Snowden Documents Reveal More of the NSA's International Snooping

Credit: Mith/wikimedia

The French foreign ministry has summoned U.S. Ambassador Charles Rivkin after the French newspaper Le Monde published a report based on data leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. The report claims that the NSA spied on over 70 million phone records between Dec. 10, 2012 and Jan. 8, 2013. According to the BBC, the intercepts were triggered by certain keywords. It remains unclear if the operation (US-985D) is ongoing.

Obama administration's response has been to say something to the effect of, "we're only doing what everyone else is doing." According to National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden:

As a matter of policy we have made clear that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered by all nations.

As the BBC reports that the French government is reportedly storing personal data at the DGSE intelligence service headquarters.

The news come shortly after the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that documents leaked by Snowden reveal that the U.S. hacked into the public email account of Mexican President Felipe Calderón and other Mexican officials. Leaked documents reveal that the NSA thought of their efforts to snoop on Mexican officials were a success. From The Hill:

A document described the NSA probe into Mexican government agencies as a "tremendous success." It noted that the operations "are just the beginning — we intend to go much further against this important target."

The news of the NSA's spying on Mexican authorities and the French is only the latest example of their international spying. Officials from Germany and Brazil have both previously expressed outrage over the NSA's activities.

It is unlikely that French or Mexican officials will be able to do anything to ensure that the NSA's snooping on foreigners significantly changes. However, the French could do some economic damage by using the latest revelations as leverage in the trade negotiations between the U.S. and the E.U.

Last summer, when it was revealed that the NSA spied on foreign embassies in New York and Washington D.C., France delayed negotiations on the trade deal by two weeks. Without some sign that the NSA will be reforming its policies on overseas snooping there is a chance that negotiations could be further delayed or include more concessions for those who have been spied on.

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

Save us again from an oppressive overlord, France!

[John]

I was very interested in hearing what these crap weasels where doing in the US, where they are not supposed to be operating. But I frankly couldn't care less what they are doing overseas. They are a spy agency people. They are supposed to spy on foreigners.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, to be sure, some foreigners are allies and some are not. And, of course, we have allied spies in our prisons, do we not?

[John]

Yes we do. Most notably the Israeli spy whose name I forget.

[Pro Libertate]

Pollard?

[John]

Yes

[Episiarch]

A spy agency with enough resources to extensively spy on foreigners is never going to be able to resist not using those resources at home. So basically, if you want a robust foreign intelligence service, you are also asking for a robust domestic intelligence service.

[John]

To some degree. You never win that war. But you can hold them at bay by periodically punishing the living shit out them like they did back in the Church Commission.

I can honestly say that this shit didn't go on pre-9-11. The IC was still totally scared by the Church Commission and were loath to even think of being used domestically. All that changed after 911.

Have another Church Commission, hang a few people's careers and most importantly cut the living hell of their funding and they will all fall back in live for a few decades.

At this point, the solution is to just disband the NSA and send its functions out to the CIA and DOD. The idea of an entire agency ending is like doom to those people. They would never get over it. And even though the NSA people would move on and get jobs at the CIA and DOD, their careers would be dead ends because they would forever be from a rival agency.

[Hyperion]

At this point, the solution is to just disband the NSA

Exactly how many government agencies have we disbanded in, say the last 30 years? Anyone have a number?

[John]

I didn't say it would happen. I said that was the only solution.

[Hyperion]

Well, we couldn't agree more, especially if you want to throw in a couple dozen more ABC agencies.

However, I have this feeling that the political establishment in DC feels that the solution is to create more agencies.

[John]

The IC community would never forget or get over watching one of its own actually die. At this point killing the NSA would be the only thing that would have a chance at bringing them back into line.

[Paul.]

When is the solution not to create more agencies?

[Auric Demonocles]

[REDACTED].

[Episiarch]

There will be no Church Commission. The president wants this agency, and the power that goes along with it. That's the problem. This isn't a rogue agency. It's doing exactly what it was told to do. And that's why it will not be punished.

[John]

Yes. The only reason we had the Church Commission is because they caught Nixon doing the stuff Johnson and Kennedy had been doing and the Left decided that wasn't fair.

