Snowden: NSA Spying On EU Diplomats and Administrators 417
An anonymous reader writes "According to a report dated 2010 recently provided by [former NSA contractor Edward] Snowden to the German news magazine 'Der Spiegel', the NSA has systematically been spying on institutions of the EU in Washington DC, New York, and Brussels. Methods of spying include bugging, phone taps, and network intrusions and surveillance according to the documents."
All part of a grand tradition.
No subject (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm probably wrong here, but isn't it against international law to spy on diplomats? If yes, does this apply to only spying on diplomats residing in your country, or elsewhere?
Google were telling the truth (Score:4, Interesting)
Have you missed the Washington Post PRISM 2 leaks just released?:
http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/page/national/inner-workings-of-a-top-secret-spy-program/282/
It proves what Google and Facebook said all along.
When Google Microsoft and Facebook deny they gave *direct* access to the NSA, they were telling the truth. They gave direct access to the *FBI* who gave direct access to the NSA! See! Not a lie!
In the same way I'm not accessing Slashdot, I'm accessing my router! In fact I've never visited Slashdot! You can't prove I'm lying so its the truth!
And they only collect Metadata: Meta-Chats, Meta Emails, Meta File Transfters, Meta VOIP, Meta Logins, Meta IDs, Meta-Metadata (!), Meta Photos, Meta Social Networking, Meta Stored Data, Meta Video, Meta Video Conferenceing.... why, hardly anything at all!
And they do have due-process. They 'duly process' everything with an NSA controlled filter known as PRINTAURA. See, no lie there!
And they told the truth when they said they don't collect files on everyone. 49% is not everyone! Why, it's not even half of everyone!
And they do have warrants to look at the data, the cloud warrants even have a checkbox "[X] are you sure this is legal?" *see*! double checked!
And checks and balances too, Dwayne checks Wayne's filled the form in correctly "[X] is Dwayne sure this is legal?"
So move along citizen, nothing sickening to see here.
Re:No subject (Score:5, Interesting)
The US doesn't do international law.
Also yesterday there was this ex-NSA guy accusing seven EU countries of having secret deals with the US to share communications data. (confirming long held suspicions and subject of one interview last week with a member of the Dutch secret service which was hastily denied by the responsible minister)
Now the Guardian piece on it has been taken down pending investigation. [guardian.co.uk]
At least the big boys are having to work hard intimidating spreading misinformation and sowing doubt.
Russia? (Score:2, Interesting)
Progressive Disclosure (Score:5, Interesting)
The leaks seem to be coming out in a clever order, starting with the most credible. An obvious benefit of this is that each lends credence to the next. Perhaps less obviously, each time the government passes up an opportunity to come clean, it makes the lies more obvious. We might have already known (or guessed) all this stuff, but now we have government officials on record lying about the extent of surveillance, over and over, just before backtracking to defend it.
Re:somebody's got some splaining to do... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The US is nobody's friend (Score:5, Interesting)
Except for the fact that, *by treaty* The US, UK, NZ Canada and Australia are allegedly sharing all intelligence each of their respective agencies gather. Originally; the intent was to let each nation focus its spending and efforts on just one region that it already had a substantial interest in while still benefitting from a dliligent approach in all the other regions. Explicit in this was a reciprocity. The American NSA, with all its well known and not so well known programs, harvests vast amounts of data on say, UK citizens, perfectly within it's purview of external intelligence, meanwhile MI6 shares all the data it has collected on US citizens.
A lot of people; including myself, have been very vocal about their concerns at the scope of data being collected by the various three letter agencies of the US government. Many people in power get reassured by statements along the lines of "we never keep any data on our own citizens unless there is a link to a person of interest". What gets overlooked is that the US doesn't *have* to keep data on all it's citizens, all they have to do is pass along all the raw data they collect, in keeping with the treaty, and then just ask the partner nations for the digested and analyzed results. (and they of course do the same in return)
It is the top secret version of the "business in the Cloud" problem. The organization WILL collect everything it possibly can, data mine and analyze as they see fit, they will just keep the actual data stores in servers located and operated offshore by "affiliates". Some court rules the organization cannot collect or keep such data? No problem, our affiliate will do that for us offshore and dodge those pesky laws.
