Tuan Narayanan, a senior associate at the law firm of Perkins Coie, said the ruling is an important case for the future of the law.

“It sets a standard for future cases, so that a person’s privacy will be protected if they receive a government communication that contains information about them,” Narayanan said.

The Associated Press also obtained a secret government e-mail that was copied to the law firm. It was a Nov. 14 e-mail from an Australian diplomat to someone at the office for the Office of the Australian High Commissioner in Thailand.

The e-mail said, in part: “We are in deep trouble. My boss is getting concerned. They are trying to track and keep a close eye on everyone. The Australian Embassy is getting their ducks in a row. They have their security systems up to speed, as the US embassy is not.”

Under the law requiring a warrant, the AP traced a number of the emails and found evidence that Australian officials were involved in a complex conspiracy that spanned several agencies, including the FBI, Secret Service, the US embassy and local police.

When the AP asked Australian officials about the operation, several said it had not taken place because they had not been informed of its existence, the AP reported. It said Australian officials had repeatedly denied involvement.

“There weren’t any Australian individuals involved…. We can’t say for certain who was involved,” Australian Deputy High Commissioner John Gribben told AP in late 2011.

Gribben told the AP in an interview that the Australian government was unaware that Thai officers were involved in any investigation whatsoever “because we had no direct communication with the Thai government and they never told us that there was any investigation going on. That’s why there was no information in the public domain about this.”

Gribben said he did not know if there were Australians who had been contacted by Thai police about possible involvement. He said it could be a “convoluted system” but “most certainly, it didn’t begin as it was reported to have commenced.”

The latest information on Australian officials not involved in the scheme, however, also provides some new details about the way the Thai police and spy agency operated. Some of the more than 1,300 e-mails suggest that some officials of the Australian National Intelligence Organization (ANIO) — the Australian military’s equivalent of the CIA — were involved in the Thai