Australia and New Zealand Allegedly 'Phone-tapped' RI Politicians

Liputan6.com, Jakarta The Indonesian Intelligence Agency (BIN) is currently examining the recently received information regarding the possibility of both Australia and New Zealand allegedly tapping a number of conversation data from Indonesian statesmen. The alleged Australian and New Zealand spies reportedly exploited the Indonesian cellular network ‘Telkomsel’ to claim the conversation data of these politicians.

The information was taken from the confidential documents belonging to the former member of the United State’s National Security Agency (NSA), Edward Joseph Snowden. He has been widely known to be the man behind many of the revealed confidential information of the U.S government.

"We are now examining the reports collected," the Chairman of Indonesian Intelligence Agency (BIN), Marciano Norman informed at the Presidential Palace, Jalan Medan Merdeka Utara, Central Jakarta, Thursday (05/03/2015).

Marciano admitted that the government has already acknowledged this information and thus now focuses on securing the Indonesian cellular network whilst investigating the case as to find out whether or not the tapping is true.

"I think there is a need to further the investigation upon the possibility of our politicians being wiretapped by both Australian and New Zealand espionages and whether or not that is true. At the same time we need to heighten our security measures by placing our focus on enhancing the security for the cellular network so everyone’s privacy is assured," Marciano added.

Marciano also informed how President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo himself is unaware of this information and the intelligence agency wants to confirm this information first before informing the President.

“We are looking into it, we will find the right time to tell the President. Only if the information is correct,” Marciano continued.

The information gathered may well be true knowing that both Australia and New Zealand are members of the Five Eyes agreement, a platform for the sharing of intelligence of five leading nations: Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. The intelligence alliance agreed to share and signal their intelligence information to each other. While transparency is praised, it is somewhat undesirable to see other nations that are not members of the alliance being tapped.

This is not the first time Indonesia being the target of such tapping. In 2012, Australian Signals Directorate has successfully accessed into the data of many of individuals using the cellular provider ‘Indosat’ including the ones belonging to Indonesian politicians. The NSA believed to have aided their endeavour to access into the Indonesian cellular provider.

They have also tapped Indonesia in 2013 from the provider ‘Telkomsel’.

New Zealand maybe the smallest and newest player in the group, however, their strategic location makes it so important for the other four nations in terms of gathering information. This suggests that neighbouring countries, including Indonesia is one of the many subjects to its spying activities. 

"Perhaps the smallest player in the alliance in terms of its funding and number of staff, but the agency is seen as an important player because of New Zealand;s location in the world," Ryan Gallagher from The Intercept informed on friday (05/05/2015). (Akp/Riz)