Snowden reveals Australian links to NSA spying

Fugitive National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden has leaked a map of NSA data collection facilities around the world to American journalist Glenn Greenwald, who published it in Brazil's O Globo newspaper.

The map shows that four facilities in Australia have been helping the United States collect intelligence through a program codenamed X-Keyscore, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The sites are the US Australian Joint Facilities at Pine Gap; the Australian Defense Satellite Communications station near Geraldton in Western Australia; the Shoal Bay Receiving Station near Darwin; and a site near Canberra, believed to be the naval communications station HMAS Harman.

The New Zealand Government Security Communications Bureau facility at Waihopai also shares intelligence with the US through X-Keyscore, the Age reported.

On Sunday, Der Spiegel published an interview with Snowden that was conducted by US cryptography expert Jacob Appelbaum and documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras via encrypted emails before Snowden came out as a whistleblower and fled the US.

In the interview, Snowden said the NSA has secret intelligence partnerships with the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the Age reported. He said these partnerships are designed to "insulate their political leaders from the backlash" whenever it is revealed "how grievously they're violating global privacy.”

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