Are people comfortable with this?

Australia spied on Indonesia talks with US law firm in 2013 | World news | theguardian.com

Look, I've always assumed that mobile telephone systems were not super secure, even when they moved from analogue to digital.

So I've always assumed that politicians who talked about sensitive stuff on their mobile phones were being careless.

But even so, I am surprised at the purpose for which intelligence is being used by Australia and the US, according to the Snowden leaks. This, for example:

Australia listened in on the communications of an unnamed American
law firm which was representing Indonesia in the discussions and passed
the information to the National Security Agency, according to a document
obtained by the New York Times.

It is unclear what the discussions were about - but two trade disputes
around that time were about the importation of clove cigarettes and
shrimp, says the paper.

A monthly bulletin from the NSA’s liaison office in Canberra said the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) was monitoring the talks and offered to share any information with the US. It offered up that “information covered by attorney-client privilege may be included”.

I am also a bit puzzled that the issue is getting a bit of a soft run in the media here.

I mean, the bugging of the East Timor government operations when commercial matters were underway seems to be half forgotten by the public already.

Now evidence of bugging legal advice on the vital issue of clove cigarettes and shrimp?

I expected that certain industries might carry on their own intelligence gathering, but to have governments so fully involved in matters of commercial benefit - this seems to me to be something the public should be talking about, but it isn't. 

UPDATE:   an article in the Christian Science Monitor accuses the NYT of over dramatising the story, and points out that in the fact the US could have told Australia to not provide them with the advice the US lawyers were giving.

But but but:   what the article doesn't address is whether anyone should be surprised or question that Australia was collecting intelligence on Indonesia trade talks and offering to hand that to the US. 

The article says that the NYT times story, if stripped of  "spin, drama and adjectives" is this:

A 2013 memo leaked by Edward Snowden shows that Australia's version of the NSA, while engaged in electronic surveillance of an Indonesian trade delegation, came across communications between the Indonesian officials and a US law firm the country had hired for help with trade talks.  

Isn't that controversial enough??