN site. What about Snowden and the NSA?
"Five Eyes", AC: We have a longstanding agreement with some of our select Freedom Buddies, to engage in 'intelligence sharing' and, when convenient, have one of us do what it would be illegal for another of us to do, then pass the results along, nice and squeaky clean.
I certainly couldn't tell you about the degree to which this is or isn't a wildly unequal partnership, or whether that varies by issue and location; but in this case (Australia volunteering to be oh-so-helpful to the US on a matter between the US and Indonesia), I suspect that team Australia wasn't exactly reigning the NSA in...
Probably caught the GD lawyers lying through their teeth.
This is a US law reform issue - what can US lawyers expect when working on cases of interest to the US gov. Australian politics is the same as always: share all with the USA.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Is about material provided in confidence that cannot be used in court.
There's no reason the appropriate authorities can't listen in, if there is reasonable suspicion that the lawyer may be complicit in a future criminal act.
There have been cases where the lawyer became complicit in a later crime. case in point: Lynne Stewart. Who perhaps should have been sentenced to death for her treasonous actions.
Attorney-client privilege protects information pertaining to their case and legal advise. It doesn't protect against prosecution for conspiring with the lawyer, or using the lawyer as a channel to commit further crimes.
Every time you read one of these stories, and are (hopefully) a little bit outraged at how the NSA has dropped every pretense of complying with our Constitution, and has embraced the most despicable aspects of tyrannical rule without any notion of "national defense", you should remember that without the heroic acts of a single young man, and the tireless efforts of a shamefully small handful of journalists and publishers, we would either be ignorant of these monstrous acts or vulnerable to charges of paranoia.
We now have proof, and government doesn't even deign to make false denials. We have government officials calling for the assassination of Edward Snowden and some of the journalists with whom he entrusted these documents. We have everything we need to make a decision about whether we really consent to be governed in this way.
There has never been a perfect hero outside of myth. But there are necessary heroes, and Snowden is one of those.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Call me crazy but I thought Slashdot is, or was, a technology site, and if I'm not even more insane, not just America possesses technology.
Of course with regard to Pine Gap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P... being a token joint facility, it's very likely everything was being done by Americans, it's just that the paperwork creates a trail for obfuscation when those Americans paid by the US government and working for the Australian government on behalf of the US government. Any actual Australian government employees were just token players, clearly in all matters beyond the shores of Australia the Australian government simply obeys the 'er' suggestions of the US government.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
From TFA:
The Australians have obtained nearly 1.8 million encrypted master keys, which are used to protect private communications, from the Telkomsel mobile telephone network in Indonesia
Anyone know what this is about? What are that master keys, and what protocol is using them?
Except instead of "case" you meant to say "international trade dispute" right?
http://www.law360.com/articles/467746/wto-sends-us-indonesia-clove-cigarette-row-to-arbitrator
Christ on a fucking cracker, this is the stuff every country in the world has an intelligence service FOR.
The Broken Window Fallacy.
The USA is not just "every nation" - they have the rule of law and US lawyers know what legal protections they have when working in the USA or outside the USA wrt to their 'intelligence services"
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's bad enough the Attorney General sanctioned the DoD's NSA to violate the 4th Amendment rights of 300 million Americans to assist in the "potential" investigations his civilian DoJ might need to conduct should they commit a crime. Now they admit to violating law and snooping on the attorneys of those persecuted? Where's this generations Lee Harvey Oswald when he is actually needed?
Why T.F. would it be illegal for the US to spy on Indonesia itself? They very well may have, but didn't find these particular communications themselves... who cares? Australia has MUCH bigger reasons to spy on Indonesia.
The conspiracy theories on display here are mind numbing.
Gaining an advantage in trade negotiations is a _classic_ example of what national intelligence agencies are expected to do!
NSA and Signals Intelligence has the ability to spy on clients and attorneys in jail, in their cells, in court, and in the attorneys office. Signals Intel has the ability to do a variety of imaing techniques, inluding extracting and monitoring thought via Remote Neural Monitoring and TAMI, which is built into satellites and radar. It has many many miles range, and they can also see and hear you through the walls. Juries can also be spied on, along with the judges, and the DA and judges and court officers are usually in on it.
Signals intel does electron imaging from remote locations. They have mind reading and mind altering radar, and atomic grade long range laser microphones, thermal and radar imaging of objects/particles/people, and also human and electronics electrical activity monitoring, tracking, and decoding.
Details at http://www.oregonstatehospital...
No information, human memory, or communcation can be kept private from these guys. Set ups, black operations, spy games, mind control on the public and deception is all around us. You cannot infiltrate their game because they know whos after them, and I am telling you they are able to track and monitor this shit well.
Fuck beta.
If they are spying on "everybody" then naturally they have not left anybody out? They just better hurry up and release a story about spying on homos. The NSA doesn't want to be called homophobes and have men in make-up demonstrating outside the NSA building do they? Hey! cannot hold the victim status if they are left out of this! Oh and don't forget Jesse Jackson, what ever you do NSA. Thank you Philip. http://child-porn-hacking-and-...
In a country where it's officially believed that the polygraph is Wonder Woman's lasso of truth it shouldn't amaze me so much that people are taking this shit seriously.
I suggest strstr that you consider reality instead because it's scary enough without going past the wall of voodoo. Real stuff on the public record is able to listen in at range in a variety of situations - for example Theremin's passive bug found in a US Embassy in the 1950's (something about it is on wikipedia somewhere).
Also you should keep in mind the Snowden situation - all those toys don't help much if toy soldiers are using them. Incompetence of the trackers is keeping you from being tracked everywhere.