As long as their is a Democrat in office, there will never be another Church Commission or anything done about any of this. The only hope is for a Republican to get in office and be dumb enough to think the rules that apply to Democrats apply to him. Then we can have another Watergate, get a lot of this shit stopped. We will have to listen to three decades of Prog derb about how they cleaned up the evil Republican government never mentioning their side was as bad or probably worse. But it will end it for a while.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Conservatives, of course, often took a rather dim view of the work of the Church Committee:

-The Church bashing began the day of the World Trade Center massacre on ABC, when former Secretary of State James Baker said that Church's hearings had caused us to "unilaterally disarm in terms of our intelligence capabilities." The allegation was soon repeated by Republican Senator Christopher "Kit" Bond of Missouri and numerous conservative commentators. The Wall Street Journal editorial page called the opening of Church's public hearings "the moment that our nation moved from an intelligence to anti-intelligence footing." And the spy-mongering novelist Tom Clancy attacked Church on Fox News's O'Reilly Factor: "The CIA was gutted by people on the political left who don't like intelligence operations," he said. "And as a result of that, as an indirect result of that, we've lost 5,000 citizens last week."

-Probably the most malicious attack on Church suggests that his committee's activities compromised CIA operatives overseas. Following September 11, for example, the American Spectator editor R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr., wrote that Church's hearings "betrayed CIA agents and operations."

-when Church ran for re-election in 1980, Republican Senator Jim McClure of Idaho publicly blamed him for Welch's death. Church lost by just over 4,000 votes.

http://web.archive.org/web/200.....ney-c.html

[John]

So? What does that have to do with anything?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

I just thought that in you may want to season your relentless attacks on the 'Left' and 'the progs' with a few 'objective facts' about which side has relentlessly criticized the Church Committee, its work, and any present/future such endeavors.

[John]

Except that I never mentioned "left" or "progs" in my original post. Moreover, I said the situation changed after 911, which was under the Bush Administration last I looked. I didn't make a partisan comment. I commented on the my experience with the IC community before and after 911.

You inserted a bunch of irrelevent crap about the Church Commission, something I endorsed in the thread, because you were terrified that the conversation was going to reflect poorly on the current administration and thus rushed into try and change the conversation to talking about how bad the "evil conservatives" are.

Forget it Bo. Neither I nor anyone else is biting. We would like to go back and talk about the NSA now. No one is questioning the Church Commission or any of its excesses (and there were some). So your above comment is irrelevant. Try again.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

You are bringing up the Church Commission as this great thing that needs repeating, eliding the fact that your conservative Republican allies are the people that have attacked it from the beginning and so are the biggest obstacle to something like it.

Speaking of 'not biting' John, face it, libertarians know that conservatives and Republicans are not friends of civil liberties. At least 'the Left' and 'the progs' HAD something like the Church Committee, your allies were, and are, against something like it. Stop peeing on our leg and telling us it is raining, to coin a phrase.

[John]

You are bringing up the Church Commission as this great thing that needs repeating, eliding the fact that your conservative Republican allies are the people that have attacked it from the beginning and so are the biggest obstacle to something like it.

Except that both the President and the Democratic Majority leader in the Senate as well as Diane Feinstein and a lot of other people love these programs and would never endorse a church. Other than that clearly conservative Republicans who were in power 30 years ago are clearly the obstacle, not Democratic politicians in power today.

Everyone on here knows that Republicans like Peter King and a few others love this shit. And a lot of other Republicans and a few Democrats, like Widen, want it stopped. What people thirty years ago, most of whom are no longer alive much less still in office, did or thought have to do with this discussion is a mystery known only to you.

Again, you are just posting irrelevant shit trying to change the subject. Stop acting like we are all stupid and can't see that.

[tarran]

Did the conservatives really oppose the Church commission?

I thought it was the Rockefeller Republicans who did. You know, mercantilist progressives.

