The Australian Government could have been Edward Snowden, but they chose otherwise. Instead the government chose to continue to go behind its own citizens.

The Australian Government knew about the spying program PRISM months long before Edward Snowden made his expose'.

Upholding its media rights under the Freedom of Information laws, ABC had obtained documents revealing that the federal Government, through the Attorney-General's department, had a secret meeting about PRISM in March. This was around two months before Mr Snowden exposed information about the spying program.

This only means that the government had all the pertinent information to protect its citizens' privacy, but they chose to play blind to this.

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, who had long been an advocate for citizens over digital privacy rights, expressed that the timeline from the government's discovery to Mr Snowden's revelation was interesting.

"The Australian Government has tried to be completely opaque about this. Our attorneys-general, either of the Labor or the Liberal variety, will just wave their hands and say 'national security', and that's meant to make you stop asking questions," Mr Ludlam told ABC.

The documents obtained by ABC revealed Australia's intimate relationship with the United States. But the documents were discreet about information that can reveal the frequency by which the Australian intelligence and law enforcement agencies utilised the citizens' private data obtained by NSA.

Sean Rintel, a board member with the online liberties and rights organisation, Electronic Frontiers Australia, expressed intense dislike about the government.

"There's an awful lot that's not being talked about there. And the lack of oversight over these kinds of what we now know to be very-large-scale surveillance operations is the concerning thing about what's going on here. The documents were requested from 2007 and yet there's only four and they're very heavily redacted and one was not even allowed," Mr Rintel told ABC.

When asked to comment as to the effect of PRISM activities to the privacy of the Australians, The Office of the Attorney-General refused to comment and told ABC that the topic was not for media consumption.

Mr Ludlam said that the government was only making an excuse.

"This is the scandal that's broken open in the United States and the UK and other democracies around the world," he said.