As we wait to see what happens with Edward Snowden , more NSA revelation come forth.....
Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald hasn’t published the story yet, but he gave the Socialism Conference in Chicago a big taste of his next reveal:
http://rt.com/news/nsa-spy-eu-diplomats-429/
US bugged EU offices, Collects 1/2 Billion German Internet & Phone Connections Monthly
Posted on 06/30/2013 by Juan Cole
Der Spiegel has two explosive stories on NSA spying from Edward Snowden’s leaked documents. The first is that the US has bugged the telephones and the computers of the European Union offices in Washington, D.C. It has had the ability to monitor all meetings there, as well as to see all emails and documents stored on computers. It has also been targeting the communications of the EU at its United Nations offices in New York, and in Brussels itself, where European Union parliamentarians and officials were spied on. The document describes the EU as an “attack target.”
European Union officials are reportedly very, very angry. The European Parliament speaker is “deeply worried and shocked.”
As for Germany itself, Der Spiegel writes:
“The National Security Agency spies on Germany many times more intensively than was heretofore known. Secret documents, which Der Spiegel was able to see, reveal that the NSA systematically collects and stores the greater part of telephone and internet connections.”
The article says that the document shows that the NSA monitors roughly half a billion communications connections in Germany every month. The metadata of these telephone calls, emails, SMS and instant chat exchanges are stored at Fort Meade.
It points out that the US monitors Germany as closely as it does China, Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Daily, an average of 20 million telephone connections and 10 million internet transactions are collected by the NSA. This is ten times as many telephone connections as the NSA monitors for France, e.g.
The NSA does not spy in the same way on the UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, who are class 2 partners and therefore are not targets. Germany, the leaked document says, is only a class 3 partner and therefore is alsoconsidered a target.
Germans, especially East Germans, are generally angry about the revelation of the extent of US information-collection on them, given that they were victims of STASI domestic spying. Just as authorities have shown them their STASI files, which can run to 9,000 pages, so many Germans feel that the NSA should show people what information it has collected on them, which they had thought private.
Key US-EU trade pact under threat after more NSA spying allegations
Reports in Der Spiegel that US agencies bugged European council building 'reminiscent of cold war', says German minister
Email
The Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, home of the EU council – and subject to a US survellance programme, according to documents seen by Der Spiegel. Photograph: Don McPhee for the Guardian
The prospects for a new trade pact between the US and the European Union worth hundreds of billions have suffered a severe setback following allegations that Washington bugged key EU offices and intercepted phonecalls and emails from top officials.
The latest reports of NSA snooping on Europe – and on Germany in particular – went well beyond previous revelations of electronic spying said to be focused on identifying suspected terrorists, extremists and organised criminals.
The German publication Der Spiegel reported that it had seen documents and slides from the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden indicating that US agencies bugged the offices of the EU in Washington and at the United Nations in New York. They are also accused of directing an operation from Nato headquarters in Brussels to infiltrate the telephone and email networks at the EU's Justus Lipsius building in the Belgian capital, the venue for EU summits and home of the European council.
Without citing sources, the magazine reported that more than five years ago security officers at the EU had noticed several missed calls apparently targeting the remote maintenance system in the Justus Lipsius building that were traced to NSA offices within the Nato compound in Brussels.
The impact of the Der Spiegel allegations may be felt more keenly in Germany than in Brussels. The magazine said Germany was the foremost target for the US surveillance programmes, categorising Washington's key European ally alongside China, Iraq or Saudi Arabia in the intensity of the electronic snooping.
Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, called for an explanation from the US authorities. "If the media reports are true, it is reminiscent of the actions of enemies during the cold war," she was quoted as saying in the German newspaper Bild. "It is beyond imagination that our friends in the US view Europeans as the enemy."
Washington and Brussels are scheduled to open ambitious free trade talks next week following years of arduous preparation. Senior officials in Brussels are worried that the talks would be overshadowed by the latest disclosures of US spying on its closest allies.
"Obviously we will need to see what is the impact on the trade talks," said a senior official in Brussels. A second senior official said the allegations would cause a furore in the European parliament and could then hamper relations with the US.
Robert Madelin, one of Britain's most senior officials in the European commission, tweeted that EU trade negotiators always operated on the assumption that their communications were listened to.
A spokesman for the European commission said: "We have immediately been in contact with the US authorities in Washington and in Brussels and have confronted them with the press reports. They have told us they are checking on the accuracy of the information released yesterday and will come back to us."