The difference here is, the organizations are not in it for profit (though funding is always a motive) they are in it because they genuinely believe it is their duty to do so. Think of it this way; you are a bodyguard, your livelihood depends on the client staying healthy, you love the client and want them to stay healthy as well. Yet the client has made a bunch of rules tohis/her own taste. The upshot is that you can only stand on the left side and can only be within arms reach durign daylight. If you take your job seriously, you would be very motivated to team up with another clients bodyguard so as to cover those gaps in the protection you provide. Your client never said anything about having the _other_ bodyguard in the bedroom at night after all, just you.
All intelligence agencies have that problem. Being a good weasel makes you good at your job of collecting intel, but the better weasel you are, the easier and more likely it is that you end up no longer truely serving the people you are trying to protect.
If there is one thing history AND/OR current events can teach us, it's that it is a HELL of a lot easier and safer to do ones job well rather than ones duty well.
Re:Russia? (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, there can be no doubt that NSA spies on the Russians. So, on the other hand Snowden seems to consider Russia a legitimate target, and does not reveal anything about NSA activity over there. Then he goes to Russia on his own and ends up being questioned by Russian officials.
Honestly fine with that (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't see any issue with governments spying on each other. You kind of expect they would do that.
I see far more of a problem with spying on arbitrary citizens with pretty much no oversight (although it amazes me that this comes as a surprise to anyone at all).
Re:Russia? (Score:4, Interesting)
Since Russia is not a member of the EU as far as I am aware, that might explain why they are not on the list.
MUCH WORSE: Normal EU citizens also being spied on (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it much more worrying that normal EU citizens are being spied on by UK services [guardian.co.uk]. My government (German) tells me they didn't know about it, and of course I am inclined to believe they are not telling me the truth (new default reaction to free world government officials saying something). The reaction our minister of justice got when she dared to demand some clarification from the Brits, a polite "go f**k yourself", is still interesting. Oh, and literally while I write this comment, this just in: (article in german) the NSA also massivcely spies on the german public. [spiegel.de]
Re:Progressive Disclosure (Score:4, Interesting)
The leaks seem to be coming out in a clever order, starting with the most credible.
Depends on your definition of "credible" - the idea that the NSA spies on non-citizens was not a secret, the particular methods and specific targets were official secrets, but it was basically the official reason for the existence of the organization.
That the NSA spies on citizens is a whole different concept, one that has been officially denied anytime there was an undocumented leak and had to be internally justified by essentially redefining words like changing "collect" to no longer mean "gather up" but instead to access from a database full of information that had already been gathered up.
now we have government officials on record lying about the extent of surveillance, over and over, just before backtracking to defend it.
Other than Clapper who outright lied to Congress before any of the Snowden Files were made public, what are you talking about? Did somebody say "we don't spy on the UN" in the last week or two?
Re:No subject (Score:5, Interesting)
If you want to understand why the article was pulled, I suggest googling the source it quotes.
Wayne Madsen has a long history of being, shall we say, "slightly creative". He's a fully signed up 9/11 conspiracy theorist, birther and ardent believer that Obama is gay. Oh, he also believes that the 2009 swine flu outbreak was a US bioweapons test.
Now, that's not to say that everything he says is automatically wrong. But if you want to look at some of the things he has claimed as absolute truth in the past, then if he were to be right here, it would be on the "even a stopped clock is right twice a day" basis.
For the Guardian to run a major story based on him as its only source is an absolutely shocking lapse in journalistic standards.
Re:somebody's got some splaining to do... (Score:5, Interesting)
The US was spying on the UK but wasn't handing all the data over, but giving it to US companies to get better deals.
Yeah, the CIA did this (are still doing this?) to a bunch of Aussie companies as well - used CIA/ASIO information sharing to let US companies know what Aussie wheat prices were going to be so that the US could undercut the Aussies in key markets, etc.
