US intelligence services are spying on the European Union
mission in New York and its embassy in Washington, according to the latest top
secret US National Security Agency documents leaked by the whistleblower Edward
Snowden.
One document lists 38 embassies and missions, describing
them as "targets". It details an extraordinary range of spying
methods used against each target, from bugs implanted in electronic
communications gear to taps into cables to the collection of transmissions with
specialised antennae.
Along with traditional ideological adversaries and sensitive
Middle Eastern countries, the list of targets includes the EU missions and the
French, Italian and Greek embassies, as well as a number of other American
allies, including Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India and Turkey.
The list in the
September 2010 document does not mention the UK, Germany or other western
European states.
One of the bugging methods mentioned is codenamed Dropmire,
which, according to a 2007 document, is "implanted on the Cryptofax at the
EU embassy, DC" – an apparent reference to a bug placed in a commercially
available encrypted fax machine used at the mission.
The NSA documents note the
machine is used to send cables back to foreign affairs ministries in European
capitals.
The documents suggest the aim of the bugging exercise
against the EU embassy in central Washington is to gather inside knowledge of
policy disagreements on global issues and other rifts between member states.
The new revelations come at a time when there is already
considerable anger across the EU over earlier evidence provided by Snowden of
NSA eavesdropping on America's European allies.
Germany's justice minister, Sabine
Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, demanded an explanation from Washington, saying
that if confirmed, US behaviour "was reminiscent of the actions of enemies
during the cold war".
The German magazine Der Spiegel reported at the weekend that
some of the bugging operations in Brussels targeting the EU's Justus Lipsius
building – a venue for summit and ministerial meetings in the Belgian capital –
were directed from within Nato headquarters nearby.
The US intelligence service codename for the bugging
operation targeting the EU mission at the United Nations is
"Perdido". Among the documents leaked by Snowden is a floor plan of
the mission in midtown Manhattan.
The methods used against the mission include
the collection of data transmitted by implants, or bugs, placed inside
electronic devices, and another covert operation that appears to provide a copy
of everything on a targeted computer's hard drive.
The eavesdropping on the EU delegation to the US, on K
Street in Washington, involved three different operations targeted on the
embassy's 90 staff. Two were electronic implants and one involved the use of
antennas to collect transmissions.
Although the latest documents are part of an NSA haul leaked
by Snowden, it is not clear in each case whether the surveillance was being
exclusively done by the NSA – which is most probable as the embassies and
missions are technically overseas – or by the FBI or the CIA, or a combination
of them.
The 2010 document describes the operation as "close access domestic collection".
The 2010 document describes the operation as "close access domestic collection".
The operation against the French mission to the UN had the
covername "Blackfoot" and the one against its embassy in Washington
was "Wabash".
The Italian embassy in Washington was known to the NSA
as both "Bruneau" and "Hemlock".
The eavesdropping of the Greek UN mission was known as
"Powell" and the operation against its embassy was referred to as
"Klondyke".
Snowden, the 30-year-old former NSA contractor and computer
analyst whose leaks have ignited a global row over the extent of US and UK
electronic surveillance, fled from his secret bolthole in Hong Kong a week ago.
His plan seems to have been to travel to Ecuador via Moscow, but he is in limbo
at Moscow airport after his US passport was cancelled, and without any official
travel documents issued from any other country.
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