[John]

I don't really remember to be honest Tarran. And to the extent that people did complain about it, it was because it cut the budget of the IC and allegedly prevented them from doing their jobs. But no one to my knowledge ever defended the excesses and misuse of the Johnson and Nixon administrations that were uncovered. They just complained that leftists used those do gut the CIA, which is what they wanted to do anyway. It is not like they were running around saying that the President was right to use the CIA to go after his enemies, which is what our resident concern troll is implying.

[tarran]

I remember many anti-communists fretting whether the Church commission was a Soviet plot to consolidate their victories across the world by gutting the west's intelligence gathering apparatus.

But my grandfather, a genuine Yankee conservative (and CEO of a New England utility), viewed it as a good thing; he felt that it was rolling back a monstrous system FDR had put in place to intimidate and silence opposition to progressives. He had some pretty harsh words about the Rockefeller Republicans and their cozy relationship with the CIA.

I doubt he was alone in this...

When I consider that the CIA through the 70's was recruiting the scions attending Ivy League schools, and their alliance with Social Democrat movements not only overseas but here in the U.S., my guess is that the people most appalled by the Church Comission's actions were not the conservatives, but the establishment progressives who pretty much ran the government at the time (and largely still do).

[Bo Cara Esq.]

James McClure and Emmett Tyrell, Rockefeller Republicans?

[Bo Cara Esq.]

Conservative and Republican commentators, politicians and magazines have, and are, much more likely to criticize the Church Commission than liberal and Democratic sources. That is just the facts John. I've provided several examples, you are free to provide any from liberal and Democratic sources you can find in rebuttal.

Especially after 9/11 it was the national security conservatives who started to attack the Church Committee for 'hamstringing our intelligence community' and waving the bloody shirts of the dead from that attack.

Also, remember that in the vote on the Amash-Conyers bill more Republicans than Democrats voted 'Nay.' Historically and currently it is your party and movement that stands in the way of curtailing our intelligence communities abuses.

[John]

I never said they were not true. I said they were irrelevant. And they are.

[Heroic Mulatto]

I guess this is the point where I bring up that Goldwater sat on the Church Committee.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

He was, but sadly he did not acquit himself very well. Goldwater was a great man to the cause of libertarianism in this country, but he often let his (fairly reasonable) fear of communism push him to quite anti-libertarian places. He voted against the final report of the Committee and wrote his own dissent where he opined that we had placed far too many constraints on our intelligence community.

You can read the dissent and entire report here:

http://www.intelligence.senate.....4755_I.pdf

[John]

He voted against the final report of the Committee and wrote his own dissent where he opined that we had placed far too many constraints on our intelligence community.

And who is to say he wasn't right? Again, disagreeing with the final outcome of the Church Commission is not the same as endorsing what is happening now or the real excesses that sparked the creation of the commission.

Again Bo, not only are your posts irrelevant, they are fallacies as well. They wrongfully associate criticism of the Church Commission with the endorsement of the abuse of the IC community for political purposes. No one, not even the Commission's worst critics, thought that the IC should be used on Americans or for political purposes.

You haven't made a single relevant or cogent point here.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

So which is it John, do you join your fellow conservative and Republican critics of efforts like the Church Committee to investigate and reign in these things as 'hamstringing the intelligence community' or do you celebrate that fact? It is hard to tell from your posts in this thread alone, which seem to do both.

[Homple]

Why are you still cluttering the discussion with this irrelevant rhetorical claptrap?

[Ted S.]

I almost wish somebody could release the informatoin on John McCain and Peter King. (For starters; Obama and others could be included in the list.)

[Fluffy]

They are supposed to spy on foreigners.

Well, yes and no.

They're supposed to spy on foreign governments, militaries, and defense industries.

But given the sheer volume of data acquisition they're doing, it's pretty clear that they must be engaging in economic, quasi-corporate espionage also.

There's also the question of whether any of this material is shared with domestic law enforcement, as in the DEA data sharing program.

[John]

If it is being shared for LE purposes, that is a different matter. And spying on defense industries and industries in general is perfectly legitimate intelligence work. If say for example the largest bank in France is about to go tits up and probably bring down the government with it, that is something our government has an interest in knowing.

Again, I really don't give a shit if they are spying on France, provided they are doing it for the purpose of providing useful intelligence about the place to our government.

