We Don’t Spy on Australia – U.S.
The United States former director of national intelligence said that the U.S. did not employ internet surveillance to spy on Australia.
According to Admiral Dennis Blair, former commander-in-chief of US forces in the pacific, Australia and the US were actually two countries working hand in hand on security matters. For this reason, the US and Australia need not spy on each other.
In a report from The Sydney Morning Herald, Mr Blair said, "We do not spy on each other. The Snowden affair is not something that should affect our relationship at all."
He made the strong comment saying Edward Snowden "is a delusional young man who ought to be jailed." He expressed his strong disagreement that Mr Snowden is to be taken as credible whistleblower exposing the alleged US spying activities over the internet.
Mr. Blair further said that Mr. Snowden so called expose' had unwittingly "made our enemies' job easier." By enemies, Mr Blair meant not just strategic enemies but as well as strong terrorist groups like al Qaeda and criminal syndicates all over the word.
He emphasized that with Mr Snowden's spy allegations, the enemies now "know one more thing not to do and we have work that much harder to learn what they are up to. It's a cat and mouse game..."
Mr Blair explained that criminals did not have working knowledge that US authorities have capabilities to track their internet communication activities until the tracking methods were exposed. He had also expound that the US surveillance method were done under the compliance of strict legislated supervision as compared to Russia and China where internet surveillance were done mainly for "authoritarian regimes to maintain their control."
Meanwhile, Australian intelligence officials fear that Mr Snowden's expose of the US surveillance activities will strain Australia's relationship with Asian countries.
In a report from Fairfax Media, Canberra had shared intelligence report with Washington and was actually a member of the "Five Eyes" global security and surveillance network. This had aroused the fears of the Australian Intelligence officials.
As a damage control, Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said that an interagency taskforce was already working to monitor the reactions coming from different Asian countries.
In an interview with Fairfax, a spokesman for Mr Dreyfus said that "Agencies have been meeting formally on this important issue and have been coordinated in their consideration of the matter and their briefing of ministers."
Anonymously, some Australian Defence Intelligence officials expressed that there can be a slight possibility that Mr Snowden indeed gained "very wide access, including access to much detail of communications intelligence cooperation between the US and Australia."
Other official said that "disclosure of highly sensitive collection operations and methodology will damage Australia's intelligence capabilities. It already has done so. But there's also risk of serious complications in our relations with our neighbors."
One Australian official who also speak in strict confidentiality with Fairfax media said, "The US may be able to brush aside some of the diplomatic fallout from the Snowden leak, but that may not be the case for Australia. China, Malaysia and other countries may respond to us in ways that they would not to Washington."