There were calls from MEPs for Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European council – who has his office in the building allegedly targeted by the US – and Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European commission, to urgently appear before the chamber to explain what steps they were taking in response to the growing body of evidence of US and British electronic surveillance of Europe through the Prism andTempora operations.
Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and leader of the liberals in the European parliament, said: "This is absolutely unacceptable and must be stopped immediately. The American data collection mania has achieved another quality by spying on EU officials and their meetings. Our trust is at stake."
Luxembourg's foreign minister, Jean Asselborn, told Der Spiegel: "If these reports are true, it's disgusting." Asselborn called for guarantees from the very highest level of the US government that the snooping and spying is immediately halted.
Martin Schulz, the head of the European parliament, said: "I am deeply worried and shocked about the allegations of US authorities spying on EU offices. If the allegations prove to be true, it would be an extremely serious matter which will have a severe impact on EU-US relations.
"On behalf of the European parliament, I demand full clarification and require further information speedily from the US authorities with regard to these allegations."
There were also calls for John Kerry, the US secretary of state, to make a detour to Brussels on his way from his current trip to the Middle East, to explain US activities.
"We need to get clarifications and transparency at the highest level," said Marietje Schaake, a Dutch liberal MEP. "Kerry should come to Brussels on his way back from the Middle East. This is essential for the transatlantic alliance. The US can only lead by example, and should uphold the freedoms it claims to protect against attacks from the outside. Instead we see erosion of freedoms, checks and balances, from within."
Within senior circles in Brussels, however, it has long been assumed that the Americans were listening to or seeking to monitor EU electronic traffic.
"There's a certain schadenfreude here that we're important enough to be spied on," said one of the officials. "This was bound to come out one day. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of our member states were not doing the same to the Americans."
The documents suggesting the clandestine bugging operations were from September 2010, Der Spiegel said.
A former senior official in Brussels maintained that EU phone and computer systems were almost totally secure but that no system could be immune to persistent high-quality penetration operations.
"I have always assumed that anyone with a decent agency was listening, hacking if they could be bothered," he said. "It doesn't bother me much. Sometimes it's a form of communication."
Der Spiegel quoted the Snowden documents as revealing that the US taps half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany a month. "We can attack the signals of most foreign third-class partners, and we do it too," Der Spiegel quoted a passage in the NSA document as saying.
On an average day, the NSA monitored about 20m German phone connections and 10m internet datasets, rising to 60m phone connections on busy days, the report said.
Officials in Brussels said this reflected Germany's weight in the EU and probably also entailed elements of industrial and trade espionage. "The Americans are more interested in what governments think than the European commission. And they make take the view that Germany determines European policy," said one of the senior officials.
Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green party MEP and a specialist in data protection, told the Guardian the revelations were outrageous. "It's not about political answers now, but rule of law, fundamental constitutional principles and rights of European citizens," he said.
"We now need a debate on surveillance measures as a whole looking at underlying technical agreements. I think what we can do as European politicians now is to protect the rights of citizens and their rights to control their own personal data."
Talking about the NSA's classification of Germany as a "third-class" partner, Albrecht said it was not helping to build the trust of Germans or other Europeans. "It is destroying trust and to rebuild that, [the US] will need to take real action on legislation," he said.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that at least six European member states have shared personal communications data with the NSA, according to declassified US intelligence reports and EU parliamentary documents.
The documents, seen by the Observer, show that – in addition to the UK – Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy have all had formal agreements to provide communications data to the US. They state that the EU countries have had "second and third party status" under decades-old signal intelligence (Sigint) agreements that compel them to hand over data which, in later years, experts believe, has come to include mobile phone and internet data.
Under the international intelligence agreements, nations are categorised by the US according to their trust level. The US is defined as 'first party' while the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand enjoy 'second party' trusted relationships. Countries such as Germany and France have 'third party', or less trusted, relationships.
The data-sharing was set out under a 1955 UK-USA agreement that provided a legal framework for intelligence-sharing that has continued.
It stipulates: "In accordance with these arrangements, each party will continue to make available to the other, continuously, and without request, all raw traffic, COMINT (communications intelligence) end-product and technical material acquired or produced, and all pertinent information concerning its activities, priorities and facilities."
The agreement goes on to explain how it can be extended to incorporate similar agreements with third party countries, providing both the UK and the US agree.
Under the third party data-sharing agreements each country was given a code name. For example, Denmark was known as Dynamo while Germany was referred to as Richter. The agreements were of strategic importance to the NSA during the cold war.
And.................
GLENN GREENWALD: The NSA Can Store 'One Billion Cell Phone Calls Every Single Day'
The National Security Agency can store one billion phone calls each day.