Unless Australia was targeting and spying on the US law firm instead of Indonesia of course. Which is what the story is talking about.
My understanding is that the concern is not about these relatively trivial trade negotiations specifically(though if any of the unnamed 'customers' who found the intelligence products useful were American firms rather than government entities, that would make the US claims of not engaging in economic espionage for the benefit of individual companies rather tenuous); but about the broader question of whether US clandestine activity has the slightest regard for attorney-client relations(in this case, Indonesia had engaged a US law firm, and the Australians noted that the goodies might involve that material).
Some lawyers (particularly the ones dealing with political unlikeables, like the Gitmo remnants) have long suspected that the usual protections for attorney-client privilege were being more or less blatantly violated; but the matter has remained unresolved because, without some evidence, nobody ever has standing, the court finds the plaintiffs' concerns to be merely speculative, etc.
This case, while singularly un-sinister in terms of the matter at hand, strongly suggests that attorney-client communications are open season for the US clandestine services, if they care, which is news given the protections theoretically afforded to such(particularly in light of the revelation of DEA, and possibly other, use of 'parallel construction' to generate non-tainted 'independent' discovery of evidence uncovered by classified surveillance mechanisms that they did not wish to disclose at trial, even to the judge or prosecution, much less the defense).
Nerds also like rights and like being informed when they are being violated. Also, they are spying on non-Americans even more so it's of interest to everyone.
It's also true that not even all American Slashdotters live in the US. People move around and stuff.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Ah yes. The 'Special Administrative Measures' case. Do remind me about how that relates to this story?
No information, human memory, or communcation can be kept private from these guys. Set ups, black operations, spy games, mind control on the public and deception is all around us. You cannot infiltrate their game because they know whos after them, and I am telling you they are able to track and monitor this shit well.
The good news is that a prefrontal lobotomy can and will bring peace
to your troubled mind. We're ready to give you one. Just look out your window,
that's us in the van with no windows.
your friends
Which kind of explains why senior Australian and American politicians have been in Indonesia recently..
Hate to be the Australian Ambassador to Indonesia at the moment..
Rumour has it that the Indonesians regularly send encrypted birthday greetings for Australian operatives so we will probably just end up with another round of mock outrage and contrition from both sides and then it will be back to the cricket..
I think that its a shame Shirley Temple Black is dead because now there is no one to lead a global round of "Good ship lollypop."
The problem here is not exactly that the US or some other country spied on Indonesia but that in whatever course of events, US citizens who also generally receive special treatment (lawyers) were spied on and this information was passed to the US government where it could have benefited. What effectively happened here is the US government gained information that it is constitutionally and as a matter of US law, barred from gathering and either did use it to their advantage or had the opportunity to do so.
You gain an enormous advantage in knowing what the opposition is doing in any matters of law. Good lawyers study scenarios in order to understand and anticipate the moves of their opposing counsel and recognize when their tactics are working. But knowing first hand could make the difference between winning and losing. That in and of itself does make spying on foreign nations worth while, it just doesn't excuse violating the US constitution and principles of law in the process of doing it. If a normal ordinary person or lawyer were to gain access to this kind of information through a third party (directly or unsolicited), it could cause them to lose their license, case or claim they are representing, or even worse- land them in jail if they used it.
Did the NSA rearrange bits on the law firm's cable-connected computers?
That would be a key constitutional trip line.
The stock tips those guys must have, I mean there's no disclosure of what they monitored so proving insider trading is not only difficult, it would require national security secrecy if there were any sort of trail to expose. The NSA stated their goal was to capture and decrypt all business traffic including stock trades. I guess I should just go apply for a job.
Hey, look, everybody! It's our old friend Fjord Fairlane!
If you're going to try to move the goalposts like that, Thin White Duke, you'll have to do better than a link to the Daily Ruse.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The correct word is partner. The reason they have the five eyes )Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) is so that they can work their ways around laws in one country by having another country do the spying then sharing the information back to the country that wanted the data to begin with. It's all about getting around the laws and as the article said "The bulletin notes only that the counsel’s office “provided clear guidance” and that the Australian agency “has been able to continue to cover the talks, providing highly useful intelligence for interested US customers.”"
That means that the information was provided to American intelligence agencies and that they are violating the clear prohibition against spying on Americans.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
"US lawyers know what legal protections they have when working in the USA or outside the USA"
Just like anyone else. Not much :D
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
They haven't been able to do another 9/11 style attack since. And their organization has been decimated. It would be nice if Snowden and the media didn't tell them how to avoid detection and prevent the NSA from having the resources to catch bad people. There are still plenty of them out there, and most don't come out and say it ahead of time.
The only bad one is the climate negotiation spying so far, but that is the fault of diplomats not knowing proper opsec.
The only thing I blame the NSA for is trusting Microsoft to secure these documents and for letting a rat like this in.
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> ... , where Islamic terrorist groups that threaten the West have bases."
Yes, and regularly negotiate trade agreements with these terrorists, in this case for buying shrimps (the Buba Gump kind) as was the case for the spying here.
It's actually 'Six Eyes'.
After the Snowden leak has shown that instead of professionals it's full of politically well connected toy soldier horse judges that couldn't find their arse with an atlas you still believe that?
cold fjord is a communist trying to subvert the principles the US was founded on. Fucking pinko commies.
Many of us never were (and are proud not to be) Americans.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"cold fjord is a communist trying to subvert the principles the US was founded on."
So is the US government. Does that make them commies, too?
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
yes, because Tanya Plibersek is more believable than, er wait hang on, I can't think of anything less believable sorry