Australia Reported to Spy on Indonesia's Cellphone Communications  

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) and the Australian Signals Directorate were reported to spy on cellphone communications in Indonesia. Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot denied the allegation that the intelligence information were used for commercial purposes.

"We never comment on operational intelligence matters. We certainly don't use it for commercial purposes," the Prime Minister said, as quoted from The Australian.

The latest report about the U.S. and Australia's intelligence activities was published by The New York Times yesterday based on a classified document from Edward Snowden.

The NSA document revealed that the agency shared a large amount of data, resulted in the spying activities on Indosat, with the Australian Signals Directorate. Included in the data are communication records of a number of officials at Indonesian ministries.

A year later, the Australian Signals Directorate tapped and hacked almost 1.8 million Telkomsel's main encryption keys.

The New York Times also reported that the Australian intelligence has offered to share with the NSA information from surveillance of an American law firm representing Indonesia in trade disputes with the U.S.

Abbot denied the report and said: "We use it for the benefit of our friends. We use it to uphold our values. We use it to protect our citizens and the citizens of other countries."

THE NEW YORK TIMES | BUSINESS INSIDER