Speaking to a raucous audience via Skype on Friday, Greenwald said the NSA’s “brand-new technology” gives it the power to “redirect into its own repositories one billion cell phone calls every single day.”
“But what we’re really talking about here is a globalized system that prevents any form of electronic communication from taking place without its being stored and monitored by the National Security Agency,” Greenwald said. “It doesn’t mean that they’re listening to every call; it means they’re storing every call and have the capability to listen to them at any time, and it does mean that they’re collecting millions upon millions upon millions of our phone and email records.”
Greenwald added that the NSA technology is “designed to destroy all privacy. And what’s incredibly menacing about it is that it’s all taking place in the dark with no accountability and virtually no safeguards.”
He also said that his purpose of publishing these stories is to tell the U.S. government and other countries that if they want to monitor all of us, they should do it in the “sunlight” and let us decide if that’s the kind of world we want to live in.
Greenwald’s wide-ranging remarks here speak to the overall NSA story and how it came to be; he also discusses his philosophy behind the decision to publish the series of stories ignited by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden that have galvanized the globe.
The following is Greenwald’s entire conference address. His remarks concerning the NSA storing a billion cell phone calls a day begin at the 39:50 mark. (Warning: Some rough language in parts of whole video):
This story was originally published by The Blaze.
http://rt.com/news/nsa-spy-eu-diplomats-429/
NSA spied on EU diplomats in Washington, NY and Brussels – report
Published time: June 29, 2013 18:44
Not only European citizens, but also employees of the EU diplomatic missions in Washington and the UN were under electronic surveillance from the NSA, Der Spiegel magazine reports citing a document obtained by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The German magazine claims to have taken a glance at parts of a “top secret” document, which reveals that US National Security Agency has placed bugs in EU offices in Washington and at the New York‘s United Nations headquarters in order to listen to conversations and phone calls.
The internal computer networks in the buildings were also under surveillance, which granted NSA access to documents and emails of the European officials.
The document, which categorically labels the European Union as a “target”, was dated September 2010, Der Spiegel says.
The magazine reports that the NSA also targeted communications at the European Council headquarters at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, Belgium by calling a remote maintenance unit.
According to Der Spiegel, more than five years ago EU security officers had noticed and traced several missed calls to an area of the NATO facility in Brussels, which was used by NSA experts.
The US previously acknowledged that they were collecting data on European citizens under the PRISM program, but not on large scale, only in cases of strong suspicion of individual or group being involved in terrorism, cybercrime or nuclear proliferation.
Former NSA contractor and CIA employee, Snowden, is believed to be currently staying in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport where he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23.
The 30-year-old, who leaked details of top-secret American government mass surveillance programs to the media, is waiting for Ecuador to decide on giving him political asylum as he’s being charged with espionage in the US.
The internal computer networks in the buildings were also under surveillance, which granted NSA access to documents and emails of the European officials.
The document, which categorically labels the European Union as a “target”, was dated September 2010, Der Spiegel says.
The magazine reports that the NSA also targeted communications at the European Council headquarters at the Justus Lipsius building in Brussels, Belgium by calling a remote maintenance unit.
According to Der Spiegel, more than five years ago EU security officers had noticed and traced several missed calls to an area of the NATO facility in Brussels, which was used by NSA experts.
The US previously acknowledged that they were collecting data on European citizens under the PRISM program, but not on large scale, only in cases of strong suspicion of individual or group being involved in terrorism, cybercrime or nuclear proliferation.
Former NSA contractor and CIA employee, Snowden, is believed to be currently staying in the transit zone of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport where he arrived from Hong Kong on June 23.
The 30-year-old, who leaked details of top-secret American government mass surveillance programs to the media, is waiting for Ecuador to decide on giving him political asylum as he’s being charged with espionage in the US.
http://rt.com/news/assange-ecuador-tensions-snowden-430/
( NSA hacking Ecuador communications ? )
'Tensions don't exist': WikiLeaks refutes media reports about 'Ecuadorean disarray'
Published time: June 29, 2013 18:26
WikiLeaks says there are no tensions between Julian Assange and Ecuadorean government as it responded to media reports claiming Assange’s role in Edward Snowden’s case "has raised hackles" among Ecuadorean officials.
“The story is spun to be about tensions that don't exist,” WikiLeaks posted on its Twitter account in response to the article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on Friday. “Hacked/intercepted emails in relation to an NSA spying story. Talk about missing the obvious,” the tweet read.
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