[Fist of Etiquette]

I have a hard time getting worked up about international espionage. I expect it, and I'm quote certain foreign intelligence services and their masters expect it as well. This outrage is either manufactured or directed at the carelessness of getting caught.

And technically the United States government shouldn't be able to oppress individuals in foreign lands whose data it accesses like it can its own citizens.

[Fist of Etiquette]

And yes, you can quite me on that.

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Quite you?

[Pro Libertate]

It's a bullfighting term. A quite is when a matador distracts the bull with cape work to get it away from the picadors (who are on horseback).

[Fist of Etiquette]

It's a bullsomething term.

[Pro Libertate]

Your ignorance of the tauromachic arts is unforgivable. Go drink a lot. A lot.

[Paul.]

As the BBC reports that the French government is reportedly storing personal data at the DGSE intelligence service headquarters.

So the French people have discovered the true purpose of MiniTel.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Why is this news? If the NSA isn't supposed to spy on foreigners, why do they exist?

[Paul.]

I was wondering the same thing when I heard this on NPR this morning.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, foreigners exist because not everyone can be American. In fact, most Americans are descended from foreign nationals.

[Paul.]

most Americans are descended from foreign nationals.

I resemble that remark. And quite recently, too.

[Killazontherun]

In Sparta you were not punished for the crime you committed but for being caught. The IC understands this, so let's not quibble. Off with their heads!

[Killazontherun]

In Sparta you were not punished for the crime you committed but for being caught. The IC understands this, so let's not quibble. Off with their heads!

[Killazontherun]

Weid, hit backspace instead of return, got two for the price of one. See if I can do that again. Nope, must have hit a second key. Try that with alt-[backspace].Nope. Don't recommend trying that one. Control-[backspace]? Nope. Mystery.

[MWG]

Try the "Any" key.

[Francisco d Anconia]

Anyone else diggin' the 6 dollar shirts girl?

Dark hair, blue eyes, foxy red shirt...

[The Rt. Hon. Serious Man, Visc]

Is she worth disabling AdBlock?

[Francisco d Anconia]

I think.

And speaking of ads... DAMN you Kristen! She asked me about a ski jacket she was looking at and now all the Amazon ads are nothing but chick's ski jackets.

[wareagle]

this would be funny in the RuPaul thread.

[playa manhattan]

I searched for hotels in Kauai on expedia right after the pink jacket link. So my ad experience has been.... ...enjoyable.

[AlmightyJB]

Of course:)

[playa manhattan]

I got one of a pretty hot chick wearing a shirt that said "molon labe" in greek. I think.

[Winston]

Does anyone find it hilarious that the man beloved by the whole world (Nobel Peace Prize!) is the one caught doing this instead of some Rethuglikkkan?

[Killazontherun]

He's the clown we need, just not the one we want.

[Jordan]

Almost as funny as the fact that it took a Rethuglikkkan filibuster to get a Nobel Peace Prize winner to give a straight answer on whether or not he believes in extrajudicial killing of Murican citizens.

[Bo Cara Esq.]

-U.S. Ambassador Charles Rivkin

That name sounded quite familiar to me, so I 'googled' it. I guess I thought it must be Alice Rivkin's husband or son, but it seems that is not the truth of the matter, but that the truth is interesting.

First, gaze upon our hereditary bureaucratic masters: 'He is one of four children of William R. Rivkin, the United States Ambassador to Luxembourg under President John F. Kennedy and United States Ambassador to Senegal and Gambia under President Lyndon B. Johnson'

And second, there is this odd factoid: 'Rivkin worked in the media sector for over 20 years, serving as president and CEO of award winning entertainment companies such as The Jim Henson Company, home of the world-renowned "Muppets". He also worked at Wildbrain where he won a BAFTA Award as Executive Producer of the hit TV series Yo Gabba Gabba'

Top men.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Rivkin

[playa manhattan]

Yo Gabba Gabba is the #1 cause of mental retardation in children today. Fact.

[Hyperion]

Opey Cunningham has a sad:

Wittle JayJay have bad day!