Re:No subject (Score:4, Interesting)
Thanks for the background information. It certainly makes the "Madsen is a loon" theory more likely. That or the "Madsen is a loon who is being fed damaging misinformation by his NSA buddies to divide the EU against itself" theory. His information does line up with other pieces of information that have come out, but then Madsen has access to newspapers as well.
The weird thing is that when I read the story yesterday it didn't seem all that major to me . Another in a long line of leaks that has surrounded the whole Snowden thing. Now because the story has been pulled (not before the Observer had taken over the story and printed it on the front page) it's turning into a major paranoid shitstorm.
Re:Can't fracture again (Score:4, Interesting)
European Union never was an Union eh?
look man - I DO WANT the EU to have affect on my local legislation. do you know why? I don't think that protectionist tolls on products and produce are good for me. I don't want alcohol tax to be so fucking high. I want to be able to buy already taxed used cars from germany without having to pay taxes again on it. I do want to be able to go to work in other EU countries without fuss. I do want to be able to buy whatever I want from germany and uk if I want. I do want that someone else than a local politician decides if we should devalue my bank account(because gee whiz the local politicians fucked things up way more than eu did).
Re:For the sake of saving time, (Score:2, Interesting)
That is the question, isn't it?
See, the idea is that they're supposed to spy on people who mean us harm. Not on everyone.
And if you're going to spy on everyone, why bother spending all the money and energy keeping it secret? Wouldn't it be more effective if you just let everyone know in no uncertain terms that "WE ARE WATCHING YOU"?
I realize that you're just trolling, but it's important for the low-information types that your questions are asked and answered.
Re: For the sake of saving time, (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Friends (Score:4, Interesting)
The US needs enemies - without them, they can't justify the country's wartime government budget that has lasted since approximately 1940. If the US doesn't have any enemies, it goes out of its way to create some.
Of course, "terrorist sleeper cells" are the best enemy anyone's ever thought of because (a) they could be anywhere, (b) it's impossible to say you've destroyed all of them, (c) everything you're going to do to stop them is required to be secret, (d) they could attack anywhere in the US at any time creating a wonderful fear factor, and (e) the government is supposed to catch them before they've actually done anything criminal.
Re:The US is nobody's friend (Score:4, Interesting)
It is a bit strange. The diplomatic cables leak was embarrassing but mostly damaged dictators overseas. It actually showed the US as pretty reasonable behind the scenes. Of course Manning should be punished, he clearly betrayed the trust put in him, but the incredible level of torture he was put through completely contradicted the Obama aim to close Guantamo Bay as a show of a return to human rights. Then chasing a journalist like Julian Assange including leaning on the Swedish and UK governments? Ridiculously over the top. The US is just painting itself out to be a global bully, trampling on the rights of its allies. If they kill somebody in the Middle East we just skip past that page in the newspaper but their actions clearly show it could be *you* next that gets "extraordinary rendition" if you accidentally upset them. A bit worrying.
The same thing with Snowden. Here the leaker may actually have a point, if he genuinely believed he was revealing systematic breaking of the law by officials put in place to protect them. In the UK we've known about the US slurping up all our communication for decades. We know we are getting a pretty raw deal, with 'sanitised' intelligence scraps being thrown to us when the US feel like it. They just have to keep silent on this debate and it will be forgotten in a couple of weeks. All they have to do is say "Snowden broke law X, and if he returns to the US he will be arrested". Leave it at that! A witch hunt shows a level of immaturity other governments do not want to see from a nation with the sigint and military might the US has.
Phillip.
Re:For the sake of saving time, (Score:5, Interesting)
So you think that countries like Germany, Denmark, or, say, Luxembourg are all massively tapping into US telecomunications infrastructure in order to extract information about US companies, read private mails of US politicians, and build a large-scale database of all communications of US citizens? Or that they tap into the networks of the United States Congress?
Nobody knows for sure, but none of this sounds very credible.