Tony Abbott says Australian agencies operate entirely within the law

Does he really believe what he is saying ?

Does he really think people  will believes  his response to  what is becoming the biggest scandal the world world has seen ? A scandal that is an immoral destruction of the very  roots of Democracy. 

Tony Abbott says Australian agencies operate entirely within the law

Prime minister responds to report that embassies are helping the US by conducting clandestine surveillance operations in Asia

Katharine Murphy, deputy political editor

Tony Abbott told reporters that any activity being undertaken by Australian agencies or officials was within the law. Photograph: Alan Porritt/AAP

The prime minister says Australian agencies and officials always act within the confines of the law, responding to a report that Australian embassies are being used in clandestine surveillance operations undertaken throughout Asia at the behest of the United States.

Tony Abbott told reporters in Melbourne on Thursday that he would not make public comment on intelligence matters in keeping with longstanding practice, but he suggested any activity being undertaken by Australian agencies or officials was entirely lawful.

"Well, the thing about every Australian governmental agency is that we all operate in accordance with the law," he told reporters.

"Every Australian governmental agency, every Australian official, at home and abroad, operates in accordance with the law and that's the assurance that I can give people at home and abroad – our people operate in accordance with law," he said. "Now, as for the precise workings of our intelligence organisations, it's been a long-standing practice not to comment on them."

Fairfax reported on Thursday that intelligence collection under a program codenamed Stateroom occurred from Australian embassies in Jakarta, Bangkok, Hanoi, Beijing and Dili, and High Commissions in Kuala Lumpur and Port Moresby, as well as other diplomatic posts.

The new report draws on a leaked US National Security Agency document from whistleblower Edward Snowden, published by German publication Der Spiegel.

The document revealed an intelligence gathering program undertaken both from US diplomatic posts and from posts of the "five eyes" intelligence partners. That group includes Australia.

The Stateroom program reportedly intercepts telecommunications and internet traffic. Fairfax says the document explicitly states that the Australian Defence Signals Directorate operates Stateroom facilities "at Australian diplomatic facilities". The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has declined to comment on the report.

The extent of covert US data mining and surveillance, being revealed iteratively through the documents obtained by Snowden and published internationally by The Guardian and other news outlets, is creating political and diplomatic reverberations around the world.

The Obama administration in Washington was left red faced by the recent revelation that German chancellor Angela Merkel had her phone tapped by intelligence agencies.

South Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon, who has been attempting to probe the extent of surveillance activities undertaken by Australian agencies since Snowden first revealed the existence of the Prism program in the US, has called for a review of data collection activities.

Xenophon's questions to both the former Labor government and the new Coalition government have thus far met with stonewalling. He intends to hold a summit on the international surveillance scandal and the activities of the US National Security Agency in Australia.

A recent freedom of information (FoI) request by the ABC confirmed that the Australian government was made aware of the top-secret Prism program two months before The Guardian published the first stories in collaboration with Snowden.

The FoI request confirmed a protected brief was prepared for the Australian attorney general on Prism on 21 March 2013, but the document was withheld from release by the Attorney General's Department on national security grounds.

Xenophon said on Thursday that only a transparent conversation could bring relevant facts to light in the public interest.

"There's a difference between genuine national security – keeping a country safe – and using it for other purposes, and that's why we need to have a debate in this country," Xenophon told Sky News on Thursday.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/31/abbott-assurance-on-australian-agencies