Karl then asked Carney about the main contractor that built the website, CGI, and why they were hired after being fired by a provinvial health agency of Ontario, Canada. Carney again refused to answer, referring him to Health and Human Services

Hmm, well at least we know that there is no way possible that cronyism is involved here in any way. This administration has never engaged in anything like that.

This is turning out to be quite entertaining. Time to stock up on popcorn and beer.

[Jordan]

CGI's CEO is of course a major Obama donor.

[Hyperion]

And when Obama said that he's bringing in the best and brightest, what he really meant was the next donor on the list seeking crony bucks.

These people believe that they can make anything better by just appointing their friends and campaign financers to any position, no matter how unqualified. There is only one eventual outcome to that kind of behavior and it is not pretty.

Imagine if you ran a tech company and instead of trying to find the most skilled employees, you just hired your friends and family, all of whom were totally unqualified to do any of the work.

[John]

This is why I don't worry about them actually setting up the police state they dream about. They are too incompetent.

[tarran]

I wonder if that's what doomed the Soviet Union.

At the beginning, under Lenin, it was really, really, ideological. Basically, anybody could be posted in any position, so long as you were accepted as a Bolshevik.

But with each passing year, the nomenklatura became less ideological and more a caste of friends and relatives giving each other jobs in the state.

Gorbachev couldn't have used terror to keep the proles in line like Stalin did; the state apparatus had regressed back to the mean of ordinary guys who want to go to work, go home and raise their families.

[John]

That is exactly what doomed the Soviet Union. When the Bolsheviks first came to power they banned money and trade and really tried to usher in the workers' paradise. That quickly fell apart and they had to print money and set up an economy. It quickly descended into a crony state. They were able to hide this fact by raising a generation of people who were taught to believe and murdering all of those who could remember how wrong it had gone. But even that failed after the show trials. No one believed in the system really after 1941. Everyone points to the famous secret Kruschev speech of 1956. But he was just saying what everyone already knew. The country should have risen up and killed Stalin after what he did in the Ukraine. But they didn't and thus went along out of terror and guilt. But no one, not even the inner circle believed in it anymore.

[Homple]

After reading a couple of Simon Sebag Montefiore's volumes on Stalin, I wonder why any one of fifty or so of Stalin's terrorized associates didn't off him. What possessed these people to just quake in fear until he had them tortured and killed?

[John]

I know the media is going to want to welcome Carney back to the fold after his years of brave service to the light giver. But he has been such a mendacious fuck for so long, I seriously can't imagine even the views of MSNBC or Pacifica being able to listen with a straight face to him give a news report after all of this.

[Winston]

Opey Cunningham has a sad

Curse you! I thought you were posting something from Ron Howard. I mean I bet he does have a sad over this too.

[Ted S.]

I thought so too. And I thought JayJay was a reference to Jay Cutler. 🙁

[Jerry on the boat]

So we finally get to know all the DSK mistresses?!

[CE]

France protested vigorously to Washington, then gave up.

[Winston]

Will they flee to Switzerland?

[Tim]

"Mr. President, according to NSA intercepts we believe that the French are into wine, cheese and adultery. Therefore ...."

[Francisco d Anconia]

You forgot cigarettes and surrendering.

[Auric Demonocles]

I hope Snowden's next release includes the alt-text.

[4tehsnowflakes]

Watched 4 of the 5 videos from the recent Cato conference on domestic surveillance (moderated by J. Sanchez) and it was time well spent both for the overview of the state of current public knowledge as well as the reminder that, as bad as the domestic surveillance situation seems, forces more powerful at least than individual fist-shakers are focused on trying to force change both through litigation and lobbying.

There was a Google lawyer there, but all he was really allowed to say was that they support their own first amendment right to tell customers things (because not telling would hurt their business), so his comments did not go far beyond the CDT agenda. Even so there was a suggestion, by his presence and even articulated a little bit, that Google has been less cooperative than some of its competitors.

[CatoTheElder]

Old news. Foreign Affairs article by former CIA chief Stansfield Turner from 1989:

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/.....orld-order

Bottom line: The function of the post-Cold-War intelligence services is industrial espionage.