The privacy of ordinary Australians is under serious threat

Intelligence representatives offered to share the confidential data of law-abiding Australians with international partners. In this Orwellian climate, who will guard the guardians?

The latest Snowden document, revealed by Guardian Australia today, increases concern that the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) is operating outside its legal mandate. The minutes of a policy meeting in Britain in 2008, with their US, Canadian, UK and New Zealand counterparts, reveal DSD representatives claiming that they were entitled to share the confidential data of Australians with these partners, and were even considering disclosing them to non-intelligence agencies without first obtaining a warrant.

This would be a breach of sections 8 and 12 of the Intelligence Services Act 2001. Snowdens evidence that that DSD ignored this law (or was ignorant of its correct interpretation) raises the prospect that law-abiding Australians have had their personal data wrongfully collected and transmitted to bodies which may use it to damage them.