By Steve Rhodes
Remember when Barack Obama was going to restore our relations with the rest of the world? It hasn’t quite worked out that way.
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“The U.S. National Security Agency swept up 70.3 million French telephone records in a 30-day period, according to a newspaper report that offered new details of the massive scope of a surveillance operation that has angered some of the country’s closest allies,” AP reports.
France is pissed.
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“The National Security Agency hacked the email of former Mexican President Felipe Calderon, according to a report from Der Spiegel,” the Huffington Post notes.
“The report, which stems from documents leaked by Edward Snowden, alleges that a division of the NSA ‘successfully exploited a key mail server in the Mexican Presidencia domain within the Mexican Presidential network to gain first-ever access to President Felipe Calderon’s public e-mail account.’
“Der Speigel also reports that the spying, which began in May 2010, also targeted other top officials in the Mexican government.”
Mexico is pissed.
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“Security experts say that Canadian intelligence has developed a powerful spying tool to scope out and target specific phones and computers so as to better set up hacking and bugging operations,” the Toronto Globe and Mail reports.
“The outlines of the technology are contained in the slides of a PowerPoint presentation made to allied security agencies in June, 2012. Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) called the tool ‘Olympia,’ showing how its analysts sifted through an immense amount of communications data and zeroed in on the phones and computer servers they determined merited attention – in the demonstration case, inside the Brazilian Ministry of Energy and Mines.
“Within weeks, CSEC figured out who was talking to whom by plugging phone numbers and Internet protocol addresses into an array of intelligence databases. In this way it ‘developed a detailed map of the institution’s communications,
Paulo Pagliusi, a Brazilian security expert who examined the slides, told The Globe.
“The slides are part of a large trove of documents that have been leaked by Edward Snowden, the former contractor with the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) whose disclosures have set off a debate over whether the agency has improperly intruded on the privacy of Americans. Other disclosures have raised questions about its spying on foreign governments, sometimes with the assistance of allied intelligence agencies.”
Canada is pissed – and Brazil is pissed at Canada.
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“The American National Security Agency tapped 1.8 million Dutch telephones in one month alone as part of its Boundless Informant surveillance programme, Dutch media reported on Monday.”
The Dutch are pissed.
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“UK spy agency GCHQ carried out hack attacks on telecoms firm Belgacom, data divulged by Edward Snowden has revealed,” the Macedonia International News Agency reports.
“Fingers initially pointed to the NSA when Belgian authorities reported a ‘foreign state’ had invaded the networks of the state company.
“Citing documents leaked by former CIA worker Edward Snowden, Der Spiegel reported that the British Government Communications Headquarters were behind hack attacks on Belgian state-owned telecoms firm Belgacom.”
Belgium is pissed. And we’ve since learned that GCHQ has worked closely with the NSA, if not on this, on a variety of other adventures. Europe is pissed.
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“Germany is a special place for the NSA, in many respects. Few other countries are the source of as much data for US intelligence agencies, much of which comes from the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s foreign intelligence agency. At the same time Germany itself, despite all friendly assurances to the contrary, is also a target of the surveillance. According to a ‘secret’ summary among the documents obtained by Snowden, which SPIEGEL was able to view, Germany is one of the targets of U.S. espionage activity.”
Germany is pissed.
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“In the last decade, people residing or in transit in Brazil, as well as companies operating in the country, have become targets of espionage National Security Agency of the United States (National Security Agency – NSA, its acronym in English),” Glenn Greenwald reports.
“There are no precise figures, but last January Brazil was just behind the United States, which had 2.3 billion phone calls and messages spied.”
Brazil is pissed.
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“The German magazine Der Spiegel says the U.S. National Security Agency secretly monitored the U.N.’s internal video conferencing system by decrypting it last year,” CBS notes.
“Quoting leaked NSA documents, the article said the decryption ‘dramatically increased the data from video phone conferences and the ability to decode the data traffic.’
“In three weeks, Der Spiegel said, the NSA increased the number of decrypted communications at the U.N. from 12 to 458. According to the report, agency has ‘eavesdropping posts’ in 80 U.S. embassies and consulates worldwide. The NSA was able to obtain a wide range of data, including evidence that suggests the Chinese was spied on the U.N. in 2011.
“Der Spiegel also reported that the NSA installed bugs in the European Union’s office building in downtown Washington and infiltrated the EU’s computer network.”
Mission accomplished.
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Post-script: Don’t Trust The NSA? China-Based Huawei Says ‘Trust Us’.
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See also: In Big Win For Defense Industry, Obama Rolls Back Limits On Arms Exports.
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Previously:
* How A Telecom Helped The Government Spy On Me.
* UN Member States Asked To End Unchecked Surveillance.
* Government Standards Agency: Don’t Follow Our Encryption Guidelines Because NSA.
* Five More Organizations Join Lawsuit Against NSA.
* A Scandal Of Historic Proportions.
* Item: NSA Briefing.
* The Case Of The Missing NSA Blog Post.
* The NSA Is Out Of Control.
* Patriot Act Author Joins Lawsuit Against NSA.
* Obama’s Promises Disappear From Web.
* Why NSA Snooping Is A Bigger Deal In Germany.
* Item: Today’s NSA Briefing.
* NSA Briefing: It Just Got Worse (Again).
* Song of the Moment: Party at the NSA.
* It Not Only Can Happen Here, It Is Happening Here.
* What NSA Transparency Looks Like.
* America’s Lying About Spying: Worse Than You Think.
* Obama Continues To Lie His Ass Off About The NSA.
* The Surveillance Reforms Obama Supported Before He Was President.
* America’s Spying: Worse Than You Think.
* Has The U.S. Government Lied About Its Snooping? Let’s Go To The Videotape.
* Who Are We At War With? That’s Classified.
* Six Ways Congress May Reform NSA Snooping.
* NSA Says It Can’t Search Its Own E-Mails.
* Does The NSA Tap That?
* Obama Explains The Difference Between His Spying And Bush’s Spying.
* FAQ: What You Need To Know About The NSA’s Surveillance Programs.
* NSA: Responding To This FOIA Would Help “Our Adversaries”.
* Fact-Check: The NSA And 9/11.
* The NSA’s Black Hole: 5 Things We Still Don’t Know About The Agency’s Snooping.
* Defenders Of NSA Surveillance Citing Chicago Case Omit Most Of Mumbai Plotter’s Story.
* Obama’s War On Truth And Transparency.
* ProPublica’s Guide To The Best Stories On The Growing Surveillance State.
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See also:
* Jimmy Carter: America’s Shameful Human Rights Record.
* James Goodale: Only Nixon Harmed A Free Press More.
* Daniel Ellsberg: Obama Has Committed Impeachable Offenses.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on October 21, 2013